news20090815bil

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]
August 15
T.E. Lawrence
Born this day in 1888 was T.E. Lawrence, also called Lawrence of Arabia, best known for his legendary activities in the Middle East during World War I, which he recounted in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926).

[On This Day] from [Britannica]
August 15
1914: Panama Canal opened to traffic
After some 10 years of work, the Panama Canal was opened to ships on this day in 1914 under the control of the United States, which continued to operate the canal until December 31, 1999, when it passed to Panama.

1971: Bahrain proclaimed independence from Great Britain.

1960: The Republic of the Congo gained independence from France.

1948: Syngman Rhee announced the establishment of the Republic of Korea (South Korea).

1935: American entertainers Will Rogers and Wiley Post were killed in a plane crash near Point Barrow, Alaska.

1769: Napoleon, future emperor of France, was born on the island of Corsica.

1534: St. Ignatius of Loyola led companions, who would become cofounders of the Jesuit order, to Montmartre, Paris, where the first Jesuits took their vows.

1057: Macbeth, king of Scots, was killed in battle by Malcolm, eldest son of Duncan I.


[Today's Word] from [Dr. Kazuo Iwata]
August 15
I always kike to hear a man talk about himself because then I never hear anything but good.
    Will Rogers (died this day in 1935)

私はいつも、人が自分の話をするのを聞くのが好きである。
Watashi-wa itsumo, hito-ga jibun-no hanashi-wo suru-nowo kiku-noga suki-de-aro.
何しろ人間、自分のことを言うときは良いことしか言わないから。
Nanishiro ningen, jibun-no-koto-wo iu-toki-wa yoi-koto shika iwanai-kara.


[日英混文稿]

news20090815jt1

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
Overboard? Have PET bottle

KAGOSHIMA (Kyodo) A Japanese man who fell off a freighter clung to an empty 2-liter PET bottle until he was rescued by a ship off Kagoshima Prefecture's Yoron Island, Coast Guard officials said Friday, noting that was all he had to keep him afloat.

The 24-old-year man fell off the deck of an Okinawa-bound tanker Thursday morning. The crew of a Liberian-registered freighter found him about two hours later, according to the JCG officials.

They said there were several fortunate factors for the man, who was rescued about 25 km east of Yoron Island.

"He might have become much weaker without the plastic bottle and may not have stayed alive," one official said. "The freighter happened to pass nearby and it's likely the crew only spotted him because of the fine weather and clear visibility. The sea was tranquil and apparently the water temperature out there was quite high. It seems that everything worked in his favor."


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
Higashikokubaru rues ultimatum
By MASAMI ITO
Staff writer

Miyazaki Gov. Hideo Higashikokubaru said Friday he regretted the political turmoil that resulted from his wavering over whether to accept the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's offer to put his name on its ticket for the Aug. 30 Lower House election.

Speaking at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward, Higashikokubaru recounted the uproar that resulted when he told the LDP he would run only on condition that the party consider him a candidate for the next prime minister, if it won the poll.

Higashikokubaru's response drew harsh criticism from within the LDP as well as from the public, eventually prompting him to announce he would not run for a Diet seat, at least for now.

"I believe life is about recovering from setbacks and failure," Higashikokubaru said, vowing to learn from the episode and turn it into an opportunity.

The Aug. 30 election is going to be a tough battle for the ruling LDP, which opinion polls indicate will lose its majority in the Lower House to the Democratic Party of Japan, the largest opposition force. The LDP had been hoping to attract voters by having the popular Miyazaki governor run on its ticket.

Even though he had been considering running from the LDP, Higashikokubaru said a two-party system is necessary.

"The LDP has effectively ruled Japan for (almost) 60 years, but no government can stay in power forever," he said.

"Learning from European countries and the United States, I think it is ideal for Japan to shift to a two-party system for a mature democracy."

In the presence of many foreign reporters, Higashikokubaru began his talk in English before quickly switching to Japanese. When asked if he would like to run for the prime ministership in the future, the comedian-turned-governor said he needed to study more English first.

"I didn't want to become prime minister this time — I just wanted to advance decentralization," Higashikokubaru said. "And I also realized that I need to study more English to become prime minister. I think it is a bit too soon for me."


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
Former AIG manager cooks up new career as chef
Financial meltdown prompts insurance expert to act on his passion for pastries
By HIROKO NAKATA
Staff writer

The collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and other U.S. financial giants changed people's lives around the world, and David Cisan, a former manager at American International Group in Japan, is one of them.

In the global financial meltdown last year, Washington bailed out AIG and a small number of other institutions, but Lehman and some others went under.

Amid the financial turmoil, the 40-year-old Hawaii-born insurance expert decided to leave the industry after almost 20 years and take his life in a different direction by becoming a professional pastry chef.

Now he runs classes in English teaching how to bake muffins and brownies at Notting Hill Cakes & Gifts, a British-style cafe in Nishi-Azabu in Tokyo's Minato Ward owned by British baker Mark Peterson.

"The whole financial crisis made this decision much easier," Cisan told The Japan Times in a recent interview.

"The timing was good to make a change," he continued. "It was a difficult decision to make, after long years in the financial industry. But then, looking at the whole industry and the way things are going, I thought maybe now is the right time."

Cisan is one of thousands who left foreign financial institutions in Japan in recent months.

Many got new jobs in the same financial services industry, according to job consulting experts. But others have opted for entirely different career paths.

"After a while in any industry, people get tired — people want to change. And that's what happened to me," Cisan said. "It's very common in the U.S. that people do that kind of thing. That's a midlife career change."

But such changes may not be so familiar in this country, where the job market generally lacks flexibility.

"There were two big trends in their job hunting," said Yuichi Misato, a career consultant at Intelligence Ltd., which helps people find new jobs, referring to businessmen who left foreign financial firms in Japan during the financial crisis in 2008.

One trend is to work for small consulting companies specializing in certain areas, such as mergers and acquisitions. Another trend is to get jobs as financial experts at corporations, Misato said.

Others sought jobs as bureaucrats.

Many applied for several openings at the Financial Services Agency, a financial watchdog. When the agency posted job listings on March 13, the first such advertisement after the financial industry's meltdown last year, 120 people, including many who had worked for foreign financial firms, applied. Only four were hired, the agency said.

Amid such job-hunting, Cisan's drastic career change may be unique. But he said he had been preparing for it for a long time.

Passionate about baking sweets since he was a teenager in Hawaii, Cisan attended a professional pastry program on weekends at Le Cordon Bleu in Tokyo while he was working as a manager at AIG. A year and a half later he received his diploma in pastry-making from the famed French cooking school.

Before he resigned from AIG in November, he had already offered baking classes at home to friends and colleagues on weekends.

Later, he relocated classes to his community center's kitchen in Tokyo's Ota Ward, which was larger and better equipped for classes. After he met Peterson earlier this year, he started to teach at Notting Hill.

The classes at the cafe have so far proved increasingly popular.

In July, Cisan and a couple of other instructors had six classes, each with eight students. In August, they expanded to 16 to 20 classes, and hope to have 26 to 30 classes by September, Cisan said.

But business in Japan is not always so easy, he said.

"Japanese consumers are very brand-conscious, quality-conscious and price sensitive," he said, adding that presentation, packaging and wrapping are also very important to customers.

"Japan is one of the most difficult consumer markets in the world. But if you can crack it, it's the most lucrative," he said.

Cisan said he is happy he has a challenge.

"Because if I don't try now, and I do something else or get involved in something else, and then, 20 to 30 years from now and in the back of my mind, like 'Oh, you never did try baking and now I'm too old.' I don't want to have these regrets later," he said.

"If I do this and fail, so what? At least I know I tried," Cisan said.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
Games drop baseball, softball

BERLIN (Kyodo) Baseball and softball failed Thursday in their comeback bids for the 2016 Summer Games, as the International Olympic Committee executive board here decided to recommend golf and rugby sevens for inclusion for the games.

The decision is sure to disappoint Japanese sports fans and players, as Japan's national baseball and softball teams have won a number of medals in past world competitions. The two have been dropped from the Olympic program for the 2012 London Games.

Karate, squash and roller sports also missed the cut Thursday.

Golf and rugby will be added upon the IOC assembly's OK in Copenhagen on Oct. 9.

"All seven sports made a strong case for inclusion, and the executive board carefully evaluated them in a transparent and fair process. In the end, the decision came down to which two would add the most value," IOC President Jacques Rogge said.

"Golf and rugby scored high on all the criteria. They have global appeal, a geographically diverse lineup of top iconic athletes and an ethic that stresses fair play."

news20090815jt2

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
DPJ and two allies plotting joint pledges
Coalition hopefuls' shared goals
Kyodo News

The Democratic Party of Japan, Social Democratic Party and Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party) are planning joint campaign pledges for the Aug. 30 election, vowing to boost disposable income and turn the export-oriented economy into one led by domestic demand.

Putting priority on support of the people's livelihoods, sources from the three opposition parties said Friday the group will not raise the 5 percent consumption tax for at least four years and will review the splitup of the nation's postal services into four companies.

The DPJ plans to call on the two other parties to join in a ruling coalition if the opposition camp succeeds in driving the governing Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, New Komeito, from power in the Lower House poll.

The three parties will promote their negotiations on forming a coalition based on the joint campaign platform, the sources said.

In the platform, the three parties also pledged to provide monthly child allowances to families with small children and build more child care facilities to eradicate the waiting lists to get into such facilities.

The parties will revive extra benefits for mother-and-child families that depend on welfare.

In the social welfare field, the platform proposes abolishing the current \220 billion curb on the annual growth of social security outlays and resolving the pension record-keeping fiasco.

The parties agreed to impose a ban on the dispatch of temporary workers to the manufacturing industry and to establish legislation to protect temp workers.

The platform proposes enacting a law to create a consultative body of the central and local governments in order to revitalize provincial areas.

It also calls for enacting a law to ban financial institutions from forcibly withdrawing loans to or from cutting back in lending to small firms, the sources said.

More DPJ candidates
The Democratic Party of Japan is moving to triple or quadruple the number of its candidates for the proportional representation part of a Lower House election, realizing it is in a good position to score a major victory, according to party sources.

The DPJ, which enjoys a lead over the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in opinion polls, is likely to list at least 30 to 40 candidates only for the proportional representation portion of the Aug. 30 poll — a record number for the main opposition party, which fielded just 10 in September 2005.

