news20090811bil

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]
August 11
Pervez Musharraf
Born this day in 1943, General Pervez Musharraf assumed power in Pakistan following a 1999 coup, formed a military government, and later struggled to deal with rising Islamist extremism within the country.

[On This Day] from [Britannica]
August 11
1956: Jackson Pollock killed in automobile accident
American painter Jackson Pollock, a leading exponent of Abstract Expressionism who received great fame and serious recognition for his radical poured, or “drip,” technique, died this day in 1956 in an automobile accident.

1994: The Major League Baseball Players Association began a labour strike following the games of August 11, and the dispute eventually led to the cancellation of the remainder of the season, including the World Series.

1984: At the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, Carl Lewis became the third track-and-field athlete to win four gold medals in one Olympics, joining fellow Americans Alvin Kraenzlein (1900) and Jesse Owens (1936).
1965: Race riots erupted in the Watts district of Los Angeles, resulting in the deaths of 34 people.

1924: The first newsreel of U.S. presidential candidates, which included footage of Calvin Coolidge, John W. Davis, and Robert La Follette, was filmed.

1921: Alex Haley, an African American writer best known for The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) and Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976), was born in Ithaca, New York.

1919: The Weimar constitution was formally declared, establishing Germany as a republic.


[Today's Word] from [Dr. Kazuo Iwata]
August 11
There is nobody who has never met with some good chance or other in his life.
Simply he has not seized one.
    Andrew Carnegie (died this day in 1919)

これまでその生涯に何らかの好機に出会わなかった人間なぞ一人もいはしない。
ただそれを捕えなかっただけの話である。


[日英混文稿]

news20090811jt1

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009
13 dead, 10 missing as typhoon unloads
Hyogo, Tokushima, Okayama lashed hard by torrential rains
Kyodo News

Typhoon Etau, packing winds of more than 100 kph, brought torrential rains, floods and landslides to three western prefectures, leaving 13 people dead and around 10 people missing, police said Monday.

Of the victims, 12 were residents of Hyogo, including Takeharu Hirooka, a 54-year-old municipal official in Sayo whose body was found in a submerged car early Monday.

In the mountain areas of the neighboring city of Siso, the swollen Sayo River swept away three bridges, temporarily trapping 800 residents. Units from the Self-Defense Forces were able to rescue them.

The weather forced Prime Minister Taro Aso to cancel a campaign swing through Hyogo and Tokushima prefectures to stump for candidates in the Aug. 30 Lower House election.

The prime minister's office crisis management center set up a liaison office to deal with the disaster. Hyogo Prefecture decided to offer subsidies to residents of Sayo to rebuild damaged homes.

Sayo registered a record 326.5 mm of rain in the 24 hours since midnight Saturday.

Eight people in the town, including Hirooka and Taeko Ishitsubo, 86, were confirmed dead. The town asked for SDF rescue operations and issued an evacuation recommendation for all residents.

Tsuyoshi Ida, 65, was confirmed dead in Asago, Hyogo Prefecture.

Some 390 houses in Sayo were flooded and 2,290 people evacuated to schools. The town hall was flooded, with the water level reaching 1.5 meters Sunday night, forcing officials to work on the second floor.

In Okayama Prefecture, two houses were destroyed by mudslides in Mimasaka near the border with Hyogo.

Three people were rescued from one of the houses, but Michiko Abe, 68, died, while her husband, Muneo, 70, suffered a leg injury and his 72-year-old brother was slightly injured.

Osamu Ueda, 74, who lives alone, was rescued from his house with minor back and shoulder injuries.

Of those who were missing, seven were from Sayo and one was from Toyooka, Hyogo Prefecture, while two elementary school students were missing in Tokushima Prefecture.

Okayama Gov. Masahiro Ishi also requested SDF rescue units.

Parts of the Chugoku Expressway, Harima Expressway, Takamatsu Expressway and Tokushima Expressway were closed due to mudslides and floods. About 4,600 households in Yoshinogawa and Naka in Tokushima Prefecture suffered blackouts, Shikoku Electric Power Co. said.

Metropolitan Tokyo traffic was also affected by the typhoon, which was forecast to skirt the eastern part of the country Tuesday.

Operations on the JR Ome, Utsunomiya and Joban lines were suspended Monday morning due to heavy rain.

In the afternoon, the typhoon moved north but kept south of Honshu.

It was expected to change course slightly to the east, brushing past the Kinki, Tokai and Kanto regions through Tuesday.

The Meteorological Agency did not expect the typhoon to make landfall on the mainland, although it warned of heavy rain, strong winds and high tides.

As of 6 p.m. Monday, the typhoon was about 210 km south of Wakayama Prefecture, heading north-northeast at about 20 kph.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009
Saitama lay judges hear attempted murder plea

SAITAMA (Kyodo) The second trial under the lay judge system kicked off Monday in the Saitama District Court with the defendant pleading guilty to attempted murder.

Shigeyuki Miyake, 35, a demolition worker, is accused of trying to kill a 35-year-old unemployed male acquaintance in Sayama, Saitama Prefecture, with a kitchen knife.

"There is no mistake" in the indictment, Miyake told the court.

His lawyers asked for a suspended sentence, saying Miyake turned himself in to investigators after the crime.

The victim, whose wounds took about a month to heal, appeared as a witness Monday, giving the lay judges the first chance under the new trial system to examine and hear from a crime victim.

"When I was stabbed, I was very scared and I thought. 'I'm going to die,' " he told the court.

While murder carries a sentence of at least five years and up to life imprisonment or capital punishment under the Criminal Code, the penalty for attempted murder can be reduced depending on such factors as the severity of the victim's wounds.

Unlike in Tokyo last week, when the lay judges in the first such trial kept quiet on the first day, four of the six lay judges Monday posed questions, including asking the victim details about as his scuffle with Miyake.

Miyake's lawyers asked for a suspended sentence, saying he turned himself in to investigators after the fight.

Legal analysts said that because the prosecutors aren't disputing that Miyake turned himself in, attention will be on whether the lay judges show leniency in the sentencing.

Before the trial got under way in the afternoon, the court selected six men as the lay judges and three men and one woman as alternates.

Forty-one candidates turned up out of the 44 summoned. The 44 were chosen from 90 initial candidates selected by lot after excluding people with acceptable reasons to decline serving.

The court, presided over by Judge Makoto Tamura, said it initially planned to have only two alternate lay judges but doubled the number due to the approaching typhoon.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009
Mitsubishi Chemical mulling tender offer for Rayon unit
Kyodo News

Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corp. is mulling acquiring Mitsubishi Rayon Co. through a tender offer worth up to \200 billion, sources said Monday.

Combined sales of the two firms, which have no capital ties, would be about \3.2 trillion, far larger than those of No. 2 chemical maker Sumitomo Chemical Co. at \1.79 trillion in fiscal 2008.

The tender offer, which would amount to obtaining all Mitsubishi Rayon shares, would be aimed at strengthening their businesses through areas of common potential growth, including carbon fiber, the sources said.

"It is true that we are making various examinations into M&As (mergers and acquisitions) according to the group midterm management plan, but we have nothing to disclose for the present," Mitsubishi Chemical said in a statement.

Mitsubishi Rayon said nothing has been decided.

The company has been suffering from sluggish earnings amid tough competition in the general petrochemical product market from rivals in China and the Middle East. To survive the tough environment, Mitsubishi Chemical has unveiled a plan for M&As worth \250 billion — with a focus on highly functional materials — for a three-year period through fiscal 2010.

Mitsubishi Rayon is engaged in carbon fiber for vehicles and is known for manufacturing various chemicals, including methyl methacrylate monomer, a type of acrylic resin that is an important constituent of various compound chemical products.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009
Flooding devastates Hyogo town of Sayo

KOBE (Kyodo) Floods and mudslides brought on by Typhoon Etau destroyed roads, houses and bridges in western Japan, with the town of Sayo, Hyogo Prefecture, hit particularly hard.

Eight people there were confirmed dead as of Monday evening.

A 55-year-old office worker said he saw three women washed away by waters Sunday night.

"I heard them scream and saw three women washed away. The current was so fast the three disappeared in seconds," he said.

Before the women were swept away, they were walking together while only a little rain was falling, the man said.

In the town's Hongo district, Satomi Kobayashi, 40, was evacuating from her home to a nearby elementary school with her three children when she was swept away in a flood of muddy water. The bodies of Kobayashi and her 16-year-old daughter, Ayano, were found nearby.

A nearby bridge was washed away and rice paddies in the area were submerged in mud.

Naomi Ikeda, 45, said her husband was missing.

She found his car stuck against a tree in the Sayo River.

Kazuma Ikeda, 54, left their home in the car at around 8 p.m. Sunday to take a flashlight to his mother's house, where the electricity had been knocked out.

"I shouldn't have let him go," Naomi Ikeda said.

She said that soon after her husband left home, the rain turned into a downpour and within five minutes the house was filled with water, coming up to her chest.

Forty minutes later, she called her husband to ask him to come home, but that was the last contact she had with him.

Also on Sunday night, a 35-year-old Sayo town employee said the town hall's parking lot was flooded.

Katsuo Kimura, a coworker, said officials could not even leave the building to help rescue people.

The town hall set up a disaster headquarters at 7 p.m. Sunday, and about 50 officials were trying to gather information on damage in the town. However, about two hours later, muddy water broke through the entrance and the first floor was flooded, forcing the officials to move to the second floor to continue working.

The water level reached 1.5 meters at one point, they said, adding that even after that, the phones kept ringing as residents called for help.

Meanwhile, about 100 residents evacuated to Sayo Elementary School.

"Our kids were scared all night long. I now realize the terror of a natural disaster," Keiko Yamashita, a 43-year-old housewife, said Monday morning.

news20090811jt2

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009
DPJ builds a slightly bigger lead over LDP, survey shows
Kyodo News

The Democratic Party of Japan has widened its lead over the Liberal Democratic Party in party support, continuing its solid advantage three weeks ahead of the election, according to the latest Kyodo News survey.

