news20090820bil

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]
August 20
Eero Saarinen
Born this day in 1910 in Finland, Eero Saarinen, the son of noted architect Eliel Saarinen, was one of the leaders in a trend toward exploration and experiment in American architectural design in the 1950s.

[On This Day] from [Britannica]
August 20
1975: Viking 1 launched
The robotic U.S. spacecraft Viking 1, built to explore the surface of Mars, was launched this day in 1975 and nearly one year later landed on Chryse Planitia, a flat lowland region in the northern hemisphere of the planet.

1968: The Warsaw Pact nations (except Romania and Albania), led by the Soviet Union, invaded Czechoslovakia to put an end to the Prague Spring.

1960: Senegal seceded from the Mali Federation, declaring its full independence.

1940: Leon Trotsky was assassinated by a Stalinist agent in Mexico.

1914: The German army captured Brussels during the initial German invasion of World War I.

1889: Labour activists closed the entire Port of London in the London Dock Strike.

1865: Austria and Prussia signed the Convention of Gastein, an agreement that temporarily postponed the final struggle between them for hegemony over Germany.

1833: Benjamin Harrison, a moderate Republican who became the 23rd president of the United States (1889–93) despite losing the popular vote by more than 95,000 to Democrat Grover Cleveland, was born in North Bend, Ohio.

1794: U.S. General “Mad” Anthony Wayne defeated the Northwest Indian Confederation in the Battle of Fallen Timbers.

1741: Danish explorer Vitus Bering, who was working for Russia, encountered Alaska.

1619: It is thought that slaves were first brought to the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia.


[Today's Word] from [Dr. Kazuo Iwata
[英語・一日一言] [岩田 一男 元一橋大学教授]
August 19
Behold, now is the accepted time;
behold, now is the day of salvation.
Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
    William Booth (died this day in 1912)

見よ、今は恵みの時なり、
Mi-yo ima-wa megumi-no toki-nari,
見よ、今は救いの日なり。
Mi-yo ima-wa sukui-no hi-nari.
汝恐れおののきて己が救いを全うせよ。
Nanji osore ononoki-te onore-ga sukui-wo mattou-seyo.


[日英混文稿]

news20090820jt1

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
New flu kills third in span of five days
Pandemic back with vengeance
Kyodo News

The H1N1 swine flu pandemic claimed its third victim Wednesday as Nagoya health authorities confirmed that an 81-year-old woman from the city died early in the morning.

Separately, at least five children hit by the new influenza, in Okinawa and Kumamoto prefectures and Kawasaki, were in serious condition and four were on artificial respirators as of Wednesday evening, local governments said.

The latest death prompted health minister Yoichi Masuzoe to warn that the H1N1 flu pandemic, or "shingata infuruenza" (new-type influenza), may be back with a vengeance.

Masuzoe said further attempts would be made to protect those most vulnerable to the flu — young people, pregnant women and those with chronic illnesses — by disseminating information on the highly infectious disease, which shut down several schools in the Kansai region after rapidly infecting hundreds of people, mostly high-school students, in late spring.

The three children in Okinawa include two girls, aged 11 and 13, and a 1-year-old boy. All were hospitalized after developing serious fevers and flu symptoms. The Kawasaki patient is a 6-year-old boy, and the one in Amakusa, Kumamoto Prefecture, is an elementary school girl who had an asthma attack.

The Nagoya woman marks the third domestic fatality linked to the new flu in five days. First a 57-year-old Okinawa man died Saturday, then a 77-year-old Kobe man succumbed Tuesday.

Nagoya officials said the woman had other underlining illnesses — multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer, and a weak heart. She died of acute pneumonia.

The Nagoya woman, who had never been abroad, was moved to an isolation ward Saturday after developing a 39.5-degree fever and severe coughing after hospitalization Thursday. She was belatedly diagnosed with H1N1 Tuesday.

Doctors said they thought she had pneumonia.

"If we had conducted a (flu) test at an earlier stage, we could have offered a different treatment," Makoto Utsumi, deputy head of Nagoya Medical Center, said Wednesday.

Utsumi said the doctors did their best and it would have been extremely difficult to spot the disease earlier.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said the deaths would not affect access to the Aug. 30 general election and no restrictions will be put on people's movements.

The National Institute of Infectious Diseases said Tuesday the number of influenza patients reported per medical institution in Japan, considered mostly H1N1 patients, was at "near-epidemic" levels.

Also, at least five players from a Shimane high school competing in the National High School Baseball Championship at Koshien Stadium in Hyogo Prefecture also tested positive for H1N1, officials said.

The flu bug has spread to the pro league as well. On Tuesday, three more players and a coach for the Nippon Ham Fighters tested positive for the flu, formally called influenza A (H1N1), after rookie catcher Shota Ono came down with it earlier.

All key players on the Sapporo-based team underwent flu checks at a hospital in the city Tuesday, but no one tested positive, including ace pitcher Yu Darvish, 23, and Manager Masataka Nashida.