The move comes as the odds are becoming high that many of those with DPJ "double-candidacies," who are expected to be listed in both single-seat electoral districts and proportional representation blocks, would secure seats through the single-seat system.

That leaves additional DPJ candidates with a chance of being elected in the proportional representation race, in which seats are allocated according to the share of votes a political party has garnered in an election.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
Your Party claims DPJ cooperation deal
Kyodo News

Your Party, a new minor party, will seek to cooperate with the Democratic Party of Japan after the Aug. 30 general election, according to its leader, former Liberal Democratic Party member Yoshimi Watanabe.

"I confirmed about general cooperation" with DPJ leader Yukio Hatoyama and acting leader Naoto Kan when meeting with them one or two months ago, Watanabe told reporters Thursday in Tokyo.

While declining to say whether his party would seek to form a coalition government with the DPJ, which opinion polls indicate may win the election, Watanabe said, "It's an undeniable fact that what we are both saying and our directions are similar.

"Postelection cooperation is possible," he said.

Your Party, or Minna no To, was formed Aug. 8 with three other former House of Representatives members and one current House of Councilors member. It is running in the Lower House election under the banner of "de-bureaucracy," regional autonomy and an emphasis on people's livelihoods.

The DPJ, the largest opposition force, has so far expressed its intention to form a coalition with two smaller opposition groups — the Social Democratic Party and Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party) — if it takes power.

Watanabe stressed that his party, comprised mostly of former LDP and DPJ members, is neither of those two anymore. "We are a group acting on our own for a change of government."

Watanabe, who broke from the LDP in January, declared he will act as an "encoffineer" for the embattled party, just like the main character in the Oscar-winning Japanese film "Departures" who washes, dresses and prepares bodies before placing them in a coffin.

"The biggest cause of the LDP's end is its inability to stop relying on bureaucrats," said Watanabe, a former state minister in charge of administrative reform, adding he was dismayed at the decline in the long-ruling party's ability to govern.

"It's better for the LDP to reset itself here and now, but once reset, it may not be able to resuscitate itself," Watanabe said, urging his former colleagues in the LDP to join his party in that event.

The campaign platforms of Your Party and the DPJ have much in common, including their disapproval of and willingness to depart from bureaucrat-led politics.

But the DPJ could be stifled by its reliance on support from civil servant unions when trying to follow through on its promise to take government policy out of the hands of bureaucrats and to empower politicians, Watanabe said.

"It's possible that the DPJ reforms could end up being half-baked," he said. "If you are shackled, it's hard to take a hack at vested interests."
l

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
Saito offers up to emissions options
Kyodo News

Environment Minister Tetsuo Saito presented two scenarios Friday for Japan to reduce heat-trapping gas emissions by 80 percent from the 2005 levels by 2050 to curb global warming, through such efforts as a 40 percent cut in energy consumption and greater use of low-carbon resources, including renewable energy.

"By 2050, global greenhouse gas emissions are at least required to be halved from the current levels. To do so, developed countries need to cut emissions by more than 80 percent," Saito said. "Japan should also commit itself to the goal of an 80 percent reduction. These scenarios show that appropriate policies will enable Japan to achieve this."

Saito drew on a July accord by leaders of the Group of Eight nations in Italy to urge developed nations as a whole to slash emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 80 percent or more by 2050 compared with 1990 or more recent years.

Saito introduced two scenarios. One is based on policies prioritizing economic growth, urbanization and technological innovations and the other focused on conserving nature and keeping communities vibrant.

The former envisions annual per capital economic growth of 2 percent, while the latter foresees 1 percent growth.

In both scenarios, the 80 percent emission cut goal will be achievable, Saito said. Annual per capita carbon dioxide in Japan will be 2.4 tons if the country realizes the 2050 target, down from 9.6 tons in 2005, he added.

Saito said his proposals are aimed at stirring national debate on how Japan can slash its greenhouse gas emissions over the long term and he urged public support and efforts to achieve the target.

The National Institute for Environment Studies, which helped compile Saito's scenarios, calculated in 2007 the additional investments required for Japan on the assumption that Tokyo will trim greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent by 2050 from the 1990 levels.

At that time, the institute concluded that \700 billion to \2 trillion will be needed per year to achieve the goal. The ministry said necessary additional investments will be slightly bigger to realize Saito's scenarios.

Specifically, Saito said the ratio of renewable energy, including solar and wind power, in the primary energy supply should be raised to 28 percent if Japan takes the urbanization scenario and to 40 percent under the other plan.

All vehicles should be replaced with electric cars if the country follows the growth-oriented path, and under the other scenario, 50 percent should be electric cars and the other 50 percent hybrid vehicles.

The ministry also envisions introducing carbon sequestration technologies at thermal power plants and burying carbon dioxide as well as highly heat-insulating and energy-conserving building materials.

Saito also pointed out that it is necessary at some point to adopt an environment tax, or levies on carbon dioxide emissions, and launch a full-fledged emissions trading system.

The minister expressed hope that his scenarios will be approved by the Cabinet and become an official position of the government. So far, Tokyo upholds the so-called "Fukuda Vision," set by former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda in June 2008, in which Japan pledges to slash domestic greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent to 80 percent by 2050 from the current levels.

However, the ideas may face resistance as Japanese companies are against radical emissions-cutting measures that could negatively affect their business.

news20090815jt3

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
Akiba hammers Aso over nuclear stance

HIROSHIMA (Kyodo) Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba criticized Prime Minister Taro Aso Friday for justifying the U.S. nuclear umbrella as a deterrent force to protect Japan, saying the nation's leader should first make efforts to abolish all nuclear weapons.

During a news conference on Aug. 6 in Hiroshima, Aso stressed the importance of the U.S. nuclear umbrella for Japan while saying "the abolition of nuclear arms is an aspiration of the Japanese people."

"It seems to me (Aso) first concluded that (Japan) should stay passive (in antinuclear movements), and then produced the logic to justify that stance," Akiba told reporters.

Akiba added that the election promises of the Liberal Democratic Party, of which Aso is president, do not include any concrete measures to seek the abolishment of nuclear weapons.

"Such measures should be included as a matter of course," Akiba told reporters.

Akiba also said it's regrettable that U.S. President Barack Obama is unlikely to visit Hiroshima during his planned stay in Japan, which might occur as early as November.

"We'd like to keep making efforts to realize the visit" of Obama to Hiroshima, the mayor said.

U.S. sanctions tour

Washington JIJI A U.S. delegation will visit four Asian countries, including Japan, next week for talks on punitive measures against North Korea, the head of the delegation has said.

The team, consisting of officials from the Treasury and Defense departments and the National Security Council, will discuss financial sanctions and inspections of air, sea and land cargoes, Phil Goldberg, head of the interagency delegation, told a press conference Thursday.

The Asian tour, which also covers Singapore, South Korea and Thailand, is part of a U.S. effort to work closely with its allies and partners to achieve denuclearization of North Korea through irreversible steps and to implement U.N. Security Council resolutions on the reclusive state, Goldberg, the coordinator for implementation of Security Council sanctions, said.

The latest anti-North Korea resolution, adopted by the council in June in protest Pyongyang's nuclear test in May, calls for financial sanctions and cargo inspections.

Goldberg pointed out one of the purposes of the sanctions is to get North Korea back to the six-party process of denuclearization and nonproliferation.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
Artisans honor glassware innovator

KAGOSHIMA (Kyodo) A group of artisans in the city of Kagoshima has been toiling away on a commemorative piece of Satsuma kiriko glassware to honor the bicentennial of its creator's birth.

Shimazu Nariakira (1809-1858), the 11th lord of the Satsuma domain in present-day Kagoshima Prefecture, is credited with creating Satsuma kiriko glassware by improving glass-cutting techniques through Western science at a time when Japan had isolated itself from the world.

The "kiriko" style of colored engraved glass became famous in Edo, or present-day Tokyo, toward the end of the Edo Period (1603-1867). But the one developed in Satsuma is known for a technique of color gradation called "bokashi," or blurring.

After Nariakira died of an illness, the art of Satsuma kiriko was lost in a fire that destroyed a factory during the Satsuma domain's 1863 three-day skirmish with Britain. But the technique was revived in the mid-1980s through the efforts of craftsmen and researchers.

For the bicentennial, Satsuma Glass Kogei, a Kagoshima-based factory with connections to the Shimazu family, has been trying to create a vase measuring about 30 cm in diameter and height.

Artisans will use a new technique in which layers of glass bearing three different colors — blue, red and green — will be partially applied over transparent glass.

Blue represents the ocean, to reflect Nariakira's belief in foreign trade, and red and green represent torches adorning both sides of a ship, according to the artisans.

The factory plans to produce about 20 pieces of Satsuma kiriko glassware by Nariakira's birthday Sept. 28, and plans to display the best of them at Senganen, a palace of the Shimazu family that is now part of a park.

"We want to create a piece of Satsuma kiriko ware that could not have been technically possible during Nariakira's time," said Kiyoshi Nishimura, who heads a production section at the glass factory.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
Adult smoking rate off for 14th year
Kyodo News

The percentage of smokers among adults has fallen 0.8 point from a year earlier to 24.9 percent, hitting a record low for the 14th straight year, an annual survey conducted in May by Japan Tobacco Inc. showed Friday.

"Multiple factors appear to have caused the decline, such as increased health awareness and tightening of regulations on smoking," said Japan's sole tobacco producer.

The smoking rate for men fell for the 18th consecutive year to 38.9 percent, down 0.6 point from the previous year, while the rate for women stood at 11.9 percent, down 1.0 point, following a 0.2 point rise the previous year.

Based on its latest survey, the total number of smokers was estimated at 26.01 million, down 790,000 from the previous year, JT said.

In addition to increasing restrictions on smoking in public places, the government's introduction of the Taspo smart cards has apparently discouraged smoking, JT said.

The smart cards, which are only issued to people aged 20 or older and enable holders to buy cigarettes at vending machines, were introduced last July as a way to prevent underage smoking.

By region, Hokkaido had the highest smoking rates for both men and women, at 45.7 percent and 20.0 percent, respectively.

By age, smoking rates were highest among people in their 30s — 46.9 percent for men and 16.8 percent for women.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
Film, TV actor Yamashiro dies at 70
Kyodo News

Shingo Yamashiro, an actor and TV emcee, died of pneumonia Wednesday at a nursing home for the elderly in Tokyo, sources said Friday. He was 70.