In the nationwide telephone poll conducted Saturday and Sunday, 34.1 percent of respondents said they will vote for the DPJ in the proportional representation portion of the Aug. 30 Lower House election, compared with 34.4 percent a week ago. Support for the LDP also dropped, falling to 13.3 percent from 16.7 percent.

Of the other respondents, 38 percent said they have not yet decided, up from 37.6 percent.

A similar trend in preference is evident for voting in single-seat districts, with 35.2 percent saying they will pick DPJ candidates, up from 33.9 percent, while 14.8 percent prefer LDP candidates, down from 16.9 percent.

Support ratings have stayed above 30 percent for the DPJ and hovered between 10 percent and 20 percent for the LDP since the July 21 dissolution of the Lower House.

Asked what type of administration they would prefer after the election, 40.9 percent said they favor a DPJ-led government, up from 39.7 percent, while 17.0 percent said they prefer a government led by the LDP, down from 18.2 percent.

Twelve percent prefer a grand coalition between the LDP and DPJ, down from 15 percent, while 18.8 percent said they hope to see a government formed under a new framework through a realignment of political parties, up from 15.4 percent.

The approval rating for the Taro Aso Cabinet fell to 17.7 percent from 19.9 percent, while the disapproval rating rose to 72.9 percent from 67.6 percent.

Asked who is most suited for the post of prime minister, 49.5 percent chose DPJ President Yukio Hatoyama, up from 46.6 percent, while 19.8 percent picked Aso, up slightly from 19.7 percent.

In voter support in the proportional representation section, New Komeito followed the DPJ and LDP in third place with 3.8 percent, ahead of 3.6 percent for the Japanese Communist Party, 1.4 percent for the Social Democratic Party and 0.7 percent for Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party).

Among respondents who said they do not usually support a particular political party, 37.9 percent said they would choose the DPJ, down from 40.6 percent, while 17.6 percent picked the LDP, up from 17.1 percent.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009
In evaluation of campaign platforms, DPJ edges LDP
Kyodo News

The Democratic Party of Japan's platform for the Lower House election has earned slightly higher marks than that of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in an evaluation by various groups.

But the DPJ was criticized for not showing how some of its big-budget proposals, including monthly child allowances, can be financed in a sustainable way, while the LDP received poor evaluations for compiling a platform that would be difficult to achieve during the four-year term of Lower House members.

The platform of each major party was rated by nine groups, including the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizai Doyukai), the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo), the National Governors' Association and think tanks, with the results released by a panel led by academics and business circles.

The DPJ's platform earned an average of 53 points out of a possible top score of 100, while that of the LDP received 47 on average. Scores for the DPJ ranged from 31 to 70, while those for the LDP spanned 35 to 61.

Keizai Doyukai, one of three key business lobbies, awarded a score of 45 to the platforms of both parties, saying both failed to pass its test.

While the DPJ has made the schedule on its policy implementation easy to understand, it appears to have merely listed policies that sound good to the public without addressing how to restore the nation's fiscal health and achieve economic growth, the business lobby said.

The group lauded the LDP for compiling policies that it says are "realistic and responsible" in such areas as economic growth, fiscal rehabilitation and national security, but said its platform falls short on how the party intends to implement or finance its policies.

Rengo initially gave a score of 66 to the DPJ's platform for its emphasis on consumers but rounded it up to 70 because the group supports the opposition camp, a representative said.

In giving a 45 to the LDP platform, the labor group said the ruling party lacks reflection on the role it has played in creating the current problems facing the country, even though the party is vowing in its platform to turn things around.

The National Governors' Association, which represents the nation's 47 governors, put the LDP slightly ahead of the DPJ 60.6 to 58.3 on evaluating their platforms.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009
JR worker late, halts trains

KYOTO (Kyodo) A West Japan Railway Co. employee in Kyoto Prefecture was arrested Monday for halting a train by pushing an emergency stop button at a crossing so he would have an excuse for being late for work.

Masahiro Matsumoto, 23, from Joyo, was quoted by the police as saying, "I thought I would have an excuse for being late if the train stopped."

Matsumoto was arrested on suspicion of forcible obstruction of business.

According to the police, Matsumoto, who commutes on the JR Nara Line from Joyo Station, pushed an emergency button at a crossing between that station and Shinden Station at around 7:30 a.m., causing trains to halt for five minutes.

A police officer was nearby at the time because the stop button had been activated six times since mid-July.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009
Media frenzy scared Sakai from giving up
Kyodo News

Noriko Sakai apparently hesitated to turn herself in after she was told by an acquaintance that police stations were swarming with reporters following the arrest of her husband on a drug charge and her relative's request that police start searching for her, investigators said Monday.

The actress was quoted by investigators as saying she "got into a panic and didn't know what to do" after hearing from the acquaintance, whom she had sent to take a look at the Tokyo police station where her husband, Yuichi Takaso, 41, was under arrest and the one that received the search request from her mother-in-law.

The investigators said the Metropolitan Police Department believes the 38-year-old Sakai, affectionately called Nori-P by her fans, hesitated to turn herself in because of her panic and did not really intend to evade the police.

Sakai, who was arrested Saturday night, was turned over to prosecutors Monday morning.

Shortly after the Aug. 3 arrest of her husband, she disappeared along with their 10-year-old son. The son was later found safe in Tokyo in the custody of an acquaintance, but her whereabouts had been unknown until she turned herself Saturday.

Since her arrest, she has admitted to taking stimulant drugs since last summer at the urging of her husband.

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009
Key Inagawa-kai mob boss arrested
Kyodo News

An underworld kingpin in the Inagawa-kai syndicate was arrested Monday on suspicion of obstructing authorities intent on seizing his property.

Kazuo Uchibori, 56, more commonly known as Kazuya Uchibori, is a heavyweight in the Tokyo-based gang — the third largest in Japan — and heads its Kawasaki-based affiliate Yamakawa-ikka.

He has risen to prominence in recent years thanks to his financial muscle and is regarded by police investigators as "substantially the Inagawa-kai boss."

Uchibori allegedly transferred ownership of land he owned in Kawasaki to his son in 2004 to prevent it from being auctioned off by the government-linked Resolution and Collection Corp. to recover some of the roughly \200 million in bank loans his wife took out and Uchibori guaranteed in 1999.

In terms of size, the Kobe-based Yamaguchi-gumi is the top underworld syndicate, followed by the Tokyo-based Sumiyoshi-kai and then the Inagawa-kai, which has about 4,800 members.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009
Tohoku to go from rain season to fall

SENDAI (Kyodo) The Tohoku region has entered a transitional phase into autumn without an official end to the rainy season being declared, local weather authorities said Monday.

This is the first time since 2003 the Sendai District Meteorological Observatory has failed to identify the end of the rainy season in the region. The agency has been making such announcements since 1951.

The observatory usually declares that the rainy season has ended in the entire region after concluding it is over in both the northern and southern parts of the Tohoku region.

news20090811jt3

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009
European calls mount for bluefin trade ban
By WILLIAM HOLLINGWORTH
Kyodo News

LONDON (Kyodo) France, Britain and Germany have set themselves on a collision course with Japan after they backed moves to ban international trade in northern bluefin tuna at a forthcoming environmental conference.

The three European nations have also joined the Netherlands in supporting a proposal by Monaco to get the species put on a special list that prohibits its export.

The EU states have decided to take a stand following growing concern about the decline in stocks of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean and Atlantic due to overfishing.

Much of the demand for northern bluefin tuna comes from Japan, where it is highly valued as sushi and sashimi. Around 90 percent of bluefin is exported to Japan, and Japanese firms also own a sizable part of the bluefin tuna farm industry in the Mediterranean.

Any attempt to block the export of bluefin is likely to be opposed by Tokyo when signatories to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) meet in Doha, Qatar, in March.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was first to back the Monaco plan last month, when he declared: "Ours is the last generation with the ability to take action before it's too late. We must protect marine resources now, in order to fish better in future. We owe this to fishermen, and we owe it to future generations."

Monaco's Prince Albert has been seeking support among nations through whose waters the species swims. He has been particularly vocal on the matter, and all the principality's restaurants have decided to drop bluefin from their menus.

He hopes to gather sufficient support to submit his proposal by the deadline of Oct. 17 that northern bluefin tuna be put in appendix one of the convention.

This means the northern bluefin would be treated as "threatened with extinction" and trade would only be allowed in "exceptional circumstances."

Environmentalists have long claimed the species is on the brink of extinction due to overfishing and illegal catches. This is despite quotas being set up by regional bodies as well as enforcement measures.

But these have been branded "ineffective" by many critics.

Experts believe a pause in the international trade would allow bluefin stocks to recover because much of the demand from Japan would disappear.

But any ban is likely to be fiercely opposed by the French and Italian fishermen who have made a good living from the trade.

Following France's lead, British Fisheries Minister Huw Irranca-Davies issued the following statement: "The U.K. supports calls from Monaco and France to list bluefin tuna on CITES. This follows growing public concern about the perilous state of bluefin stocks.

"We encourage other member states to support this proposal and we will be working through the EU to build support for CITES listing. Action at an EU level to encourage more responsible fishing is essential to improve the state of bluefin tuna stocks."

To succeed, the proposal would need the support of two-thirds of the signatory countries at the Doha meeting.

The convention does not have any legal force and adherence to its rulings is voluntary. But environmentalists hope Japan will fall into line with the majority view if the ban is approved.

Asked about Japan's probable reaction to the Monaco plans, Irranca-Davies told the Independent newspaper: "I don't think we need to get into a fight over this. There will be people for whom this bluefin tuna is important either as a consumer nation or as a fishing nation, but what we cannot get away from is the stark evidence that is staring us in the face."

German Minister for the Environment Sigmar Gabriel said recently: "Only a trade ban will save this particularly at-risk species from extinction. Bluefin tuna therefore needs to be listed on the CITES convention — indeed, this is a long overdue step."

This is not the first time European states have tried to take action on the northern bluefin through CITES. In the early 1990s, Sweden unsuccessfully tried to get the fish listed in appendix two — where international trade would be monitored and regulated rather than banned — but this failed due to a lack of support.

At that time, signatories decided to put their faith in regional bodies to regulate the stocks of bluefin.

Gemma Parkes, communications officer for the World Wildlife Fund for Nature, said she thinks it is "likely" the ban will come into force, adding the proposal is "building a consensus."