A native of Kyoto, Yamashiro, whose real name is Yasuji Watanabe, debuted as a movie actor in 1957. He starred in a TV drama called "Hakuba Doji" ("White Horse Rider") in 1960 and acted in a series of yakuza films titled "Jingi Naki Tatakai" ("Battle Without Honor and Humanity") in the 1970s.

He later gained popularity by hosting TV variety shows.

Yamashiro received treatment for diabetes after entering a special nursing home for the elderly in Machida, western Tokyo.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
Professor to help with N.K. sanctions

NEW YORK (Kyodo) Japanese Ambassador to the U.N. Yukio Takasu said Thursday that Kyoto University professor Masahiko Asada has been appointed to a seven-member panel to assist with implementation of U.N. sanctions against North Korea.

The seven, selected by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, are from the five permanent U.N. Security Council members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — as well as Japan and South Korea.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
Electronics makers jump on 3-D bandwagon
Kyodo News

Major electronics makers are stepping up efforts to develop monitors and other products that can show 3-D movies and programs as Hollywood increasingly turns to the technology to churn out big hits.

TVs and Blu-ray DVD players that can show 3-D movies and programs are expected to hit stores next year. Fuji Film Corp. is the first to come out with digital cameras that can show pictures and video images in 3-D.

These products are expected to attract attention at the CEATEC electronics fair slated for October, observers say.

Till now, poor quality has hampered the development of 3-D, with viewers having to rely on red-and-blue tinted eyewear. The rapid development of digital technology, however, has led to a drastic improvement in 3-D images.

Hollywood movies using 3-D technology, including "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and "Bolt," have become big hits, leading officials at the electronics makers to conclude the trend is here to stay.

They may be right.

Two major U.S. theater networks have agreed to purchase high-definition digital projectors from Sony Corp. as they gear up to convert to 3-D-capable more than 10,000 of their screens in the next three to five years.

Electronics makers and movie production companies are also discussing ways to come up with a standardized format for Blu-ray DVD players that can show 3-D DVDs by the end of the year.

Panasonic Corp. is developing plasma TVs and Blu-ray DVD players that can show 3-D movies and programs. The products are expected to hit the shelves next spring at the earliest so that Panasonic can get a head start in this area.

news20090815jt4

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
ELECTION 2009
Civil servants uneasy as DPJ plots change in power game
U.K.-style tack eyed to dilute bureaucracy
By ALEX MARTIN
Staff writer

When vice farm minister Michio Ide in June criticized the Democratic Party of Japan's plans to subsidize farmers' income as unrealistic, DPJ President Yukio Hatoyama quickly fired back.

"Bureaucrats need to be fair and neutral," Hatoyama said, adding that if bureaucrats in Britain had made such remarks, "they'd be sacked."

The incident highlighted the marked discord rising between the civil servants and the DPJ, which is boldly vowing to place the administrative power of the government in the hands of politicians if the opposition party takes power in the Aug. 30 general election.

But questions remain on how the DPJ plans to do this, and how the transition from a half century of governance by the Liberal Democratic Party — and its mandarins in the bureaucracy — would be achieved.

In June, DPJ Deputy President Naoto Kan took a six-day trip to Britain to hold talks with officials from the government and opposition parties about power transitions and the relationship between bureaucrats and politicians.

The trip implies that the DPJ has a strong interest in adopting Britain's Westminster system, in which power is concentrated in the Cabinet at the expense of the governing party and the bureaucracy.

In Britain, more than 100 members of the ruling party enter the government as Cabinet members or junior ministers. Policymaking is conducted based on the ruling party's platform, with policy-proposing capabilities centralized in the Cabinet.

Bureaucrats are expected to remain neutral in shaping and supporting policies in Britain, where a firm two-party system produces frequent regime change.

Upon his return, Kan published his thoughts on the topic in the July issue of Chuo Koron magazine, where he outlined his plans on how to concentrate power in the Cabinet by abolishing the customary practices that allowed the bureaucracy to accumulate its vast power over the years.

Kan, who was Lower House chairman of the foreign policy council under Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa's Cabinet in 1993 — the first non-LDP government in 38 years — got firsthand experience watching how regime change can go awry.

Hosokawa's eight-party ruling coalition was often beset by policy differences that erupted between its center-right and leftist wings, and he abruptly resigned after less than a year in office as a looming personal financial scandal threatened to force him out.

In the magazine essay, Kan mentions how the soon-to-be-appointed prime minister's secretary — a former bureaucrat — began arranging Hosokawa's schedule even before the Diet elected him prime minister.

A similar thing happened when Kan was health minister in LDP Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto's Cabinet in 1996. As soon as he was appointed, the ministry's anonymous chief secretary quickly began arranging everything, from his personal secretary and press conference memos for the Cabinet's formation, to his role in the Cabinet's confirmation ceremony at the Imperial Palace.

Kan said in the essay that he now understands how bureaucrats begin scripting politicians' every move from the earliest stages of a Cabinet. "It was all very strange," he wrote.

To subvert that system, the DPJ has drafted proposals in its policy platform that would, theoretically at least, put administrative power in the hands of lawmakers.

The DPJ proposes appointing more than 100 members of the ruling party to Cabinet and sub-Cabinet level posts to strengthen the government. It also suggests that the chairman of the DPJ Policy Research Council double as a Cabinet member so policy decisions can be made from within the Cabinet.

By concentrating power within the government and the party, the DPJ said the preliminary review of legislation — a customary LDP practice that has allowed the vested interests of lawmakers and bureaucrats alike to influence legislation — would become unnecessary.

The DPJ plans on eliminating these processes as well as and banning vice ministers from expressing their opinions during press conferences, as vice farm minister Ide did in June.

Another plan central to the transition from bureaucratic to political rule is a national strategy office, a body under the direct control of the prime minister. This office would be responsible for compiling the budget and drafting foreign policy documents. Its staff would include both private-sector experts and bureaucrats.

In the past, for example, budgetary request guidelines were decided by the Finance Ministry. The DPJ says this authority would be handed over to the national strategy office.

The DPJ also plans on setting up an administrative reform council that would be responsible for cutting wasteful spending to secure the finances needed for developing policy.

During an interview July 31, Hatoyama said all of the party's plans should be legislated simultaneously as the DPJ-led government starts up. He said he plans to kick things off by holding an extraordinary Diet session in the fall.

However, such a drastic overhaul of the administrative system is bound to face enormous resistance from the bureaucracy, analysts say.

Fukashi Horie, a well-versed political observer and professor emeritus at Keio University, said that although he believes the DPJ still hasn't reached a practical conclusion on how to put its plans in motion, constant maneuvering by self-interested bureaucrats bent on influencing legislation is unavoidable.

"It's already difficult enough to enact laws without loopholes," Horie said, stressing that even if the DPJ succeeded in passing such bills through the Diet, the next issue would be how to control the bureaucrats.

"What will be required from now on is the ability to pin down and control the bureaucrats — to cajole them at times, or growl at them depending on the situation, to gain their cooperation — and that is a very difficult thing to do," he said.

Jun Saito, a former DPJ Upper House legislator who teaches political science at Yale, added that it also will be important for the DPJ to establish realistic expectations among the public that it will be in power for at least the next few years, and possibly more.

"Systemic reforms take effort and time. Winning next year's Upper House election will also be an important agenda item," he said. "Because the LDP has owned the bureaucracy, DPJ politicians have lacked the resources to formulate policies. The DPJ will need to take time to get (its) policies actually enacted and implemented, but I believe (it) will get things done."


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
Father figure helps win redress for war orphans
By SHINICHI SHIRAI
Kyodo News

Kosuke Sugawara has long played the role of father figure for the so-called war orphans — Japanese who were left behind in China at the end of the war as infants or small children.

Sugawara, 84, says in a new book titled "Chugoku Zanryu Koji" (roughly translated as "Orphans Left in China") that playing that role has meant aiding war orphans who resettled in Japan in lawsuits seeking state redress. More than 2,000 plaintiffs have filed such suits in 15 district courts nationwide.

The plaintiffs have won fresh assistance measures in return for discontinuing the lawsuits. But Sugawara, who has been supporting the war orphans for 24 years, is not satisfied with the status quo.

"I didn't carry out my campaign to ask for money for them because they were poor. It's strange that there is no apology from the state and there is no consideration for the second generation, which is supporting the war orphans," said Sugawara, who hails from Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture.

Sugawara went to Manchuria at the age of 14 and was appointed a military policeman just as the Soviet Union joined the Far Eastern theater of the war in the summer of 1945. He was ordered to guard an evacuation train carrying soldiers and their families back home.

When the train was attacked, he had to leave behind mothers and kids in the wilderness.

"That scene haunted me like a nightmare for many years," he said. That is the reason why he decided to devote the reminder of his life to helping the war orphans.

As a result, many war orphans used his family name when they registered at Japanese ward offices to show their appreciation for his support.

"When they made a new official family registry, they asked to borrow my family name. After I said yes, the number of people bearing my family name increased. So, I asked them to use 'Suga' or 'Hara' instead," he said.

Before resettling in Japan, many war orphans had sent him letters saying they wanted to live near railway stations and work in offices. But Sugawara warned them not to have high expectations, saying, "Living in Japan is not so easy."

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

[BUSINESS NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
49.5% of households have minivehicle
Kyodo News

Nearly one out of every two households in Japan has a minivehicle, reflecting the increasing popularity of low-priced, fuel-efficient cars amid the economic downturn, according to an industry survey released Friday.

As of the end of March, an all-time high 49.5 minivehicles were owned per 100 households, up 0.8 unit in the 33rd consecutive year-on-year increase, the Japan Mini Vehicles Association said.

A record 26.173 million minivehicles, with engine displacements of up to 660cc, were owned by households as of March 31, an increase of 711,581 units over a year earlier.

The number per 100 households first topped 40 units in 2000.

Unit sales of minivehicles posted a moderate decrease of 4.4 percent in fiscal 2008 from the previous year, in comparison with a 15.6 percent fall for sales of larger vehicles.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
Flat-screen TVs under ¥30,000
Kyodo News

In another price-cutting move to stimulate consumption amid an economic slowdown, Japan's largest retailer, Aeon Co., plans to offer 18.5-inch flat-screen digital television sets for ¥29,800 per unit, starting Tuesday, company officials said Friday.

The price is much lower than comparable TVs with a 19-inch liquid crystal display panel, which sell for just under ¥45,000 at big discount home appliance stores, analysts said.

Aeon will sell 10,000 units of the stripped-down TV, manufactured in South Korea by Tokyo-based audiovisual equipment maker Dynaconnective Co., at 300 Jusco, Saty and other outlets across Japan other than Okinawa, according to the officials.

Aeon will procure more TVs form Dynaconnective if demand proves strong.

The TV is covered by the government Eco-point program for energy-efficient air conditioners and refrigerators, and televisions that are capable of receiving high-quality terrestrial digital broadcasting. Under the program, aimed at promoting Japan's battle against global warning, up to 10,000 Eco-points, equivalent to ¥10,000, will be given to buyers, lowering the effective price of the TV to ¥19,800.

Aeon decided to offer the inexpensive digital TVs because Japan will end analog broadcasting in July 2011.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
Pay, quality issues cloud future of nursing biz
Kyodo News

Miki Watanabe, chairman of the Watami Co. chain of discount "izakaya" (pubs), was speaking with a passion to some 5,000 shareholders and their families who came to the company's general shareholders' meeting in June.

"The food service division is struggling, but nursing is doing fantastic," he said at the Ryogoku Kokugikan sumo stadium in Tokyo. "Amid an aging society, the nursing care business is not being swayed by the economy."

Watami's nursing care unit — Rest Villa — thrives on the high-quality food nurtured by the izakaya unit and on its comfortable facilities. The company has 42 facilities and hopes to triple that to 140 by the end of fiscal 2013.

Masato Nakamura, whose hobby is drawing, is satisfied living at Rest Villa Kitakamakura, his new resortlike nursing home. The facility was built on a hill in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, in April.

"The rooms are more spacious than other facilities, which makes it easier for me to draw," he said.

After the government launched a nursing care insurance program in 2000, many companies began entering the industry. But they soon found out that the mainstream at-home nursing care business isn't that profitable.

The trend took a sudden dip after a licensing scandal involving home nursing provider Comsn Inc. broke. But the government raised nursing care benefits to nursing facility operators in April, prompting companies to resume their interest in the field.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Kobe Steel Ltd., whose main businesses have nothing to do with nursing, both jumped in via subsidiaries.

A subsidiary of Panasonic Electric Works Corp. is also running high-tech nursing homes that can monitor residents with infrared cameras. But their main target is the wealthy, who can afford to live in high-end nursing homes that bring in a higher profit. Nursing homes for people in lower income brackets, however, remain scarce.

Some companies have started hiring aggressively to expand their foothold.

"The truth is, they are all young staff with little experience," said a senior official at a nursing care dispatching company who asked not to be named. "They have not been able to receive sufficient training."

A woman in her late 30s who used to be caregiver said she quit her job because the working conditions were poor.

"This job is harsh both physically and mentally," she said. "We were always short of staff, but the management refused to hire more people in order to cut costs."

A Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry survey conducted in fiscal 2008 found that the nursing industry suffered from a much higher annual turnover rate, of 18.7 percent, compared with other industries.

The survey also said the average age of a nursing employee was 44, and that they received an average monthly salary of \210,000.

Some of the male nursing staff said they quit after getting married because they can't support a family on those wages.

In their campaigns for the Aug. 30 Lower House election, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan both vowed to increase public nursing care benefits.

But critics are skeptical that higher salaries for caregivers will ensue.

"Some of the medical facilities operating nursing homes use their profit to operate hospitals," said a woman who once worked at such a hospital.

"I don't want companies to enter the business just to use the profit for some other business," she said.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
Japanese M&As off 21% this year
Kyodo News

Mergers and acquisitions involving Japanese companies have decreased sharply this year as slowing sales and large restructuring costs have eaten into financial resources, according to recent data compiled by leading M&A adviser Recof Corp.

In the first seven months of the year, the number of M&As involving Japanese companies totaled 1,124, down 20.8 percent, with a combined value of ¥3.64 trillion, off 47.3 percent from the corresponding period of last year, Recof said.

In particular, M&As overseas by Japanese companies plunged to one-third of the level a year before.

The biggest deal in the January-July period was clinched by Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. in May to acquire operations from Citigroup Inc., including Nikko Cordial Securities Inc., for ¥570 billion.

In July alone, there were 148 M&As involving Japanese companies, down 32.4 percent from year earlier, Recof said.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
Isetan Mitsukoshi plans China stores
Kyodo News

Department store operator Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings Ltd. is considering opening more stores in China over the next several years to boost its overseas business amid shrinking demand in Japan, sources said Friday.

The company, which currently operates four Isetan stores and one Mitsukoshi store in China, plans to set up large Isetan stores with sales floors of about 30,000 sq. meters in such places as Shanghai and Tianjin, the sources said.

By opening additional stores in the fast-growing market, Isetan Mitsukoshi aims to strengthen its earnings by making its Chinese business a pillar of its overseas operations, they said.

The company has judged that the Isetan brand has achieved a certain level of recognition in such places as Shanghai, the sources said.

The floor space of the new stores will be bigger than existing stores, and they will sell a full lineup of goods ranging from luxury items to food to meet the needs of a wide range of customers, the sources said.

[BUSINESS NEWS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
Demand for services rises due to stimulus
Bloomberg

Nationwide demand for services rose unexpectedly in June as government stimulus measures spurred consumer spending, another sign that the economy is emerging from the recession.

The tertiary index, which gauges 63 percent of the economy, climbed 0.1 percent from May, when it slid a revised 0.3 percent, the trade ministry said Friday. The median estimate was for a 0.3 percent drop.

Prime Minister Taro Aso's ¥25 trillion stimulus has helped counter Japan's deepest postwar recession by providing people with cash handouts and incentives to buy energy-efficient cars and electronics. Worsening job prospects and falling wages make it unlikely consumers will lead a recovery once the government spending runs out.

"The improvement in consumer spending was largely bolstered by the government's stimulus measures," said Yoshiki Shinke, a senior economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo. "It's unclear whether consumers will continue spending after the measures are withdrawn."

Business at service providers is growing. Fast Retailing Co. reported sales at its Uniqlo stores rose 6.4 percent in June. Softbank Corp., Japan's third-largest mobile phone firm, said profit rose 41 percent last quarter amid subscriber growth.

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

[LIFE IN JAPAN]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
JAPAN LITE
Appreciating a sense of space — a Japanese fine art
By AMY CHAVEZ

"Your relax space," "Life style space," space this, space that. What was I saying?

I used to laugh at the Japanese use of the English word "space." But not anymore. I've learned that space can be a very lucrative thing in Japan.

When I first opened my Moooo! Bar and Moooo! Calfe on our island's beach, I put out tables where people could sit and drink their moogaritas and eat their ice cream. It was a nice shady area I had created with stools around. But San-chan, who runs the restaurant next door to me, said, "Why are you doing that?"

"Uh, well, because they're customers. I should provide some tables."

"You should charge them to sit there!" he said.

"I should?"

Charge people to sit and drink alcohol and eat ice cream they've bought from me?

So the next year, I made even more tables and constructed a nice bamboo shade structure above them and started charging \500 per person. People loved it!

But San-chan doesn't understand why we go to so much work to provide nice tables. He just puts some old windsurfers (with no masts) onto upside down milk crates and calls them tables. Then he puts some planks of wood on top of upside down milk crates and places the planks alongside the windsurfers to provide seating. He then strings a flimsy tarp above to complete the whole contraption, and charges \500 per person. People love it!

You can fit a lot more people around a wind surfer than you can a table. He makes a lot more money than we do.

Yet I still feel guilty charging for space. People come over, discuss the price with me in low voices, look in their wallets, glance over at the tables and back into their wallets again. It all seems kind of shifty to me.

Until they smile while forking over $30.00 for a table for the day. Incredible!

Sometimes I feel like a parking attendant using those big arm signals to direct people to open spots. All I need is the red flares. Especially during the really busy times of the year, when people battle each other to get a table before they fill up. One person from a group will rush over to save a table for the rest of them.

Once they've settled on a table, you'd swear you were on the top of Mount Fuji, the way everyone gets out their mobile phones and takes a picture to send to their friends. (Cheezu! Click.) "Look where I am — the beach!" (Cheezu! Click) "Look — me with a gaijin!''

During such times, I really should auction tables off. "Do I hear \3,000 for the table on the water? Imagine yourself sipping a moogarita while the waves come up and tickle your toes. It doesn't get any better than this folks. Location, location, location!"

But I don't even have to do this.

Once they settle in to their tables and have taken a few photos, out comes the vinyl sheet. While many beachgoers use the vinyl sheet to put over the sand to sit on, since these people have a table to sit at, they use their sheeto to put their bags on. If they didn't bring a sheeto, they'll pile their bags on top of the $30 table in what is the bag priority seating area. Don't laugh. If you had a Gucci beach bag you only used once a year, you wouldn't put it on the sand either. That $30 table is starting to sound a lot cheaper now isn't it?

Then they start ordering Moogaritas, Pina Mooladas, ice cream and cheese cake from the menu. They come over and shop in the Moooo! Shop for jewelry, sarongs and beach wear. All this they do because I have charged them $30 for a table!

Throughout the day, they return all their dirty glasses and ice cream dishes to me at the bar. They even bring me their used ashtrays. And at the end of the day, they never fail to leave without bowing and saying thank you, often while carrying a large plastic bag full of garbage they'll take home with them on the ferry.

After enthusiastic goodbyes and promises to come back, I turn around to clean up their table. But, of course, it is already spotless.

Space — one of the Japanese fine arts.


[OLYMPICS]
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009
OLYMPICS
Golf, rugby on verge of joining Olympics

BERLIN (AP) Golf and rugby took a big step toward joining the 2016 Summer Olympics, making the cut after the IOC rejected bids from baseball, softball and three other sports.

The International Olympic Committee executive board Thursday also denied squash, karate and roller sports.

The board will submit golf and rugby sevens — a faster-paced version of the standard 15-a-side game — for ratification by the full 106-member IOC assembly in Copenhagen in October.

"In the end, the decision came down to which two would add the most value," IOC president Jacques Rogge said. "Golf and rugby will be a great addition to the games. . . . They have global appeal, a geographically diverse lineup of top iconic athletes and an ethic that stresses fair play."

Final approval will require a simple majority vote by the full IOC. Rogge said the sports will be put to individual votes, not as a tandem.

The board also approved the inclusion of women's boxing in the 2012 London Olympics. Boxing had been the only summer Olympic sport without female competitors.