"Even if Japan doesn't support the ban and it was approved, it won't be able to buy tuna," she said.

Environmental journalist Charles Clover, who has recently produced a film on the plight of the northern bluefin, is less optimistic about prospects for the Monaco proposal.

In a recent article for the Sunday Times, he wrote: "It is far too early to predict the outcome. A ban . . . is likely to be opposed by Japan as well as by the other big culprits in overfishing. All sorts of dirty tricks may be expected."

Clover's film has received much praise and prompted celebrities to campaign against the famous Nobu restaurants in Britain that still serve bluefin tuna, despite informing customers that it is endangered and giving them the option to choose a more sustainable species.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009
Toshiba to join Blu-ray camp, plans products
The Associated Press

Having lost the video format war, Toshiba Corp. said Monday it will make Blu-ray disc products and plans to join the once-rival camp, the Blu-ray Disc Association.

The electronics maker had backed another high-definition video format, HD-DVD, but seceded defeat last year, saying it will give up making or developing HD-DVD products.

There had been some speculation Toshiba may skip making Blu-ray products and instead try to develop an even more sophisticated video technology.

But Toshiba said it is planning to introduce Blu-ray products such as players and personal computers. Details were to be announced later.

"In light of recent growth in digital devices supporting the Blu-ray format, combined with market demand from consumers and retailers alike, Toshiba has decided to join the BDA," it said, referring to the Blu-ray association.

The Blu-ray alliance, backed by rivals Sony Corp., Panasonic Corp. and others, had been more successful in wooing Hollywood studios.

Some kind of decision from Toshiba had been expected ahead of the key yearend shopping season. The move is reminiscent of Sony's strategy after its Betamax videotape standard lost to Panasonic's VHS in the 1980s. Sony ended up making VHS products.

The Blu-ray market could be too lucrative for Toshiba to pass up. The electronics maker racked up its biggest loss ever, \344 billion in its last fiscal year, which ended in March.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009
No surprises expected as BOJ Policy Board remains cautious
Kyodo News

The Bank of Japan began a two-day Policy Board meeting Monday, with its members expected to retain the BOJ's cautious view on the economy and hold its key interest rate unchanged at 0.1 percent.

After deciding in a July policy meeting to extend its emergency measures to support corporate financing for three more months, the main focus of this meeting will be how the central bank regards the prospects of the economy and prices.

Although the April-June gross domestic product is widely expected to grow for the first time in five quarters on recoveries in exports and production, the BOJ remains cautious over the outlook for the export-oriented economy as the prospects of the European and U.S. economies remain uncertain, sources said.

Deteriorating job and income conditions are also a source of concern as they could throw cold water on consumption, which has just started to show signs of improvement on the back of the government's economic pump-priming measures, they added.

The BOJ is likely to confirm its basic assessment that domestic economic conditions have stopped worsening, the sources said.

The bank may also stick to its expectation that the economy will start recovering in the latter half of fiscal 2009 but is likely to say the outlook is highly uncertain, they added.

At the last policy meeting July 14 and 15, the BOJ decided to extend its temporary programs of buying corporate debt from banks and providing them with unlimited loans until Dec. 31.

news20090811lat1

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

[World News]
Iraq attacks raise fears of renewed ethnic tensions
With 112 people killed in attacks in the last few days in Mosul and Baghdad, fears are mounting again that insurgents are trying to kindle ethnic tensions, especially among Arabs and Kurds.
By Liz Sly
August 11, 2009

Reporting from Baghdad -- A string of bombings in northern Iraq and Baghdad that has killed at least 112 people in the last several days, including 60 on Monday, has raised fears that insurgent groups are embarking on a sustained attempt to kindle ethnic and sectarian warfare.

The toll since Friday represents the worst surge of violence since U.S. troops handed over security in urban areas to Iraqi security forces on June 30.

The attacks serve as a reminder that although the U.S. military says it is on track to complete the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq by next August, the potential for fresh conflict between Arabs and Kurds in the north, and Sunnis and Shiites elsewhere, remains very real.

The violence in and around the northern city of Mosul is the biggest concern. Mosul is a stronghold for the militant group Al Qaeda in Iraq and insurgents loyal to the former Baath Party, both of which U.S. commanders accuse of stoking ethnic and sectarian tensions to provoke a civil war in what remains the most volatile part of the country.

Gen. Ray T. Odierno, commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, recently identified Arab-Kurdish tensions as "the No. 1 driver of instability" in the country.

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki told a gathering of Iraqi army commanders in Baghdad on Monday that insurgents were attempting to undermine confidence in the ability of Iraq's security forces, and warned that more violence could be expected ahead of national elections due in January.

"They are trying through any means to give the impression that the political process is not stable," he said. "Yet through your efforts and determination . . . they won't find any safe haven from which to plan and execute their operations."

The bloodiest attack Monday came before dawn about 13 miles east of Mosul in a village that is home to members of Iraq's tiny Shabak religious minority. Two massive truck bombs detonated on either end of the main street in Khazna about 4:30 a.m., killing at least 35 people, wounding 180 and leveling more than 30 houses.

Many people had been sleeping in the open on their roofs because of the intense summer heat, and at the Jamhouriya hospital in Mosul, survivors described how their homes collapsed beneath them as they were startled awake by the massive explosions.

"There were 12 people living in my sister's house and not one is left alive," cried Mahasin Haider, 45. "They uncovered some of the bodies and the rest are still buried in the rubble."

Khazna lies in an area controlled by the Kurdish peshmerga militia and, like a similar attack Friday against a minority Shiite Turkmen mosque north of Mosul, this one seemed aimed at intensifying conflict between Kurds and Arabs over the land.

"Our initial assessment is that one or more insurgent groups are behind the attack," said Maj. Derrick Cheng, a spokesman for U.S. forces in northern Iraq. "These groups are attempting to exploit or create ethnic and sectarian fault lines."

At stake is a swath of territory in the northern province of Nineveh that is claimed by Kurds and Arabs and under Kurdish control. Kurds want a referendum to be held among the mostly Kurdish population to cement claims that the land should remain with the semiautonomous Kurdistan region.

But many Arabs oppose Kurdish claims, and since the victory of the hard-line Arab nationalist Hadba Party in January's provincial elections, the Nineveh government has been pushing for the Iraqi army to be deployed in the Kurdish-controlled areas, putting it at odds with Kurdish leaders.

"It's the political disputes between the Hadba bloc and the Kurdish bloc that encourage the terrorists to carry out such operations in the province of Nineveh," Shabak lawmaker Hunain Qaddo told Iraqi state television.

After an emergency closed-door meeting, the Hadba- controlled provincial council issued a statement calling on the Iraqi army and police to be immediately deployed in Kurdish-controlled areas in place of the peshmerga in order "to control all the soil of the province."

Kurds have long boasted that the areas under their control are calmer than any other part of Iraq, and Khasro Goran, a prominent Kurdish official in Mosul, rejected the call for Iraqi troops. "Some people, whether Al Qaeda or loyalist former Baathists, are trying to create a civil war in this province," he said.

Caught in the middle are the region's ethnic and religious minorities, including Christians, Yazidis, Turkmens and Shabaks. Many minorities chafe under Kurdish rule, but they lack political clout.

The target of Monday's attack, Shabaks, are a small ethnic and religious group that has its own language and is neither Sunni nor Shiite, though a majority identify more closely with Shiites than Sunnis and have aligned themselves with Maliki's government.

They have another holy book in addition to the Koran, and they permit alcohol and emphasize confession, in common with Christianity.

Maliki has also previously called for Iraqi troops to be deployed across the nation, putting him at odds with the Kurdish leadership.

But he has recently reached out to the Kurds with a visit Aug. 2 to Kurdish President Massoud Barzani, and the recent attacks on Shiite minorities may be an attempt to thwart their fledgling rapprochement, Goran said. "They're trying to create problems between the Kurdish regional government and the central government," he said.

Meanwhile, in Baghdad, 11 bombings, mostly against Shiite targets, killed 25 people and injured dozens more in a surge of violence in the capital that seemed aimed at stoking Sunni-Shiite tensions.

In the worst of those attacks, at 6:30 a.m., two car bombs exploded minutes apart at two locations where day laborers gather to wait for work. The bombs killed 19 laborers and wounded 83 in Shurta and Amel, two Shiite neighborhoods of mostly Sunni west Baghdad from which Sunnis had been purged during the 2005-07 sectarian fighting. Nine other smaller bombings scattered around the city killed six people and wounded 40.

U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill and Odierno, the U.S. commander, issued a joint statement condemning the attacks, calling them "criminal acts of terrorism."

"Their sole intent," the statement read, "is to incite division within Iraqi society."

news20090811lat2

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

[World News]
Typhoon buries Taiwan village in mud
Hundreds are believed missing. The storm also topples a building and sweeps away hikers in China.
By Barbara Demick
August 11, 2009

Reporting from Beijing -- Mudslides triggered by the punishing rains of a late summer typhoon buried people sleeping in their homes in a remote Taiwanese village and toppled buildings in Taiwan and the Chinese mainland, raising fears that hundreds may have perished.

The confirmed death toll from Typhoon Morakot stood at more than 50 early today, including 22 killed in the Philippines, but the numbers are likely to rise significantly as bodies are dug out of the mud.

In Wenzhou, an eastern Chinese city, a four-story apartment building collapsed Monday night.

With Taiwan experiencing the heaviest rainfall in 50 years, mud poured down the mountains northeast of the southern city of Kaohsiung. One tiny village, Shiao Lin, was almost entombed as mud rose high enough to cover rooftops.

"For those who are not rescued by now, there is no hope," said the duty officer at Taiwan's national disaster relief center Monday night. The man, who gave his name as Zheng, said that the victims were likely to be elderly people and children because many of the able-bodied adults live and work outside the village.

Some mudslides took place in the predawn hours Monday, catching sleeping villagers unaware.

In Cishan, police officer Wang Cao-hong said the battered bodies of two women had been found in a torrent of mud, along with a severed foot.

"We think the bodies came from upstream because their clothing was torn off by rocks and debris," Wang said.

So far 50 people have been rescued from the village and 150 more accounted for, but hundreds are believed to be missing. Rescue efforts were hampered by the washed-out roads and the unstable ground, which made it impossible to land helicopters near the village.

Typhoons are a seasonal hazard in the region and Morakot -- meaning "Emerald" in Thai -- was not the most powerful of the year. But it lasted for days, bringing an unusual amount of rainfall that saturated the soil. The Taiwanese weather service said that in some counties, up to 80 inches were recorded in a 48-hour period.

In a memorable image of the typhoon, Taiwanese television videotaped a six-story hotel toppling over into a raging river with a tremendous splash. The Chin Shuai Hotel, in Taitung county, had been evacuated earlier.

In Wenzhou, where the apartment building collapsed at 10:30 p.m. Monday, a fire official said that most residents had fled earlier, so it was hoped there would not be a large death toll. Residents nearby told Chinese television that they'd heard rumbling and that the building crashed within seconds. As of midday today, six people had been pulled out alive, one in critical condition.

The heavy rains caused flooding along a wide swath of southeastern China, forcing 1.4 million people to leave their homes. The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs on Monday estimated direct damage at $1.3 billion.

In Zhejiang province, a group of eight hikers who wanted to see the floodwaters was swept away. One of the hikers was killed.

With roads and bridges washed out and cars underwater, residents were traveling in boats, and, in places where the water was shallow enough, in the traditional three-wheel pedicabs.

Weather forecasts said Morakot would continue tracking north through eastern China, but lose strength and turn into a tropical depression with winds of less than 39 mph. The system was expected to bring downpours north of Shanghai.

news20090811nyt1

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

[Americas]
War Without Borders
Mexico’s Drug Traffickers Continue Trade in Prison
By MARC LACEY
Published: August 10, 2009

MEXICO CITY — The surveillance cameras captured it all: guards looking on nonchalantly as 53 inmates — many of them associated with one of Mexico’s most notorious drug cartels — let themselves out of their cells and sped off in waiting vehicles.

The video shows that prison guards only pulled out their weapons after the inmates were well on their way. The brazen escape in May in the northern state of Zacatecas — carried out in minutes without a single shot fired — is just one of many glaring examples of how Mexico’s crowded and cruel prison system represents a critical weak link in the drug war.

Mexico’s prisons, as described by inmates and insiders and viewed during several visits, are places where drug traffickers find a new base of operations for their criminal empires, recruit underlings, and bribe their way out for the right price. The system is so flawed, in fact, that the Mexican government is extraditing record numbers of drug traffickers to the United States, where they find it much harder to intimidate witnesses, run their drug operations or escape.

The latest jailbreak took place this weekend, when a suspected drug trafficker vanished from a Sinaloa prison during a party for inmates featuring a Mexican country music band. The Mexican government is considering isolating drug offenders from regular inmates to reduce opportunities for abuse.

The United States government, as part of its counternarcotics assistance program, is committing $4 million this year to help fix Mexico’s broken prisons, officials said. Experts from state prisons in the United States have begun tutorials for Mexican guards to make sure that there are clear ethical guidelines and professional practices that distinguish them from the men and women they guard. “There’s no point in rounding all these characters up if they are going to get out on their own,” said an American official involved in the training, who was not authorized to speak on the record.

Although Mexican prisons call themselves Centers for Social Rehabilitation, “Universities of crime would be a better name,” said Pedro Héctor Arellano, who runs the prison outreach program in Mexico for the Episcopal Church.

Mexico’s prisons are bursting at the seams, with space for 172,151 inmates nationwide but an additional 50,000 crammed in. More arrive by the day as part of the government’s drug war, which has sent tens of thousands to prison since President Felipe Calderón took office nearly three years ago.

Inside the high concrete walls ringed by barbed wire, past the heavily armed men in black uniforms with stern expressions, inmates rule the roost. Some well-heeled prisoners pay to have keys to their cells. When life inside, with its pizza deliveries, prostitutes and binges on drugs and alcohol, becomes too confining, prisoners sometimes pay off the guards for a furlough or an outright jailbreak.

“Our prisons are businesses more than anything else,” said Pedro Arellano Aguilar, an expert on prisons. He has visited scores of them in Mexico and has come away with a dire view of what takes place inside. “Everything is for sale and everything can be bought.”

Guards Work for Inmates

For drug lords, flush with money, life on the inside is often a continuation of the free-spirited existence they led outside. Inmates look up to them. Guards often become their employees.

For more than a decade, Enrique, a strapping man with a faraway look in his eyes, worked in one of the roughest prisons in Mexico, imposing his will. He assigned prisoners to cell blocks based on the size of the bribes they made. He punished those who stepped out of line.

“I was the boss,” he declared. Not exactly. Enrique, whose story was corroborated by a prisoner advocates’ group, was actually an inmate, serving time inside Reclusorio Preventivo Oriente prison in Mexico City for trafficking cocaine. “It shouldn’t work the way it does,” said Enrique, now released, who asked that his full name not be published so he can resume life after his 12-year sentence.

Miguel Caro Quintero, a major drug trafficker wanted in Arizona and Colorado on charges of supplying multi-ton shipments of marijuana and cocaine to the United States, was jailed for 10 years in Mexico. Federal prosecutors accused him, like many drug lords, of continuing illegal activities from behind bars, using smuggled cellphones to maintain contact with his underlings on the outside and recruiting prisoners who were nearing the end of their sentences.

When his sentence in Mexico was up, he was sent off to the United States to face charges there, becoming one of more than 50 Mexicans, most of them drug offenders, extradited this year.

“When we keep a criminal in a Mexican prison, we run the risk that one way or another they are going to keep in contact with their criminal network,” Leopoldo Velarde, who heads extraditions for the federal attorney general’s office, said. “The idea is to stop criminals, not just jail them.”

Life in Reclusorio Preventivo Oriente prison’s Dormitory No. 9, where many top drug traffickers are held, shows the clout that influential inmates enjoy. The prisoners are a privileged lot, wearing designer clothing and enjoying special privileges ranging from frequent visits by girlfriends to big-screen televisions in their spacious cells, federal prosecutors told local newspapers after one of the inmates recently bought his way out.

Traffickers continue to run their operations through their lieutenants inside the prison as well as outside, using supposedly banned cellphones.

The government says it is moving aggressively to ship off dangerous criminals who are wanted in the United States and are likely to restart their criminal enterprises from jail. Once the legal requirements are met by both governments, the handcuffed suspects are flown by American government agencies to face trial in the United States. Usually the country that requests extradition pays expenses, but American officials said that who pays depends on individual cases.

Since Mr. Calderón came to office in December 2006, his government has surprised the United States by extraditing more than 200 criminal suspects, more than double the rate of predecessors. Based on the legal battles they begin to avoid extradition, it is clear that inmates fear going to the United States. Their support network, prison officials in both countries say, is considerably weaker there.

For years, the Justice Department lobbied Mexico to allow more criminal suspects to face trial in the United States. But until 2005, Mexican court rulings limited extradition to those cases in which neither the death penalty nor life in prison was sought, and Mexican pride about sovereignty made Mexican officials drag their feet. That changed with Mr. Calderón’s resolve to embark on a tougher drug war.

American officials say they are thrilled with the Mexicans’ more aggressive extradition policy. “The best way to disrupt and dismantle a criminal organization is to lock up its leaders and seize their money — so we will work with our Mexican counterparts to locate and extradite, when appropriate, cartel leadership to the United States for prosecution,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in July.

A Wave of Escapes

The jailbreak in May at the Cieneguillas prison in Zacatecas was just one of several escapes that showed how porous Mexican jails are. The Zetas, a paramilitary group known for its ruthlessness in protecting its drug turf, planned the escape, and have organized jailbreaks in at least four states, Mexican law enforcement officials said. Zacatecas prison has had at least three escapes in recent years.

The situation there is so bad, according to a local lawyer, Uriel Márquez Valerio, that inmates managed to invite a musical group into the prison in 2005 to celebrate the birthday of a drug trafficker, who several weeks later found a way to escape.

In recent weeks, the authorities have managed to catch three of the 53 escapees from May and have thrown 51 prison officials, including the director, into jail while the investigation into collusion in the escape continues. The prime piece of evidence against the prison employees was the surveillance system they were supposed to use to monitor inmates. The video, leaked by law enforcement officials and now available on YouTube, recorded the jailbreak in detail.

It was clearly an inside job, one that prompted Interpol to issue an international alert for 11 of the escapees, who were deemed “a risk to the safety and security of citizens around the world.”

One of the escapees, Osvaldo García Delgado, a 27-year-old trafficker with the nickname Vampire, said after he had been re-arrested that the Zetas planned the breakout. Carefully plotted for weeks, the operation was designed to release some top Zeta commanders. Scores of lower-level Zetas were taken along as well.

The Vampire told police interrogators that the prisoners were awakened early one morning and told to dress in their best clothes. He expressed surprise that the guards were doing no guarding that day but instead had become instrumental players in the escape plan.

CONTINUED ON newsnyt2

news20090811nyt2

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

[Americas]
War Without Borders
Mexico’s Drug Traffickers Continue Trade in Prison
By MARC LACEY
Published: August 10, 2009

CONTINUED FROM newsnyt1

The men carrying out the escape were dressed in federal police uniforms and drove what appeared to be police vehicles, with lights, sirens and official-looking decals affixed to the sides. There was a helicopter flying overhead as well, giving the operation the air of legitimacy. Since drug cartels frequently recruit law enforcement officials as allies, it is never clear in Mexico whether they will in fact enforce the law — or whether they are impostors.

In this case, the authorities later disclosed that the uniforms worn by the gunmen who carried out the escape were either outright fakes or outdated outfits. The vehicles, which screeched away from the scene with sirens blaring, were not actual police-issue either, the authorities said. All that said, investigators have not ruled out the possibility that corrupt law enforcement officials helped carry out the operation.

After the latest escape, federal authorities have begun interviewing prison workers to determine how Orso Iván Gastélum Cruz, who was arrested by the army in 2005, disappeared Sunday from jail in Sinaloa, where one of Mexico’s major drug cartels is based.