The golf decision opens the possibility of Tiger Woods playing for an Olympic gold medal in 2016. Rogge said he is "absolutely" sure that Woods and other top players will compete if the sport gets final approval. "Who is one of the major icons of the world? Tiger Woods," Rogge said. "This is a very important sport."

The 15-member board selected the proposed sports for 2016 by secret ballot over several rounds, with the sport receiving the fewest votes eliminated each time. Rogge, who chairs the board, did not vote.

Rugby was the clear winner overall, getting seven votes in the first round and a majority of nine in the second. In a separate ensuing vote, golf needed four rounds to get through. Karate led the first round with five votes, with golf getting three. Golf then got six votes in the second, seven in the third and nine in the fourth.

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

[National News]
Wall Street fears U.S. consumers won't spend
The world economy is looking up, American industry is improving and inflation is subdued. But without consumer spending, can all that last?
By Don Lee and W.J. Hennigan
August 15, 2009

Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington - The global economic outlook is brightening, but one big thing is missing from the batch of encouraging reports of late: the American consumer.

After millions of layoffs and severe reductions in their personal wealth, U.S. consumers are showing little inclination to open up their wallets. That has heightened worries about the strength and sustainability of an expected recovery.

Those concerns were reinforced Friday after a closely followed survey found that consumer confidence in August fell to its lowest level since March.

The unexpected decline in consumer sentiment, which overshadowed positive reports on the economy and extended a broad retreat on Wall Street, wasn't because people were more pessimistic about the economic outlook.

"What was a surprise was the record number of consumers who said their personal incomes have worsened," said Richard Curtin, the director of the University of Michigan's consumer survey. He said fewer people reported their incomes rising than at any time since the survey began in 1946.

"While consumers expect the economic recovery will start in the second half of the year," Curtin concluded, "they're not prepared to step up their spending any time soon."

The Obama administration's stimulus package and a stronger global economy will add juice to a recovery. The "cash for clunkers" car-rebate program, for example, is helping spark an increase in auto production, which last month fueled a rebound in industrial production, according to a Federal Reserve report released Friday. It was the latest and strongest sign yet that the hard-hit American manufacturing sector has bottomed out.

There was other good news as well. Consumer prices didn't budge in July, the Labor Department said Friday. And statistics released a day earlier showed Germany and France, Europe's largest economies, posting growth in the second quarter, which could help American exporters.

But trade and government can't make up for consumer spending, which is responsible for about 70% of U.S. economic activity and was the linchpin for global growth before the financial crisis took hold last year.

The recession has transformed many Americans from spenders into savers. Though it's uncertain how long that will last, some analysts reckon it will take several years before many go back to their old ways, given the tight credit market and lingering weakness in the labor market.

The Fed expects the nation's unemployment rate, currently 9.4%, to remain high until at least 2011.

Susan Vetter, 48, is pinching her pennies. On Friday she came out of a Macy's store in Los Angeles with a new suit, but only because it was deeply discounted and crucial for her sales job at a security company, where things have been shaky.

Vetter said her employer has laid off workers and slashed salaries; hers was cut by 10%.

"I don't want to have frivolous expenditures," she said.

In some ways this is a terrific time to buy things on the cheap. Interest rates are low, and with demand sluggish, store discounts abound. The nation's inflation rate remains very subdued and over the last year has even gone negative. Consumer prices held steady in July from the prior month and were down 2.1% from a year earlier.

But many people are either unable or unwilling to spend, as consumers across regions and income groups have taken a big hit in housing wealth and personal finances. The purchases they do make often come with hefty incentives, such as the "cash for clunkers" program, part of President Obama's $787-billion stimulus plan.

Thanks in part to that program and a resumption of idle production at auto plants, output at U.S. factories, mines and utilities last month rose 0.5% from June, the Fed said. Excluding a hurricane-related technical gain last October, the July reading was the first monthly increase in industrial production since December 2007, when the recession officially began.

Factory output by itself rose 1% over the month. David Huether, chief economist at the National Assn. of Manufacturers, was particularly heartened by the news that 12 out of 19 industries increased production in July, double the number for June and the most since November 2007.

Industrial production tends to have a disproportionately large effect on the economy, spurring sales in services and other parts of the economy. With Germany and France growing again and Asia showing more strength, some U.S. manufacturers are reporting more orders from overseas.

"I'm seeing improvements in Europe, Asia and North America," said Al Lubrano, president of Technical Materials Inc., a Rhode Island maker of coils and metals for the auto, consumer electronics and other industries. "But," he added, "it's from an abysmal level."

Lubrano said there's no way an increase in exports, which account for about 20% of his sales, could make up for sluggish domestic demand. And even his exports to Asia are affected by American consumers, he said, because when Americans cut back on their purchases of cellphones and other electronics, overseas assembly plants cut back on their orders of component parts.

Since the recession began, Lubrano and other American manufacturers have eliminated almost 2 million payroll jobs. Many of those jobs are likely to return only slowly, and up to half might not come back at all, economist Huether said.

The Fed report said industrial capacity utilization inched higher in July, to 68.5% from 68.1% the prior month. That was the first upturn since last fall, but the historical average is about 81%, meaning that factory managers have a lot of unused capacity to fill before they need to add equipment and machinery.

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

[Economy]
Consumer Prices Hold Steady, Easing Inflation Fears
Sale signs at Urban Outfitters in Santa Monica, Calif. Consumer prices in the U.S. stayed low in July, easing concerns new government spending is spurring inflation.
By JACK HEALY
Published: August 14, 2009

Consumer prices in the United States were steady last month, easing concerns for now that the record deficit and huge new government spending would spur inflation.

“It could be a very large long-run problem,” said Mickey Levy, chief economist at Bank of America. “But in the near term, it’s not a problem at all.”

The drift in prices suggests that enormous slack remains in the American economy, even as the recession bottoms out and some industries restart production. Retail sales are sluggish, 14.5 million people are unemployed and many factories and other businesses are still running below capacity.

The Labor Department reported Friday that its Consumer Price Index was unchanged from June on a seasonally adjusted basis, and that prices this summer were 2.1 percent lower than last July, when soaring oil costs drove gasoline to $4 a gallon and lifted the cost of food and other products.

The drop in the last year has been the largest in almost 60 years, occurring as the global economic crisis reduced demand for many goods and services.

“The inflation story was nonsense in an environment where you have such wild excess capacity globally,” said Robert Barbera, chief economist at ITG, an investment advisory business. “I think inflation is below 2 percent for the next two years.”

In another hopeful sign for the economy, the Federal Reserve reported on Friday that industrial production in the United States rose last month, suggesting that manufacturers and major industries were ramping up assembly lines and increasing output.

The monthly increase of 0.5 percent was the first since October, when production rebounded after Hurricane Ike as refineries and other industries came back on line. Before that, industrial production had not posted a gain since December 2007, the first month of the recession.

Economists had expected no change in consumer prices in July. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, the so-called core rate of inflation rose 0.1 percent, also in line with expectations.

“For all the inflation fear-mongering, the fact remains that prices have, in the near term, declined further rather than turned upwards,” Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak, said in a research note. “Such price action comes despite, among other things, a $787 billion stimulus package and $1.75 trillion in asset purchase by the Federal Reserve.”

Some economists and investors have warned that the government’s rescue plans and big stimulus spending will stoke inflation as the economy heals, setting off worries about the strength of the dollar and rising interest rates.

But economists said that Friday’s numbers showed that inflation remained subdued even as oil prices more than doubled since February and interest rates on government bonds crept back from record lows.

The Federal Reserve, in its statement on Wednesday after its two-day meeting, said it expected “that inflation will remain subdued for some time.”

In July, retail prices for food and beverages fell 0.2 percent from a month earlier while gasoline prices declined 0.8 percent. Housing costs fell 0.2 percent for the month, and were down 0.7 percent from last year.

The cost of clothing actually rose 0.6 percent, mostly because of increases in the price of shoes and women’s apparel.

Transportation and health care costs edged up 0.2 percent.

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

[Health-Care Reform 2009]
Obama Pushes Insurance Reforms
As He Hits the Road, President Finds Few Openings to Confront Critics of Plan
By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 15, 2009

BELGRADE, Mont., Aug. 14 -- President Obama on Friday promised a new era of protections against insurance companies that drop customers when medical crises hit and said people who already have coverage would be among the biggest beneficiaries of his plans to revamp the health-care system.

Eager to address criticism of Democratic plans for health-care reform, Obama traveled here and spoke at a campaign-style town hall meeting, the kind of forum where his allies in Congress have faced boos and jeers from skeptical constituents in recent days.

But the president, whose popularity and powers of persuasion may well make him the reform effort's most effective spokesman, encountered the same difficulty he faced at a town hall meeting this week in New Hampshire: For the most part, the critics were nowhere to be seen.

The crowd of about 1,300 that gathered in an airplane hangar here Friday was overwhelmingly friendly and supportive, applauding repeatedly. Only two men put the president on the spot -- something White House officials had indicated they were hoping would happen more often.

A welder wearing a National Rifle Association jacket accused Obama of secretly planning to pay for the reforms by raising taxes, and an insurance salesman wanted the president to explain why he was "vilifying" insurance companies.

Obama gave both men detailed answers, explaining how he would pay for the changes -- not by taxing the middle class -- and saying that, although some insurance companies have been "constructive," others have fought against "any kind of reform proposals."

Earlier in the week, senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said White House officials were hoping to have Obama answering questions -- even tough questions -- because they have confidence in his ability to offer satisfying explanations the American public will believe.

"It's very important," Axelrod said. "There is a whole lot of misinformation out there. The best way to deal with it is directly."

'He Needs a Confrontation'

The composition of the crowds at the town hall events is a delicate matter for the White House. Having enthusiastic, friendly crowds that demonstrate support for the president's agenda is a positive thing. And Obama's allies are eager to show the contrast between his supporters and the angriest opponents of his plans.

But the president clearly needs to have a foil against which to offer his corrections to what he considers mischaracterizations of the health-reform plans. John Weaver, the political strategist who helped John McCain organize hundreds of often-confrontational town hall meetings, said Obama needs to put himself in tougher venues where he can confront his critics.

"He needs a confrontation to end some of this information," Weaver said. "We don't know if that's his strength. But that's his opportunity right now. If he really wants to turn the tide of the debate, he has to engage."

Brian Burgess, a spokesman for Conservatives for Patients' Rights, which opposes the president's health-care plans, said that Obama should be eager for a more confrontational crowd but that the White House should also be anxious about what that might bring.