Last July, Luis Gonzaga Castro Flores, a trafficker working for the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, bought his way out of Reclusorio Preventivo Oriente prison, where he was described by the local media as the godfather of Dormitory No. 9, the area where many drug prisoners are kept.

Other detainees escape before ever getting to prison or while being transferred to court, often with the aid of their cartel colleagues as well as complicit guards. In March, an armed group opened fire on a police convoy outside Mexico City, freeing five drug traffickers who were being taken to prison.

The government acknowledges it does not have full control of its prisons, but it attributes part of the problem to its aggressive roundup of drug traffickers. Escapes are on the rise, a top federal law enforcement official, Luis Cárdenas Palomino, told reporters recently, because the government was locking up so many leading operatives that it was getting harder for the cartels to function.

A Space Crunch

Mexico’s prison system is a mishmash of federal, state and local facilities of varying quality. The most dangerous prisoners are supposed to be housed in maximum security federal facilities, but there is nowhere near enough space. So the federal government pays the states to take in drug traffickers and other federal prisoners in their far less secure lockups.

From August through December 2008, in the most recent statistics available, state prisons across Mexico reported 36 violent episodes with 80 deaths, 162 injuries and 27 escapes, the government said. There was no breakdown in those statistics of how much of the violence was linked to traffickers, but experts said prisoners involved in the drug trade tend to be the most fierce and trouble-prone of all.

“These are clear signals that the penal system, as it is currently organized, is not meeting its primary obligation of guarding inmates efficiently and safely while they serve their sentences,” the federal government’s recently released strategic plan on prisons said of the string of assaults and escapes.

To relieve the congestion and better control the inmates, the government is planning a prison-building spree that will add tens of thousands of new beds in the coming years. One goal, officials say, is to keep drug lords separate from petty criminals as well as the many people who have been imprisoned but never convicted, thus reducing their ability to recruit new employees.

The government is also focusing on personnel, boosting guards’ pay, putting them through a newly created training academy and screening them for corruption. Mexico recently sent several dozen of its guards to beef up their skills at the training academy used by the New Mexico Department of Corrections.

All of the trainees, even guards with 15 years’ experience, had to start with the basics, shining their boots, cleaning out dormitory toilets and listening to lectures on how conniving inmates can be in trying to win over weak-willed guards.

Some of those Mexican guards who are now active participants in Mexico’s deeply flawed penal system say they welcome the moves toward professionalism.

One prison guard acknowledged, “We have guns, but we know it is them, not us, who really control things.”

news20090811wp

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

[North America]
Obama Vows to Focus on Borders
But Immigration Action Won't Come Until 2010
By Cheryl W. Thompson and William Booth
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 11, 2009

GUADALAJARA, Mexico, Aug. 10 -- President Obama, attending a North American summit with the leaders of Mexico and Canada, said Monday that his administration will pursue a comprehensive overhaul of the U.S. immigration system this year but that no action on legislation will happen before 2010.

Wrapping up the two-day meeting, Obama said that there needs to be "a pathway to citizenship" for millions of illegal immigrants in the United States, and that the system must be reworked to avoid tensions with Mexico. Without it, he said, Mexicans will keep crossing the border in dangerous ways and employers will continue exploiting workers.

"We can create a system in which you have . . . an orderly process for people to come in, but we're also giving an opportunity for those who are already in the United States to be able to achieve a pathway to citizenship so that they don't have to live in the shadows," Obama said during an hour-long news conference at the Cabañas Cultural Center in downtown Guadalajara. "Am I going to be able to snap my fingers and get this done? No. This is going to be difficult."

The president said he expects draft legislation and sponsors by the end of the year, but no action until 2010 because of more pressing issues, including health-care reform, energy legislation and financial regulatory changes.

"That's a pretty big stack of bills," he said.

Immigration is among the most controversial items on Obama's legislative agenda, with critics opposing what they call an amnesty for illegal workers and businesses concerned about reductions in their labor force. President George W. Bush twice attempted immigration reform during his second term, without success.

Asked about the prospects for immigration legislation in view of the blows to his administration over health care and midterm elections next year, Obama dismissed the idea that the elections would play a role, saying he would not act "on short-term political calculations."

Flanked by Mexican President Felipe Calderón and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Obama also pledged to work with Mexico and Canada on controlling emissions that contribute to global warming and on ensuring that Mexico receives aid for its battle with drug traffickers.

"We have already seen resources transferred, equipment transferred . . . to help President Calderón in what is a very courageous effort to deal with a set of drug cartels that are not only resulting in extraordinary violence to the people of Mexico, but are also undermining institutions like the police and the judiciary system," he said, attempting to deflect criticism from Mexican officials who have complained that U.S. aid is not coming quickly enough.

Although Obama expressed confidence in the Mexican government's attempt to fight drug cartels with "law enforcement techniques," he reiterated the importance of doing so without violating human rights.

Calderón's government has been criticized by human rights organizations. More than 45,000 troops have been deployed to fight the cartels, and soldiers have been accused of killing, torture, rape and illegal detention. Since Calderón began fighting the cartels after taking office in December 2006, human rights complaints against the military have soared 600 percent, rising to 140 a month this year, according to government statistics.

The Mexican government has begun to hire the first of 9,000 federal police officers who are college-educated and will be trained by U.S., Canadian and other law enforcement agencies, White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske said.

"I am confident that as the national police are trained, as the coordination between the military and local police officials is improved, there is going to be increased transparency and accountability, and that human rights will be observed," Obama said.

Calderón said his government is dedicated to guarding human rights.

"Obviously we have a strong commitment to protect the human rights of everybody -- the victims and even of the criminals themselves," he said. "And anyone who says the contrary certainly would have to prove this -- any case, just one case, where the proper authority has not acted in the correct way."

Calderón asserted that any soldiers or police officers who abused their power have been punished. According to Center Prodh, a human rights group in Mexico, fewer than 1 in 10 of the human rights cases tried in military court result in a conviction.

Calderón said his strategy, which includes the mass deployment of soldiers, is working. "We know that we are destroying their criminal organizations," he said. "We're hitting them hard. We're hitting at the heart of the organizations."

Obama, Calderón and Harper also showed support for Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted as Honduran president in a coup in June. The men agreed that Zelaya should be returned to power. During a visit to Mexico City last week, Zelaya complained that the Obama administration has offered only a tepid response to the coup leaders. Obama has been repeatedly criticized by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez for not pressing harder for Zelaya's return.

"The same critics who say that the United States has not intervened enough in Honduras are the same people who say that we're always intervening, and the Yankees need to get out of Latin America," Obama said. "You can't have it both ways."

Harper agreed.

"If I were an American, I would be really fed up with this kind of hypocrisy," he said. "You know, the United States is accused of meddling except when it's accused of not meddling."

news20090811wsj

[Today's Paper] from [The Wall Street Journal]

[Middle East News]
MIDDLE EAST NEWS
AUGUST 11, 2009
Series of Bombings in Iraq Targets Shiites
At Least 45 Are Killed; Officials Warn Attacks Are Aimed at Restarting a Wave of Sectarian Violence
By CHARLES LEVINSON

BAGHDAD -- Two dump trucks packed with 6,600 pounds of high-grade explosives flattened a large swath of a Shiite village in northern Iraq on Monday, while a string of smaller bombs rocked Baghdad.

The attacks, which left at least 45 people dead across the country, are part of a wave of violence aimed at rekindling the sectarian bloodshed that swept Iraq in 2006 and 2007, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.

Though violence in Iraq remains at postwar lows, insurgent groups are still able to launch deadly attacks in many areas. Monday's attacks followed coordinated attacks on Shiite worshippers on two consecutive Fridays.

After Monday's attacks, Iraqi and U.S. officials reiterated praise for Iraq's Shiites, who have shown restraint in the face of the attacks -- unlike in earlier stages of the war, when sectarian attacks by Sunni insurgents triggered widespread, violent reprisals by Shiite militias and plunged the country into near-civil war for two years.

"These attacks have failed to move the Iraqi people to ethno-sectarian violence," a spokesman for the U.S. military in Baghdad said. "Instead, the Iraqi people have been galvanized against violence. They remember the dark days of 2006-2007 and refuse to be taken back to that time."

Monday's twin bombings in the village of Khazna, north of Mosul in Nineveh province, were particularly gruesome. Two dump trucks, each carrying 3,300 pounds of military-grade explosives, struck at 4:30 a.m. in a village that is home to Shiite Kurds belonging to the Shabak minority, according to Iraqi police spokesman Abdul Karim Khalaf.

The blasts flattened nearly 40 homes, Mr. Khalaf said, killing at least 28 people and burying dozens beneath the rubble.

A series of at least eight smaller bomb attacks, including roadside bombs and one car bomb, struck the capital, Baghdad, on Monday, killing 17 people, according to police officials.

Most struck in Shiite-majority districts, but three roadside bombs exploded in the predominantly Sunni district of Adhammiya, the officials said.

The explosives used in the Khazna attack were hard-to-find military-grade explosives, according to Mr. Khalaf. "The use of these rare explosives suggests some very powerful and organized entity is behind these attacks," he said. He declined to speculate what that entity might be, but said the attacks had "al Qaeda in Iraq's fingerprints all over them."

Khazna is south of the border of the Kurdish Autonomous Region, within a disputed belt of land claimed by the federal government in Baghdad. It is largely controlled by Kurdish Peshmerga forces. Tensions along the disputed border have heated up in recent months, which has helped keep the insurgency alive.

"We are plagued by al Qaeda trying to stir sectarian hatred on the one hand, and political violence between Kurds and Arabs on the other," said Abdel Raheem Shimmeri, a member of the Nineveh provincial council. "We can't solve the first problem until we solve the second."


[Asia News]
ASIA NEWS
AUGUST 11, 2009, 10:24 A.M. ET
Taiwan Mudslide Kills 41 as Typhoon Batters Asia
By TING-I TSAI

TAIPEI -- Rescue workers battled to reach a remote mountain village where 100 people or more are feared to be buried beneath mud and rubble following a devastating typhoon that already has killed 80 people in Taiwan, the Philippines and the Chinese mainland.