"The president is very, very good at handling hostile crowds," Burgess said. "He keeps his cool very well. But the danger for him is that he might get some tough, tough questions and he might misstep."

Burgess noted that Obama said in response to one question Friday that people will "more than likely" be able to keep their health insurance under his plan, a slip that critics seized on immediately.

White House officials say they made no attempt to load the audience with voters who have a particular view of health-care reform. They said tickets to the town hall events have been given out much more broadly than in previous administrations. President George W. Bush often distributed tickets through the state Republican Party.

But the pomp and circumstance surrounding the president -- and the presidency -- often mutes the kind of unruly crowds that might otherwise exist. On Friday, Air Force One sat just feet from the hangar where Obama spoke.

There had been speculation that Friday's town hall might become more unruly, like some of the events that lawmakers have hosted across the country. Obama acknowledged that the health-care debate is emotional, but he also suggested that the images of tempers flaring at town halls meetings in recent days are not representative.

"TV loves a ruckus," he said.

Yet Obama was clearly hoping for the type of confrontational questioning that would allow him to dispel false claims. At one point, he practically begged for tougher questions. "And I want somebody who's got a concern or is skeptical about health-care reform" he said. "Here we go, there we go. I knew we could find a couple here."

At the beginning of the event, he even turned a positive question around so he could answer the critics.

When a man called Medicare one of "the best social programs this nation has ever put together," Obama responded by dredging up one of the frequent criticisms of the health-care program for seniors -- that it is a government-run system.

"So when you hear people saying, 'I hate government programs, but keep your hands off my Medicare,' then there's a little bit of a contradiction there," he said. "And I have been hearing that quite a bit, all right, so I just want to, I want to be clear about that."

Making His Case for Reform

Obama is embarking on a final public relations push on health-care reform before heading off on vacation. From Montana, Obama heads to Colorado on Saturday for another town hall.

As he has in the past few weeks, Obama on Friday framed his case for reform around controversial practices of insurance companies, with a particular focus Friday on people who have trouble getting health insurance with preexisting medical conditions and those who are denied payment for treatments even if they have coverage. The goal is to try to make reform seem more appealing to those who already have coverage; polls suggest the insured are lukewarm in their support.

All the scary stories heard about others having trouble getting coverage or payment for treatments should make people think, "There, but for the grace of God, go I," Obama said. He made sure to mention, as he has done at every stop, that his mother wrestled with her insurance company in the final months of her battle with cancer.

He tried to rebut the notion that health-care reform represents a "government takeover," noting that most people's coverage would remain what it is today.

"I don't want government bureaucrats meddling in your health care, but I also don't want insurance bureaucrats meddling in your health care," he said.

Randy Rathie, the welder, told Obama that explanations of how reform would be funded have been lacking. "You can't tell us how you are going to pay for that," Rathie said. "The only way you are going to get that money is to raise our taxes."

Obama told Rathie that the money for the changes would come from efficiencies and other savings and from people who make more than $250,000 a year.

A few moments later, insurance salesman Marc Montgomery asked Obama in a respectful but firm voice about his portrayal of the insurance industry.

"My intent is not to vilify insurance companies," Obama said. "If I was vilifying them, I would be saying private insurance has no place in the insurance market. What I've been saying is, 'Let's work with the system we've got.' "

Both men said after the event that they were not satisfied with the president's responses.

"I feel he's not being totally genuine because his plan is to have a public plan," said Montgomery, who waited overnight in line at the Belgrade City Hall for tickets to the event. "That's what he wants is a public plan, and a public plan will eventually drive other insurance companies out of business."

As to the cost of the changes, Rathie said after Obama left, "I'm afraid where it's coming from is out of the taxpayer's pockets again."

news20090815slt

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

Town Hall Nation
By Lydia DePillis
Posted Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009, at 4:21 AM ET

The Washington Post (WP) leads with President Obama's push for insurance reform on his swing through Western states, where he found a much gentler reception than many elected representatives. The New York Times (NYT) and the Los Angeles Times (LAT) lead with new economic numbers that show steady consumer prices and little to no inflation, which could be evidence of an inflection point as the nosedive levels off—even as consumer confidence languishes. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) leads with the failure of Alabama's Colonial Bank, the biggest collapse since Washington Mutual and the sixth largest in U.S. history.

President Obama's own town hall in Montana went better than some, with protestors confined across the street and mostly softball questions from the audience—an absence of hostility that the Post thinks is problematic, since Obama performs best under pressure. The NYT homed in on his remark about insurance companies: With the exception of Aetna, a campaign donor, he said, they had been "funding in opposition" to healthcare reform, a charge that a representative from an insurance industry trade group denied.

Other members of Congress faced much gnarlier receptions, including Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, who was booed and hissed by crowds that topped 1,000 people in his tour around the state. The barrage stiffened his resolve, he told the Post, but also exacted some specific commitments around containing the cost of the legislation that he may not have otherwise made publicly. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, one of the "Gang of Six" Obama is targeting for his support, was sympathetic to both sides, and gave little indication of how he would vote on key issues. Also stumping through Iowa, the NYT explains part of the reason why town halls all over the country are so stacked with conservatives: Those who came out of the woodwork to support President Obama's campaign are taking a break from politics. Despite its early success with online organizing, the post-Obama-campaign field operation can't keep its members fighting Republicans in the ongoing policy battles.

Today the Presidential road show takes its act to Grand Junction, Colo., which has one of the nation's most efficient and effective healthcare systems in the country, the LAT reports. Finally, the Journal has a look at the next potential headache for legislators, in the form of agitating in California against illegal immigrants receiving care.

The bank failures aren't over: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation reached a deal to sell off most of Colonial Bank's branches and $25 billion in assets to BB&T, another Southern-based bank that has weathered the financial crisis relatively well. Colonial had made aggressive real estate loans, which didn't put it in a good position when the string of failures hit last fall. Meanwhile, executive compensation proposals were due Friday from the corporate titans that received bailouts from the federal government—now the administration's "pay czar" has 60 days to make a determination that will bind all seven of them. The Journal notices that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's January promise of rules to curtail lobbyists' say over the $700 billion bailout is still just a promise. Oh, and the automobile industry's free gift, Cash for Clunkers? The top beneficiary so far is Toyota—although the most popular car models, the Corolla and the Camry, are built domestically.

While industrial production nudged up a little, consumer spending isn't showing much sign of recovery. The NYT's economic statistics report accompanies news that nine months after a devastating Christmas shopping season, that other big rush of the year—Back2School!—is looking anemic, at least for the name brands. Wal-Mart and other discount chains are doing a brisk business in bargain-basement deals, while Hollister and Abercrombie struggle to keep inventory moving. The Post takes a gloomier view of the stats, focusing on consumer confidence, which dropped a couple of points despite expectations that it would see a bump in August.

School supplies aren't even on the list for the thousands more families who've become homeless since the economic downturn started, the Post reports, in a trend that's changing the face of the indigent in America. And in another sign of the changing times, the Post takes a look at the burgeoning relaxation drink industry: a nonalcoholic reply to the Red Bull-fueled culture of excess that characterized America pre-September 2008. (TP is uncertain how "Purple Stuff" is better than, say, beer, but will reserve judgment).

With Afghan elections only six days away, the LAT picked up an explosion that hit the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Kabul Saturday morning, killing at least three and injuring at least 70 more. The Taliban has claimed responsibility. The Post continues its profiles of contenders to replace President Hamid Karzai with the Western favorite, Ashraf Ghani. The Columbia-educated former finance minister communicates his detailed anti-corruption programs well in English, but hasn't gotten them across well to the electorate, which now puts him fourth in polls. Meanwhile, the Post also follows U.S. troops into Helmand province, where citizens are unsure whether they should be on America's side or the Taliban's.

In other foreign news: Hillary Clinton debriefs her Africa tour with the Journal, and the death toll from Typhoon Morakot in Taiwan is up to 500 people.

The Journal has the goods on last Saturday's crash of small aircraft over the Hudson river, or at least two federal agencies' respective versions of what went on. The National Transportation Safety Board says that a controller in New Jersey was on a phone call with his girlfriend as he failed to notify the plane of traffic in the area, and then attempted to switch frequencies. The Federal Aviation Administration denies that any action by controllers could have contributed to the crash. Either way, regulators are starting to think about tightening safety restrictions over the river, where two high-profile crashes in recent months have put the public on edge.

Michael Vick is certainly sounding contrite these days, as he seeks to gain the same forgiveness from fans that the Philadelphia Eagles offered in signing him after two years of imprisonment for running a dog-fighting ring. Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie calls himself an "extreme dog-lover" and made being "proactive" in diminishing the level of animal cruelty a condition of Vick's second chance. The Post and LAT both front the story of his last months in prison, during which he was mentored by coach Tony Dungy, who got behind him when Vick expressed an interest in returning to the Christian faith. The Eagles' curiosity became concrete when their backup quarterback was injured—Vick was also in the right place at the right time.

Back in the obit section, breath a sigh of relief when you realize that the Kennedy who died on Friday was not that Ted Kennedy. Although this one seems to have been a tremendous loss for the sport of hockey.

news20090815gc1

[Environment] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Fossil Fuels]
Oil lobby to fund campaign against Obama's climate change strategy
Email from American Petroleum Institute outlines plan to create appearance of public opposition to Obama's climate and energy reform
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent uardian.co.uk, Friday 14 August 2009 19.35 BST Article history

The US oil and gas lobby are planning to stage public events to give the appearance of a groundswell of public opinion against legislation that is key to Barack Obama's climate change strategy, according to campaigners.

A key lobbying group will bankroll and organise 20 ''energy citizen'' rallies in 20 states. In an email obtained by Greenpeace, Jack Gerard, the president of the American Petroleum Institute (API), outlined what he called a "sensitive" plan to stage events during the August congressional recess to put a "human face" on opposition to climate and energy reform.

After the clamour over healthcare, the memo raises the possibility of a new round of protests against a key Obama issue.

"Our goal is to energise people and show them that they are not alone," said Cathy Landry, for API, who confirmed that the memo was authentic.

The email from Gerard lays out ambitious plans to stage a series of lunchtime rallies to try to shape the climate bill that was passed by the house in June and will come before the Senate in September. "We must move aggressively," it reads.

The API strategy also extends to a PR drive. Gerard cites polls to test the effectiveness of its arguments against climate change legislation. It offers up the "energy citizen" rallies as ready-made events, noting that allies – which include manufacturing and farm alliances as well as 400 oil and gas member organisations – will have to do little more than turn up.

"API will provide the up-front resources," the email said. "This includes contracting with a highly experienced events management company that has produced successful rallies for presidential campaigns."

However, it said member organisations should encourage employees to attend to command the attention of senators. "In the 11 states with an industry core, our member company local leadership – including your facility manager's commitment to provide significant attendance – is essential," said the email.

Greenpeace described the meetings as "astroturfing" – events intended to exert pressure on legislators by giving the impression of a groundswell of public opinion. Kert Davies, its research director, said: "It is the behind the scenes plan to disrupt the debate and weaken political support for climate regulation."

The rally sites were chosen to exert maximum pressure on Democrats in conservative areas. The API also included talking points for the rallies – including figures on the costs of energy reform that were refuted weeks ago by the congressional budget office.

The API drive also points to a possible fracturing of the US Climate Action Partnership (Uscap), a broad coalition of corporations and energy organisations which was instrumental in drafting the Waxman-Markey climate change bill that passed in the House of Representatives in June.

Passage of the legislation is seen as crucial to the prospects of getting the world to sign on to a climate change treaty at Copenhagen next December.

Five members of Uscap are also in API, including BP which said its employees were aware of the rallies. Conoco Phillips, which was also a member of the climate action partnership, has also turned against climate change, warning on its website that the legislation will put jobs at risk, and compromise America's energy security. The company is also advertising the energy rallies on its website, urging readers: "Make your voice heard."

However, Shell, also a member of both groups, said it did not support the rallies. Bill Tenner, a spokesman, said: "We are not participating."


[Environment > Copenhagen Climate Change Summit 2009]
UN's climate chief warns of real risk of failure at climate change talks
Yvo de Boer says process too slow to reach deal at close of meeting in Bonn aimed at trimming 200-page draft treaty
David Adam, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 August 2009 18.16 BST Article history

A new global treaty on climate change is unlikely unless negotiations accelerate, the UN's top climate change official warned today. Speaking at the close of another meeting intended to lay the ground for a new deal, Yvo de Boer, head of the UN climate secretariat said there was a real risk of failure.

According to Reuters, he said: "If we continue at this rate we're not going to make it." De Boer said the week-long meeting in Bonn had made only "selective progress" towards trimming a huge 200-page draft treaty text.

He warned that just 15 days of negotiations remain before key UN talks begin in December in Copenhagen at meetings in Bangkok in September and October and Barcelona in November.

The Bonn talks were not expected to make a significant breakthrough. Observers said there was little movement on the key issues of new curbs on greenhouse gas pollution and funds to help poorer nations cope with global warming.

"It is clear that there is quite a significant uphill battle if we are going to get there," said Jonathan Pershing, head of the US delegation, according to Reuters. But he said there were some signs of movement. "You absolutely can get there," he said.

"Delegates spent too much time arguing over procedures and technicalities. This is not the way to overcome mistrust between rich and poor nations," said Kim Carstensen, head of WWF Global Climate Initiative. "Delegates are kept back by political gridlock. The political leaders must now unblock the process."

Mike Childs, head of climate change at Friends of the Earth, said: "Rich countries are once again pushing the con of carbon offsetting at UN climate change talks, which means avoiding real action through dodgy accounting and putting pitifully inadequate targets on the table. Not only does this do nothing to protect people from the threat of runaway climate change, it means the UK will miss out on the new green jobs and industries that would be created by moving to a safe, clean, low-carbon future."

The talks closed as India said the new global climate change agreement should ban trade barriers erected by rich countries against those that refuse to accept limits on their carbon emissions.

India suggested a clause to bar any country from taking action against another country's goods and services based on its climate policy. The clause is largely directed against efforts by US Congress to impose trade penalties on countries that do not commit to specific action against greenhouse gases. India's chief delegate Shyam Saran said such measures looked like "protectionism under a green label," and were complicating the latest round of climate negotiations in Bonn.

Trade issues are "extraneous to what we are trying to construct here, which is a collaborative response to an extraordinary global challenge," Saran told the Associated Press.

news20090815gc2

[Environment] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Coal]
Opencast coalmine surge 'weakens UK's authority at climate change talks'
Britain will be a joke at Copenhagen, warns Nasa scientist James Hansen, as government authorises more mines
Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 August 2009 15.35 BST Article history

Coal production in Britain has increased sharply after a surge in new opencast coal mines, undermining the government's claim to be a world leader on combating climate change.

Dozens of opencast coal mines have been authorised by ministers and local councils across the UK, reversing a decade-long decline in coal production in Britain and often against intense local opposition.

As a result, mining companies are now sitting on 71m tonnes of coal in licensed opencast mines, compared with 55m tonnes in 2007. And over the next few months, the industry is likely to win permission to mine another 15m tonnes from across the UK.

The rise prompted condemnation from leading Nasa climate scientist Prof James Hansen. He said boosting coal production would undermine the UK's position on climate change.

"[The] UK will be a joke. It is moral turpitude, depravity, to build more coal-fired power plants or open coal mines, knowing what we know now," he said. "It was one thing to dig coal when we didn't know the consequences, but quite another thing today."

"The UK would not be in a position to ask anybody else to do anything," he added.

Figures from the Department for Energy and Climate Change (Decc) – which is leading the UK's efforts to persuade world leaders to agree deep cuts in CO2 emissions at the UN's climate summit in Copenhagen in December – indicate that coal production in the UK grew markedly this year.

In the first three months, coal dug from opencast mines, which excavate from the surface, increased by 15%, while Britain's overall coal production went up by almost 10%. Coal imports also increased, by nearly 13%, compared with the same three months of 2008.

The rises will put the UK's claims to be a world leader on climate change and green energy under severe strain in the run-up to the Copenhagen talks.

Ed Miliband, the UK energy and climate minister, has warned that no new coal-fired power station can be built unless it eventually includes carbon capture and storage technology to trap part of its CO2 emissions.

But this technology will not be proven until 2020, and environment campaigners insist the UK must reduce coal and gas use now if ministers are serious about cutting CO2 emission by 34% over the next decade.

Jim Footner, an energy campaigner with Greenpeace, said: "Our domestic policies simply don't stack up. It's difficult to lecture large industrialising countries like China and India about their energy use while we're happily considering new coal-fired power stations and digging coal out at an ever-faster rate."

Environmental groups also accuse ministers of wrecking the countryside by allowing opencast mines to proliferate across southern Wales, northern England, the Midlands and central Scotland. For the first time, opencast mines now produce more coal than traditional underground mines.

Climate activists are now focusing heavily on the coal industry. Protesters have occupied a planned 1.7m tonne opencast site at Mainshill in South Lanarkshire, sabotaging a coal conveyor belt at another site nearby.

Activists in Wales are staging a "climate camp" this weekend near Ffos-y-fran opencast mine near Merthyr Tydfil in south Wales, where 11m tonnes of coal is earmarked for extraction.

Patrick Harvie, leader of the Scottish Green Party, said: "Coal extraction is a dirty business in terms of health impacts, social impacts and environmental impacts – it's not a benign industry in any way. We need to be reducing our reliance on coal now, and looking at alternatives wherever possible."

Ministers in London, Cardiff and Edinburgh are routinely rejecting objections by local residents and in some cases local councils, to push through applications for new opencast mines. Since the 2005 general election, 54 mines have been approved across the UK and only four rejected.

The Scottish government – which boasts it has the world's toughest CO2 reduction targets after pledging to cut emissions by 42% by 2020 – has meanwhile made it easier for the coal industry by relaxing planning regulations on opencast mines.

Alex Salmond, the first minister, is also supporting plans for a new 1600mw coal-fired power station to replace Hunterston nuclear power station on the Clyde. Over the past four years, 25 open cast mines have been approved in Scotland and none refused.

The Decc's figures also show that much of this coal is being stockpiled, with stores now at the highest level for a decade.

By the end of 2008, more than 18m tonnes of coal was being stored – 30% more than in 2007 - suggesting that power companies are building up strategic reserves of coal to prevent electricity blackouts if the UK's energy imports are threatened or prices increase.

Figures from the British Geological Survey, the Decc and the UK Coal Authority, the agency which oversees the industry, show that last year the amount of coal available from existing open cast mines jumped to 54m tonnes, compared with 38m tonnes in 2007.

There was a further 13m tonnes available last year from sites where mining has yet to begin. And this year another 3.7m tonnes of coal has been approved at four new opencast mines. A further 19 opencast mines totalling 14.6m tonnes are now being considered across Britain.

A Decc spokeswoman said: "We don't see this as counter to our climate change message. The UK is at the forefront of global efforts to decarbonise fossil fuels." Ministers are championing carbon-capture technologies by directly funding one scheme and supporting three other projects funded through a new levy on power companies.

"Our policy is that coal will continue to be an important part of the energy mix provided that its potential environmental impact can be managed," she added.

The coal industry argues that it makes economic and strategic sense for the UK to become less reliant on imports from countries such as South Africa, Russia and Columbia. It also claims mining coal in the UK cuts CO2 emissions compared with shipping it from overseas.

Scottish Coal, now the UK's largest opencast mining company, said: "Coal consistently provides up to half of the nation's electricity needs. Therefore it is a resource that is still in demand by power station operators." Its mines supported the UK economy and reduce "the need to import coal from foreign sources which carries a greater environmental cost".


[Environment > Vestas]
Vestas closure protesters end rooftop protest by abseiling down building
Campaigners to keep wind turbine factory open lobby local Tory MP Andrew Turner
Press Association
guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 August 2009 13.29 BST Article history

Climate change protesters today ended their 11-day rooftop protest against the closure of a wind turbine factory.

Vestas Wind Systems ceased blade production work at the company's sites on the Isle of Wight and in Southampton, resulting in 425 employees being made redundant on Wednesday.

The Dutch firm obtained a court order last week after six workers barricaded themselves into its plant on the outskirts of Newport, Isle of Wight, for 18 days in an attempt to delay its closure.

The employees were forced to end their occupation but climate change campaigners also took to the roof of the nearby Vestas Union Jack building in East Cowes on 4 August in solidarity with the workers.

The climate camp protesters abseiled down the side of the building in Venture Quays after 11 days to end their occupation at 11am today, and headed to MP Andrew Turner's constituency office in Newport to lobby for wind power.

Protester Martin Shaw said around 50 people came out to show support with a banner calling for "Wind Power to the People".