Taiwan's National Fire Agency said about 100 people may have buried by a landslide in the area of the southern Taiwanese town of Jiahsian, particularly in the village of Shiao Lin. Rescue efforts were hampered by storm damage that cut off access to the region.

Wang Chen-shu, principal of Shiao Lin Elementary School, the only school in the village, said 60 out of the school's some 70 students are still missing.

"We are still hoping to see some survivors, but it is difficult to be optimistic," Mr. Wang said.

Dozens of Taiwanese soldiers arrived in the area Tuesday to intensify the search. Helicopters conducted 113 missions to the devastated area and ferried 394 survivors over the past two days, said officials in Kaohsiung county, where Shiao Lin is based. By late Tuesday afternoon, 150 villagers were found to be alive and still waiting to be rescued, the government's rescue team said.

Initial estimates by officials quoted in media reports had suggested as many as 600 people were buried. The fire agency wouldn't confirm the higher figures but also didn't disclose further details about its own tally.

The roughly 100 people feared buried are in addition to 50 people dead and 58 listed by Taiwanese officials as missing as a result of the weekend's devastation.

Typhoon Morakot has killed at least 80 people so far in a five-day sweep through the South China Sea, making it one of Asia's most devastating storms so far this year. Officials in the Philippines, where the typhoon struck Friday, said it killed at least 22 people.

In China, where the storms approach prompted the evacuation of 1.6 million people, eight people were killed, according to the state-controlled Xinhua News Agency. Two died after a landslide destroyed a residential building in Zhejiang province, it said.

Morakot dumped roughly six and a half feet of water on Taiwan over the weekend, according to the Associated Press. Some 200 houses of Shiao Lin were buried by the mudslide, survivors said. The local government population registry lists Shiao Lin as having 1,313 inhabitants, though locals suggested many live elsewhere.

The deluge washed away roads and bridges leading to Shiao Lin, while the unstable ground makes it difficult for rescue helicopters to land in the area. A back road wending the way toward Ali Mountain was also believed to be cut off, and prospects for an early resumption of overland travel were poor.

Underscoring the complexity of rescue operations in the region, a helicopter on a relief mission in nearby Pingtung County crashed into a mountain Tuesday with three crew aboard, according to the AP. Chen Chung-hsien, a government aviation official, said it was unclear if the two pilots and one technician had survived.

According to Yao Mao-hsiung, 53 years old, the mudslide hit the village early Sunday morning. The house of Mr. Yao, who then stayed at his parents' house uphill of the village, was washed away within five minutes, he said. With guidance of two dogs, Mr. Yao and his family managed to escape Sunday, and were eventually rescued Monday afternoon.

After waiting for 48 hours, some anxious villagers decided to rescue their families by themselves yesterday. A military officer, who only gave his surname Chen, was preparing to enter the village by walking 10 kilometers Tuesday afternoon. Mr. Chen's parents, wife, and son have been stuck in the village for 48 hours, he said. "It is too difficult for the government to rescue everyone," Mr. Chen said.

In Cishan township in Kaohsiung, UH-1H helicopters were taking off every hour as part of the relief effort. Government officials said the Taiwanese military would search the area through the day Wednesday.

Shiao Lin is located between two famous mountains in Taiwan, Jade Mountain and Ali Mountain. Villagers in the agriculture-heavy area depend on bananas, coconuts, and bamboo sprouts.

news20090811usat

[Today's Paper] from [USA TODAY]

[Washington]
Soaring deficit may defy forecasts
By Richard Wolf, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Stagnant unemployment, shrinking tax revenue and a struggling economy threaten to quadruple the size of last year's federal budget deficit, raising more questions about the timing of costly proposals to overhaul health care.
As the White House and Congressional Budget Office (CBO) prepare to release new deficit estimates this month, several economists say the news is likely to be as bad as or worse than forecasts.

"This is going to be a very depressing outlook," predicts former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, top adviser to Republican John McCain in last year's presidential election. "They have just a nightmare in terms of these health care bills, which do nothing but make things worse."

A fiscal year 2009 deficit of $1.8 trillion was anticipated by the White House, $1.7 trillion by Congress. Reaching that level would produce a deficit four times last year's $459 billion deficit, just as Congress is considering health care overhaul plans that could cost $1 trillion over 10 years.

Lawmakers are struggling to pay for a plan with a mix of tax increases on upper-income people and Medicare spending reductions aimed at doctors, hospitals, drugmakers and insurers. Some town-hall forums across the U.S. this month have been disrupted by protests for and against proposals.

While revenue continues to decline, government spending is rising as a result of the $787 billion economic stimulus plan passed six months ago. Stimulus spending will increase in the next few months, says Treasury chief economist Alan Krueger.

Deficits of $1.8 trillion this year and $1.3 trillion in 2010, as predicted by the White House, would add to the federal debt. The current $11.7 trillion debt already equals about $38,500 for every U.S. resident. The recession, now in its postwar-record 21st month, has dealt a worse blow to the budget than the administration expected:

• The economy is set to shrink by 2.6% this year, more than twice what the White House predicted in February and May.

• As a result, tax revenue is down by $353 billion over 10 months, which is about what the White House thought it would lose for the entire year.

• Unemployment, projected at 8.1% this year by the White House, was 9.4% in July. Spending for jobless benefits, Medicaid and Medicare has soared as people have lost work and health insurance. Jobless benefits are costing more than twice what was spent last year.

"The deficit picture is very challenging," White House budget director Peter Orszag wrote on his blog last month.

Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, says having a deficit at "previously unthinkable levels … shows an incredible lack of fiscal responsibility."

Former CBO director Robert Reischauer, president of the non-partisan Urban Institute, an economics and social policy think tank, says administrations tend to believe that "the harder and faster one falls, the more rapid and steep the recovery."

news20090811slt

[Today's Paper: A summary of what's in the major U.S. newspapers] from [Slate Magazine]

Obama: Immigration Can Wait
By Daniel Politi
Posted Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009, at 6:34 AM ET

The Los Angeles Times (LAT) and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) 's world-wide newsbox lead with the recent bomb attacks in northern Iraq and Baghdad that have killed at least 112 people since Friday and have once again raised fears that insurgents want to rekindle the sectarian conflict that once swept the country. The latest attacks amount to the most serious surge in violence since Iraqi security forces officially took over security in urban areas on June 30. An Iraqi police spokesman said the attacks had "al-Qaida in Iraq's fingerprints all over them." USA Today (USAT) leads with a look at how the continuing economic woes could quadruple the size of last year's federal budget deficit. The White House and the Congressional Budget Office are getting ready to release new deficit estimates that some predict could be worse than forecast and are likely to raise new questions about the cost of health-care reform.

The Washington Post (WP) leads with President Obama vowing to pursue comprehensive immigration reform while also cautioning that no one should expect legislation before 2010. At the end of a two-day summit with his counterparts from Mexico and Canada, Obama said any effort at reform must include "strong border security" as well as "a pathway to citizenship" for illegal immigrants who are already in the United States. The New York Times (NYT) leads with a look at how Mexico's prison system is a cesspool of corruption, where drug traffickers continue to operate their businesses and train new recruits while often planning their escape with the help of bribed guards. In fact, the top drug bosses often end up running things in prison and guards can essentially become their employees. The United States is devoting $4 million to try to fix the system, but in the meantime the Mexican government is extraditing a record number of drug traffickers to the United States.

The NYT also fronts the attacks in Iraq, and highlights how the most devastating attack basically flattened a village that is about 10 miles east of Mosul. The WSJ specifies that the two dump trucks that exploded contained 6,600 pounds of high-grade explosives. There was also a string of bombings in Baghdad, but the LAT points out that the "violence in and around the northern city of Mosul is the biggest concern" because it's a stronghold of al-Qaida in Iraq as well as Baathist insurgents who have an interest in firing up tensions to spark a civil war. Indeed, the attack yesterday, just like a similar one on Friday, appeared to be an attempt to heighten the conflict between Kurds and Arabs over a piece of territory. Everyone expects violence to continue increasing in advance of January's elections as insurgents try to undermine confidence in the Iraqi government.

Obama acknowledged that passing comprehensive immigration reform would be anything but easy, yet he predicted he would be successful, despite the almost-certain objection from "demagogues out there who try to suggest that any form or pathway for legalization for those who are already in the United States is unacceptable." Still, he said Congress wouldn't pick up the issue until after it gets done with legislation on health care, energy, and financial regulation. "That's a pretty big stack of bills," Obama said.

The LAT and NYT front a look at how the White House unveiled a new Web site yesterday to rebut what the administration decries as "misinformation" from opponents of health care reform. As President Obama prepares to hold three town-hall meetings this week, the administration is more forcefully fighting against rising public anxiety about the plan. The NYT points out that the Web site is a tacit acknowledgement that the White House is "suddenly at risk of losing control of the public debate over a signature issue" and must now play defense. While Democrats insist they were expecting opposition to their efforts, the growing intensity has caught them off guard. By taking on the Republican claims about the health care plans head on through the White House Web site and advertisements, the administration is going against the conventional wisdom that repeating rumors, even if it's to dismiss them, ends up reinforcing them. But it's a tactic that Obama employed during the campaign through a "fight the smears" section on his Web site. House Minority Leader John Boehner was quick to say the new White House Web site is filled with "errors, misstatements, and falsehoods."

The WSJ goes inside with word that a new effort is under way to enlist Afghan tribal fighters in the war against the Taliban. Initially, thousands will be hired from 18 provinces to provide security for the Aug. 20 elections. If all goes as planned, the tribesmen could then get more permanent jobs protecting villages and neighborhoods. "We are trying to recreate the Awakening of Iraq here in Afghanistan," said the director of the initiative. Their role is seen as particularly important in areas where there are no Afghan security forces. This isn't the first time officials have tried to get local fighters to join up against the Taliban, but there are hopes the new effort will be more successful as it's part of the broad plan to improve relations with tribes across the country.

In yet another horrifying dispatch from Congo, the WP's Stephanie McCrummen writes about how the U.S.-backed Congolese military operation that was supposed to save citizens from rebels has worsened what was an "already staggering epidemic of rape." Women lock themselves inside before sundown and walk only in groups to avoid getting raped by soldiers who earn a pittance and often don't even receive enough food to survive. Recently, every three soldiers got a single can of sardines that was supposed to last them for 15 days. "If I see a woman walking on the road, and I love her, I will take her. I will help myself," said one lieutenant who is in charge of teaching his soldiers about human rights. "Now," he continued, "buy me a beer so I don't have to rob you."

Early-morning wire reports report that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Congo today and spoke up against the proliferation of sexual violence. "The entire society needs to be speaking out against this," she said. "It should be a mark of shame anywhere, in any country. I hope that that will become a real cause here … that will sweep across the country."

The WSJ reports that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor may have retired from the Supreme Court in 2006, but she's "still out there judging." The 79-year-old jurist has been quietly visiting federal appellate courts across the country, sitting in for vacationing judges or in panels where there are vacancies. "It's nice to keep your hand in a bit," she said even as she admitted that most of the cases aren't "particularly demanding, intellectually." O'Connor has heard almost 80 cases and written more than a dozen opinions. "I now have occasion to have to apply some of those [Supreme Court] holdings with which I didn't agree when they were made, but of course now they're binding," she said.

Tiger sharks aren't exactly known as picky eaters. In the wild, they eat everything from smaller sharks to copper wire. But the new 5-foot-long tiger shark at the Aquarim of the Pacific in Long Beach, Calif. is anything but typical, reports the LAT. The shark has caused innumerable headaches to the aquarium staff as her finicky taste buds sometimes lead her to reject restaurant-grade ahi tuna, mahi-mahi, and halibut, to name three of the 30 potential food choices that could be offered to the high-maintenance shark. "Some days she won't eat," said the man who is in charge of keeping the shark happy. "Other days she goes on benders, feasting only on one type of food. Her tastes change from one day to the next. The tricky part is figuring out what thing triggers her hunger on a given day."

news20090811gcu1

[Environment] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Water]
BBC accused of wasting £406,000 of public money a year on bottled water
Broadcaster is assessing 'health issues' of tap water after a freedom of information request revealed cost to licence fee payers
Donnachadh McCarthy
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 11 August 2009 12.19 BST
Article history

The BBC has been accused of wasting public money and creating unnecessary environmental damage by spending nearly half a million pounds a year on bottled water. Responding to a freedom of information request from the Guardian, the public broadcaster said it spends £406,000 annually on large bottles of water for its water coolers.

In addition, BBC staff can order bottled water for the organisation's hospitality events. But the BBC refused to reveal how much it spent on bottled water at the 103,000 events it held last year, claiming that the cost of finding out was more than the Freedom of Information Act required.

Bottled water can also be ordered by staff for internal meetings, provided a meeting lasts more than two hours. The broadcaster said it was assessing the "health issues" of switching from bottled to mains-fed water.

A regional breakdown showed BBC London and Scotland were the biggest spenders at £365,368 combined, with the English regions on £23,690, Northern Ireland on £16,285 and Wales spending £1,489. The low figure for BBC Wales is because the majority of its drinking fountains are supplied by mains water.

Steve Bloomfield, senior national officer at Unison, which is campaigning for employers to provide staff with mains-fed water, said: "The BBC could save themselves a lot of money, aside from the urgent sustainability issues. Using the health and safety angle is ridiculous. You might as well say you are going to look at the health and safety issues of using plates. Naturally, normal hygiene issues need to be respected but that applies to all food and drink."

Dave Prentis, Unison's general secretary, added: "Workers work better if they are hydrated and have access to good clean drinking water. Bottled water is no better than mains water and the effect on the environment of all that water being transported around is enormous."

The BBC defended itself against accusations of wasting licence fee payers' money on an environmentally destructive practice. A spokesperson said: "The BBC is committed to reducing waste and promoting environmentally sound practices. We are also working to implement a policy of replacing bottled water with other options where they are used, for example, in meetings and hospitality functions. Current contractual commitments are being reviewed and the health issues related to replacing bottled water with jugs of tap-water are being assessed." The organisation's press office had initially refused to give the figures. They were only revealed after a freedom of information act request.

Employers have a legal duty to provide their staff with drinking water in the workplace, but bottled water has a far higher carbon footprint than mains-fed water. According to Thames Water, a litre of mains water creates around 0.0003kg of CO2, around 600 times less than the 0.185kg generated by a litre of Volvic or the 0.172kg produced by the same volume of Evian. The watercooler bottles used by the BBC are also made from a type of plastic derived from oil, which is not recyclable and takes up to 1,000 years to biodegrade.


[France]
Lethal algae take over beaches in northern France
Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
guardian.co.uk, Monday 10 August 2009 18.26 BST
Article history

Its rugged northern coastline is a favourite summer destination for Britons. But holidaymakers have been warned away from certain beaches in northern Brittany that have been swamped by tonnes of potentially lethal rotting green algae.

Hundreds of local residents and environmentalists demonstrated on the otherwise picturesque beach of St-Michel-en-Grève at the weekend as the "green menace" manifested itself in record piles of noxious seaweed swamping the shore.

A man has also taken legal action after he was left seriously ill from breathing in fumes from the decomposing algae. Vincent Petit, a 27-year-old vet, had to be dragged unconscious from a patch of rotting algae a metre deep this month after the horse he was riding collapsed and died from fumes given off by the sludge on the beach. The horse died within minutes.

Last year, two dogs died while walking near piles of algae on a beach close by.

Local mayors said more than 70 beaches had been hit by the seaweed that has plagued the coastline for more than a decade, but which this year reached unprecedented levels.

Some town halls in Brittany are spending more than €100,000 (£86,000) a year on bulldozing the seaweed away, but levels are still rising. The seaweed is harmless when it is alive, but as it decomposes on the beach – often releasing a foul stench of rotten eggs – the gases can be toxic. On the Côtes d'Armor coast, certain patches of shore have been closed and warnings have been issued to the public.

Environmentalists blame pollution from intensive farming. Brittany has a high concentration of pig, cattle and poultry farming and campaigners say nitrates from the farms are polluting the water system and feeding the prolific algae, which are then washed in to shore.

André Ollivro, vice-president of the campaign group Halte aux Marées Vertes (Stop the Green Slick), said: "Places where I used to sail, where my children used to build sandcastles on the Bay de Saint-Brieuc have disappeared under green algae and sediment. The solution is to stop pollution from intensive farming. It literally stinks inland because of places like pig farms – and now it stinks by the sea."

Local authorities said they had made efforts to minimise the level of agriculture in the area and to reduce quantities of farming refuse released into the sea.

The Centre for Study and Evaluation of Algae in Brittany said the problem was not "systematic" and tourists should not stay away from the whole region.

Potentially toxic algae has posed problems elsewhere in the past, including in Wales, where warning signs were put up this summer at a Snowdonia lake, near Llanberis in Gwynedd, warning lake users not to swim in the water or let animals drink it. The warning was later lifted after the council said tests showed that the algae blooms had subsided and that the lake was safe to use. The algae responsible for the problems in Wales, Anabaena spirioides, has a 50% chance of being toxic.

In New Zealand, an unidentified toxic algae was blamed this week for causing the deaths of two dogs on beaches in Auckland. Scientists who tested samples said the deaths were caused by a naturally occurring neurotoxin.

news20090811gcu2

[Environment] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Food]
Supermarket offers and food waste targeted in goverment's food strategy
All aspects of food – production, processing, distribution, retail, consumption and waste – must be addressed, says Hilary Ben
Martin Wainwright
guardian.co.uk, Monday 10 August 2009 11.57 BST
Article history

Fewer cut-price supermarket gimmicks and other measures to help target food waste are central to a new government food security strategy to maintain UK food supplies for the next 40 years.

The strategy is highly critical of bogof - "buy one get one free" - offers and heavily reduced "loss leader" lines that encourage shoppers to buy food they don't need which eventually ends up in the bin. And it calculates that reducing food waste has the potential to cut carbon emissions equal to taking a fifth of the country's traffic off the roads. It also promotes leaner and healthier diets, along with higher crop yields and a move towards accepting genetically modified crops.

The series of reports called Food 2030 had been expected last month but was delayed by internal disagreement within the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and foot-dragging over measures that would potentially be unpopular with voters.

Launching the strategy the environment secretary Hilary Benn said: "Last year the world had a wake-up call with the sudden oil and food price rises, but the full environmental costs and the costs to our health remain significant and hidden. We need to tackle diet-related ill health that already costs the NHS and the wider economy billions of pounds each year.

"We need everyone in the food system to get involved — from farmers and retailers to the health service, schools and consumers. Our strategy needs to cover all aspects of our food — production, processing, distribution, retail, consumption and disposal."

It was welcomed by some food specialists who argue that government must provide a brake to consumer-driven market forces. But there was criticism that action with real bite, including curbs on the power of supermarkets over suppliers, and carbon emissions from farming, remained too vague.

There was also frustration that the government was still producing policy strategies and consultations a year on from a major report commissioned at the height of global food price rises from the Cabinet Office called Food Matters. Many felt the new strategy did not include enough substantial changes.

Meredith Alexander, head of food policy at the charity ActionAid UK, said: "The government launched an inquiry into ways supermarkets abuse their market power in May 2006. Three years later, they are only now considering whether or not to actually do something about these bullying practices that contribute to poverty wages overseas."

Professor Tim Lang of City University, a specialist on food policy and member of the Sustainable Development Commission, said: "The issue is how radical or slight will changes for consumers be, and how soft or hard will the policy changes be?

"It's good to see Defra at last championing the view that the UK's food system needs to become very different. But I predict that some very uncomfortable and unpopular decisions will lie ahead for governments in coming years.

"The dominant policy language of recent years has centred on markets, choice and consumer sovereignty. These are too simplistic now. Politics needs to move fast."

Apart from targeting wasteful supermarket offers the reports also promise further action on reducing "tempting" packaging and encouraging restaurants to highlight calorie counts. Food waste in the UK is currently running at average of £420-worth per household, rising to £610 in families with children.

Benn also said that food producers in Britain would have to adapt to climate change, and perhaps grow crops in different areas where they were previously difficult to grow. The report warns that the face of the countryside will have to continue to change to guarantee food security, with GM crop experiments part of the strategy.