"We are protesting for wind turbines and for workers' control, as opposed to government hypocrisy saying climate change is an important issue and yet doing nothing to support this industry," he said. "This industry should be growing and expanding but they are not putting their money where their mouth is."

news20090815sa1

[Environment] from [scientificamerican.com]

[Environment > Automotive Technology]
August 14, 2009
The Great Electric Car Quandary: How to Build a Charging Infrastructure Before Demand Grows
Dozens of new electric-vehicle models from General Motors, Ford, Toyota and others are expected to hit the streets within the next couple of years. Will there be enough juice to keep them moving?
By Larry Greenemeier

Which came first: the electric car or the infrastructure needed to power the electric car? That's one of the key questions that carmakers will have to answer if they ever hope to fill up the freeways with their plug-in vehicles.

Finding an answer won't be easy. Most drivers are hesitant, for the time being, to buy electric vehicles for a number of reasons. For one, even when these cars roll out in volume next year, they'll cost $7,000 to $20,000 more than comparable vehicles with internal combustion gas engines, according to business consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

There's also no guarantee that carmakers won't abandon their electric-car customers (remember General Motors' EV-1?) and move on to some other promising green technology. Energy Secretary Steven Chu may have cut funding for the research and development of hydrogen fuel cells, but Congress could still vote to restore funding. It's also unlikely that Toyota, GM and other companies who've invested in hydrogen technology will want to abandon it at this point.

But perhaps the biggest question for electric vehicles (and hydrogen cars as well) relates to infrastructure. How and where will drivers be able to recharge their all-important lithium-ion batteries, particularly if those drivers venture far from home? In most cases, this means they plan to drive farther than the 160 to 240 kilometers they'll get from a fully charged battery. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated in a report last month that by 2020, purely electric vehicles could represent between 2 and 5 percent of the total output of light vehicles. While certain types of electric vehicles, such as GM's Chevrolet Volt, include range-extending gasoline engines that act as battery chargers, purely electric vehicles, such as Nissan's Leaf, would be solely reliant on the driving range that their battery pack provides.

"Inadequate infrastructure…will delay a widespread shift to electric vehicles," Steve D'Arcy, PricewaterhouseCoopers' global auto leader, said in a prepared statement released along with the company's report. "The lack of an available network of charging stations restricts drivers to short commutes, while it can take several hours to fully recharge an electric vehicle. The space required to place charging stations, coupled with a suitable means for consumers to pay for the electricity they use while charging their vehicles, are open issues."

Fast-charge kiosks
Electric vehicles are propelled by one or more electric motors powered by rechargeable battery packs, which convert 75 percent of the chemical energy from the batteries to power the wheels. (Internal combustion engines convert 20 percent of the energy stored in gasoline.) However, there are relatively few recharging stations in place across the U.S. at this time, with only the state of California having more than 400, and most states having none.

Several companies are vying for an opportunity to put to rest this last concern, which they refer to as "range anxiety." While plug-in hybrids could be successful recharging via a 220-volt outlet, or even a standard 110-volt connection, Monrovia, Calif.-based AeroVironment, Inc., is betting that all-electric vehicles will need their own fast-charging infrastructure in order to be successful. Such an infrastructure would include kiosks that look something like today's gas pumps but could produce 400 to 600 volts, enough electricity to recharge an electric vehicle battery pack in minutes, says Kristen Helsel, AeroVironment's director of electric vehicle chargers.

AeroVironment has met with some success in its plans to develop these kiosks. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office earlier this week granted the company a patent for technology designed to gather data from an electric car or its charger and use the data to determine whether the rate of charge is optimized for the vehicle's performance, the battery's long-term health and the local utility company's power availability. In May, Washington, D.C.'s Department of Transportation, Nissan North America and AeroVironment announced a partnership that they expect will lead to at least 100 fast-charging kiosks throughout D.C. by 2011. The district is also pledging to add Nissan's Leaf to its fleet.

AeroVironment, which helped GM design the ill-fated EV-1, thinks the time is right for electric vehicles and is even working with GM again, this time to develop its all-electric Impact vehicle ("Impact" was also the pre-production name for the EV-1). "Working in electric vehicles' favor this time around is a political environment that appears to be encouraging the use of greener modes of transportation," Helsel says.

Battery swaps
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Better Place promises a different approach to creating an electric car infrastructure by proposing to build drive-through battery exchange stations that use robots on an automated track that slide under the car to swap out weak batteries for newly charged ones within minutes. (The company has produced a video demonstrating this procedure.) Better Place would own the batteries and be responsible for recharging them, taking that responsibility out of drivers' hands, says Sven Thesen, director of Better Place's utility operations and sustainability strategy. According to the company's plan, a driver would sign up for access to this service at the time he or she purchases an electric vehicle and would be charged for a plan similar to the way cell phone services are structured.

Better Place also sells charging posts that could be installed at homes or businesses. "We, as the infrastructure provider, will own and operate these charge stations and swap stations," Thesen says. He claims that the company has already installed 1,000 charge posts in Israel and signed up 30 companies, including IBM and Nike, in that country to provide its charging services to their employees. Israel Railways earlier this month announced that it will install 220 Better Place charging stations at various train stations throughout the country.

Hard Sell
Despite the effort that AeroVironment, Better Place and others are putting into selling the idea of electric cars, "the electric vehicle business is a little premature at the moment," says Andrew Frank, a University of California, Davis, professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering, adding that the main reason for this is the lack of a sufficient charging infrastructure and an unclear plan for who will end up paying for it. Frank cautions that car companies should not expect the public to pitch in. One way to kill the electric car (again) is to ask the public to invest a lot of money in the infrastructure, he says.

Even though Better Place's battery-swap strategy doesn't need to tap into the grid, it still suffers from a lack of resources, namely batteries, Frank says. For Better Place to offer the battery swap-out stations that they're proposing, they're going to need a lot of batteries, he adds, and these batteries will need to fit a variety of car makes and models.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has taken steps to alleviate the battery backlog, this month awarding $2.4 billion in funds for 48 advanced battery and electric drive projects. Johnson Controls, Inc., based in Milwaukee, Wisc., is getting nearly $300 million to make nickel-cobalt-metal battery cells and packs. On the infrastructure side, the DOE is giving $99.8 million to a project led by Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation (eTec), a subsidiary of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based ECOtality, for installation of up to 12,750 charging stations across five markets: Tennessee, Oregon, San Diego, Seattle and the Phoenix/Tucson, Ariz., region. The project also includes the deployment of up to 1,000 Nissan Leaf electric vehicles in each market.

Despite these gestures, Frank is outspoken in his support for plug-in gas-electric hybrids in the near term because they will cut fuel consumption without requiring a massive charging infrastructure. The prime alternative to the high-power, quick-charging stations that AeroVironment and others propose is to use the existing infrastructure of 110-volt outlets that offer low power and take much longer to charge, a situation that fits very well with the current crop of hybrid cars already on the road, Frank says, adding, "plug-in hybrids are good for the short term, which could be 50 years."

news20090815sa2

[Environment] from [scientificamerican.com]

[Environment > Climatology]
August 14, 2009
Can the World Unite to Combat Climate Change?
Ongoing negotiations on an international agreement continue to face significant disagreement
By Paul Voosen

The latest round of preparatory talks for the U.N. climate conference concluded today with negotiators lamenting that the languid pace of talks could mean there won't be a deal on emissions in Copenhagen this December.

"It would be incomprehensible if this opportunity were lost," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. For any hope of a deal, he said, "the speed of the negotiations must be considerably accelerated at the [next] meeting in Bangkok."

The United States' lead climate negotiator, Jonathan Pershing, added to the warnings.

"If we don't have more movement and more consensus than we saw here, we won't have an agreement," Pershing said.

Though the problems were many, there were also glimmers of hope in the current round, such as a collective agreement on what should be done, said Anders Turesson, Sweden's lead climate negotiator and chairman of the E.U. working group.

"What we're talking about is a profound change of industrial civilization," Turesson said. "It would be surprising if there weren't stumbling blocks."

The negotiators were wrapping up a week of talks in Bonn, Germany, aimed at narrowing the number of options in the 200-page main negotiating document. This text, which will serve as the basis for negotiations for the successor to 1997's Kyoto Protocol, is currently inundated with some 2,000 bracketed statements highlighting areas of disagreement.

"We seem to be afloat on a sea of brackets," de Boer said. The document has not been significantly slimmed down in the week's discussions.

Much debate hinges on whether the U.S. Senate will pass climate legislation this fall. Pershing made it clear that the United States will use whatever domestic legislation it passes as the basis for its carbon reduction agreements.

"Our focus is not to repeat Kyoto," Pershing said, recalling the climate treaty that the United States helped negotiate but the Senate did not ratify.

The rosiest interpretations of the House's recently passed climate bill would see U.S. greenhouse gas emissions dropping by up to 13 percent from 1990 levels, de Boer said, well below commitments made by the European Union to reduce its emissions by 20 percent.

In the end, Europeans want to be on comparative terms with the Americans, Turesson said. How that will be accomplished is unclear, given the domestic limits the United States faces.

The U.S. position is that the agreement that will emerge, rather than mandating a single percentage cut that will be met by every wealthy nation, "is something [that will be] conceived country by country," Pershing said.

From developing nations, the United States is seeking not legally binding targets but legally binding actions, Pershing said. One such example would be a quantified commitment from Brazil on how it will tackle deforestation.

Developing nations have been seeking financing from developed countries if they are to limit their emissions and adapt to climate change. So far, there has not been one proposal from developed nations that would raise more than $10 billion a year for such funding, negotiators said.

Meanwhile, the commitments currently on the table from industrial countries will only reduce emissions between 10 and 16 percent from 1990 levels, according to Dessima Williams, the permanent representative of Grenada to the United Nations and chairwoman of the Alliance of Small Island States.

Unless changed, these pledges will lead to temperature change of more than 3 degrees Celsius, Williams said.

Such a temperature increase is well above the goal agreed to by the world's wealthiest nations at the Group of Eight summit in L'Aquila, Italy, last month. There, countries including the United States, Canada and Russia agreed to cap global warming at 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

In its most recent report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change identified a 25 percent to 40 percent cut in emissions from 1990 levels as necessary to avoid the worst effects of climate change: heat waves, floods, droughts and rising sea levels.

More than 2,000 representatives met in Bonn this week. The consultation, which was characterized as "informal," is the latest in a series of meetings leading up to the U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen this December. Further meetings will take place in Bangkok in late September and Barcelona, Spain, in November.