"We need to think about the way in which we produce our food, the way we use water and fertiliser," Benn said. "We will need science and we will need more people to come into farming because it has a bright future." He added that global food production had to increase by 70% to feed a world population of 9bn in 2050.

The National Farmers' Union welcomed the strategy's 'joined-up' approach, involving all government departments linked to food production, including the Treasury. NFU president Peter Kendall called for a similar improvement in co-ordinating food research, as well as monitoring GM's effect on the animal feed market as well as pig and poultry production.

He also appealed for a level playing field on sustainability, with strict measures applying to imports as well as home-grown food. He said: "It would make no sense to insist that our production was sustainable but increasingly rely on imports that are not."

Dr Tom MacMillan, executive director of the Food Ethics Council, complimented Defra on "taking a systematic approach to assessing food security" and getting on with the job. But he questioned whether the department had enough clout to tackle wider issues involved in food waste and poor diet.

"For instance, a big factor in food insecurity is income inequality, and you can't crack that by fiddling about with food prices. It calls for better social protection in the UK and internationally," he said. "Another big question mark is over climate change. One of government's most important commitments in Food Matters [a government report published in July 2008] was to push for European climate agreements to take account of methane and nitrous oxide from farming, yet so far all that's happened is a seminar with the French.

"To achieve its aims, the department needs a stronger mandate from the government."

David Adam

Hilary Benn yesterday reignited the debate on growing GM crops in Britain when he suggested the controversial plants could contribute to increased food security. He said: "If GM can make a contribution then we have a choice as a society and as a world about whether to make use of that technology."

GM: feeding the world with science

No GM crops are grown commercially in Britain, although several varieties are farmed extensively in mainland Europe, the United States and elsewhere. This is less down to UK government policy than a reluctance among seed companies to apply for the relevant permits, given the high-profile backlash in Britain against GM food a decade or so ago.

Ministers have never ruled out GM in the UK and a series of comments from inside Whitehall in recent years have prompted speculation that a new industry charm-initiative is preparing to sprout.

In 2008, then environment minister Phil Woolas, said Britain was rethinking its position on GM due to a "growing question" of whether it could help feed the developing world.

Industry bodies have also used the recent food crisis as leverage, though Martin Taylor, head of GM firm Syngenta, told the Guardian last year: "GM won't solve the food crisis, at least not in the short term".

David Adam

From allotment to table in 50 years

With the appetite for home-grown food growing like, well, bindweed, it is good to see urban balconies and backyards groaning under the weight of courgettes and tomatoes. But with National Allotment Week starting today, it is hard to see how the government can meet the demand.

The waiting list in Camden and Islington for an allotment now stands at a staggering 40 and 25 years respectively. With more than 80,000 people nationwide facing an average three-year wait, this isn't all due to middle-class demand – or the Observer Organic Allotment. Research released today by home insurance firm LV shows that 56 per cent of allotment users use their plot to save money, while more than a third do so because of concerns about pesticides.

London food czar Rosie Boycott has promised 2012 new plots by (you guessed it) 2012 and even the venerable National Trust is promising 1,000 new plots in the next three years to help meet this growing demand to grow your own. And if you get your name down today in Camden, your first crop will be ready just in time for 2050.

Allan Jenkins is allotment gardener-in-chief and editor of Observer Magazine

news20090811gcu3

[Environment] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Renewable Energy]
Green jobs in US set for recovery, says labour secretary
At the National Clean Energy Summit, backers for green jobs included Bill Clinton, who encouraged confidence in the industry
Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 11 August 2009 11.01 BST
Article history

Hiring in the alternative energy industry will pick up in the next 12 months, though it will take more time before so-called green jobs will become a bigger part of the US job market, US labour secretary Hilda Solis said yesterday.

"Once you start seeing more investments made in our economy recovering, as we stabilise and we get people back to work, then I think there'll be more interest in expanding," Solis said. "There'll be more, hopefully, credit available for this expansion, because there will be more confidence as that's what we're lacking right now – that investment and confidence in the market."

After a terrible start to the year, there are signs of a rebound for alternative energy, in part because of a push from the Obama administration. Yet there is a split at the state and federal level over whether there are better ways to stimulate the job market.

The second National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, where Solis spoke to The Associated Press, drew a high profile list of alternative energy backers, including former US president Bill Clinton, energy secretary Steven Chu and US senate majority leader Harry Reid.

Clinton said that lawmakers need to convince Americans that advancing on energy makes economic sense, and not stop short with programmes that merely create a few thousand jobs over the next decade.

"It's peanuts – we just lost 7m jobs," Clinton said. "If we want a good bill we have to convince people that it's an economic winner."

Clinton said he thinks the best energy solution right now is to promote efficiency by retrofitting homes and businesses so their owners save on energy bills.

"The least sexy topic is where the most jobs are," he said.

Al Gore, the former vice president, said the economy, climate and national security are all intertwined with the common thread of overdependence on carbon-based fuels.

"If your grab hold of that thread and pull on it all three of these crises will unravel, and we'll hold in our hand the solution to all three of them – that is to make a transition to a low-carbon economy and to put people to work doing it," he said.

Venture capitalists increased investments in alternative energy by 73% over the past three months compared with the first three months of the year, according to a report issued late last month by Ernst & Young LLP. Investors are still shaken, however, and investment remains meagre compared with last year at this time.

Money had already begun to flow into the sector at a record pace last year before new government initiatives were announced, but that was before the full weight of the recession became apparent.

Wind, solar and other alternative energy companies have been forced to cut back on workers. Projects were cancelled as credit markets froze and venture capital evaporated.

John Woolard, president and CEO of BrightSource Energy Inc, said the industry still needs help to create jobs immediately.

"We need transition from visionary leadership to roll-up-your-sleeves leadership," Woolard said.

The Obama administration last week announced $2.4bn (£1.5bn) in federal grants to develop next-generation electric vehicles and batteries.

Michigan, which has been devastated by job losses in the auto industry, would see companies within its borders get $1bn in federal grants with the administration pushing green jobs as part of its economic cure.

Chu said federal officials have yet to award more money to other projects because they are reviewing proposals and want to make sure they pick the wisest possible investments.

"We're moving," he said.

The alternative energy sector could spark a new "industrial revolution", with better prospects for minorities and new training for workers with traditional vocational skills, Solis said.

There has been rapid growth in the industry, but employment in the green business still makes up only about 0.5% of all jobs.

Union leaders said that with traditional commercial projects and new housing nearly non-existent, rank-and-file members are depending on the creation of large public works projects.

Danny Thompson, secretary treasurer of the Nevada chapter of the AFL-CIO, said union work is drying up in Las Vegas and elsewhere. Nevada depends heavily on tourism and casinos, which have struggled to stay afloat as consumers travel less and spend less money.

Thompson said a push for green jobs is less about increasing union membership than about putting people back to work in steady jobs.


[Endangered Habitats]
Bumper year for British grouse forecast for Glorious 12th shoot
Grouse moors in Scotland and northern England report a surge in bird numbers this year after several very poor seasons due to outbreaks of disease-carrying parasites and unsuitable weather
Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Monday 10 August 2009 17.48 BST
Article history

The moors of Scotland and northern England will resound to the sharp crack of shotguns, the growl of Range Rover engines and the yelp of gun dogs again this week. Grouse shooting begins officially with the Glorious Twelfth and the industry is expecting a bumper year.

After several very poor seasons due to outbreaks of disease-carrying parasites and unsuitable weather, grouse moors are reporting a surge in bird numbers this season. Moor owners believe it may be the best for a decade: numbers are up by 25% to roughly 900,000 red grouse in Scotland alone.

"We've certainly had a couple of tough years and in fact we probably haven't had a good grouse year for eight or nine years in many parts of Scotland," said Ian McCall, director of the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust Scotland. "This year's very welcome upturn is significant and substantial. In many places, there's a 50% increase on last year."

Adam Smith, the trust's policy director, said: "Over the last 10 years, grouse moors in Scotland have been managed without any prospect of breaking even."

Grouse moor owners have had to focus on cutting the numbers of sheep and deer blamed for harbouring ticks that kill grouse, controlling predators such as crows and foxes, and restoring heather to bring numbers back up.

In England, the trust believes this year will be "patchier" than last year's record bags: in the northern Yorkshire dales and North Yorkshire, numbers are thought to have crashed, but increased in the southern dales and the Peak District. In that area, some moors could have an "exceptional" year, it said.

The industry has been encountering a series of environmental, welfare and political problems, with parasites and diseases increasing.

The last few years, grouse bags have been hit hard by infestations of disease-carrying ticks and the parasitic worm Trichostrongylus tenuis, which can decimate grouse populations. The industry is facing intense pressure from ministers, police and conservationists to crack down on illegal persecution of birds of prey, which are unlawfully poisoned and shot by gamekeepers who blame them for killing grouse.

A fresh crisis has emerged this year with a major outbreak of heather beetle, which kill off the young heather shoots that provide 80% of a grouse chick's food, and their characteristic purple or deep pink blossom. Many shooting moors report large-scale loss of heather, and reduced grouse numbers.

Serious heather beetle outbreaks used to occur every decade, but according to the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, they are now happening every five years, suggesting a wetter and warmer climate may be to blame.

"We're beginning to wonder whether these outbreaks are getting more common," Smith said. "They strip the heather of quite a high proportion of its leaflets, and that affects the blooms this year. The effect on heather the following year can be quite serious – all you can be left with are grey stalks.

The trust and the Moorland Association, whose members manage about 90% of England's heather moorland and host thousands of bee hives each year, have also become alarmed by a sharp decline in honey bees UK-wide and a steep fall of 39% in the sales of heather honey.

It fears this drop in sales will lead to more heather moorland and heath

disappearing: bees are crucial in helping to pollinate heather. The UK is home to three-quarters of the world's heather moorland, but in the last 33 years, 27% of England's heather moors have been lost.

Edward Bromet, the association's chairman, said grouse moor mangers were now saving heather moorland. "Managing the moors for grouse has seen thousands of acres of cherished heather habitat brought back. This conservation management has helped to buffer against the terrible loss of heather elsewhere."