The man in Kobe, whose name was not released, had several previously existing diseases, Kobe officials said. He lived in Tarumi Ward and was the second fatality in Japan linked to the virus. He had pulmonary emphysema, diabetes, high blood pressure and renal failure and was undergoing kidney dialysis three times a week. Although treated with Tamiflu, he died because the flu triggered acute bronchitis, which exacerbated his pulmonary emphysema and eventually killed him, the officials said.

After developing a fever of 39 Sunday, he went to a doctor the next day. Suspecting pneumonia, the doctor tested him for H1N1 but found nothing. The virus was confirmed later.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
Roos arrives early, is sworn in as new U.S. ambassador
By JUN HONGO
Staff writer

NARITA, Chiba Pref. — New U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos arrived in Tokyo Wednesday pledging to further strengthen bilateral ties and solidify the bond he called the cornerstone of Washington's Asia-Pacific policies.

Roos, sworn in as ambassador Monday, will fill the spot left open since the January departure Thomas Schieffer.

"I am deeply honored to be the U.S. ambassador to this great nation of Japan," Roos told reporters at Narita airport. "Ties between our two countries are unique," he added, expressing hope that Tokyo and Washington continue to play further roles together in promoting security, stability and democratic values in the world.

Roos also touched on his hopes on collaborating with Japan on creating new technology, saying that as "two of the most innovative nations in the world," the two can address new measures against climate change and energy security.

Roos was accompanied by his wife, Susie, and daughter Lauren, 22, and son David, 17.

While some speculated that the arrival — originally expected to take place in September — was brought forward due to the beginning of the school semester for Roos' children, others say domestic uncertainty in the political situation necessitated the earlier than expected arrival.

Roos sets foot in Japan with a historic change of power widely expected in the Aug. 30 election, as the Democratic Party of Japan, the largest opposition party, holds a commanding lead in opinion polls.

With the next prime minister expected to be absent in mid-September to attend the U.N. General Assembly and U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Japan scheduled in November, Roos will have his plate full from the start.

The virtually unknown California-based lawyer, whose nomination as ambassador came as a surprise to most bureaucrats and lawmakers, has it all to prove as the top U.S. representative in Tokyo.

While government officials have expressed optimism due to the strong personal ties between Roos and Obama, brushing off concerns at his lack of diplomatic experience will be a tricky task.

During the Senate confirmation hearing earlier this month, Roos called U.S.-Japan bilateral ties the "cornerstone" of Washington's Asia policies.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
Tests on Sakai hair sample reveal traces of amphetamine
Kyodo News

Small traces of an amphetamine-type drug have been detected in a hair sample from singer-turned-actress Noriko Sakai, who was arrested earlier this month for possession, investigative sources said Wednesday.

The results are expected to strengthen the hand of the police, who have been attempting to prove the 38-year-old star, who admitted inhaling the illegal drug since last summer, was recently using it despite producing a negative urine sample. The Metropolitan Police Department plans to conduct more tests on Sakai's hair to determine when and how frequently the former pop idol may have been using the stimulant, they said.

Sakai was arrested upon turning herself in Aug. 8 after vanishing for nearly a week following the arrest of her husband, Yuichi Takaso, 41, for alleged stimulant possession.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
Suzuki sides with DPJ, sees dual polls in '10
By TAKAHIRO FUKADA
Staff writer

SAPPORO — Muneo Suzuki, leader of Hokkaido's New Party Daichi, said elections for both chambers of the Diet could be held simultaneously next year if the opposition camp secures a huge win in the Aug. 30 House of Representatives poll.

Suzuki, a former Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker, is seeking re-election to the Diet in the upcoming poll and his party is fielding three other candidates. He was convicted of bribery in 2004, lost his first appeal and has another one before the Supreme Court. If that fails, so would any chance of being in the Diet.

Suzuki left the LDP under a cloud in 2002 and lost his seat when the lower chamber was dissolved in 2003.

Suzuki said in a recent interview that the opposition forces, led by the Democratic Party of Japan, are sure to win a majority on Aug. 30 and political realignment is possible.

"To realize regime change, we will win a majority," he said. "This is the minimum condition. . . . We (opposition forces) will certainly be able to win."

Suzuki's party is maintaining an alliance with the DPJ in the election campaign.

If a DPJ-led government takes office, Suzuki said policies will be implemented to take care of the people.

He also said Japan-Russia ties will enter a new phase as the two countries will move toward resolving a long-standing territorial dispute over Russian-held isles off Hokkaido that Soviet forces seized in the dying days of the war.

While opinion polls suggest the DPJ has a strong chance of winning the Aug. 30 poll, Suzuki noted the result may bring political repercussions, without elaborating.

"If (opposition parties) score a large win, a simultaneous election of the Upper and Lower houses may also be held next year," he said. "Depending on how we win, political realignment is also possible."

Those elected Aug. 30 get a four-year term, and usually only in times of political turmoil would a prime minister cut this short by dissolving the chamber for an election.

news20090820jt2

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
Overseas voters off to early start
Kyodo News

Early ballots were cast Wednesday for the Aug. 30 Lower House election by voters living overseas, with embassies in Sydney, Beijing and Seoul opening polling sites.

The Democratic Party of Japan is widely forecast to win, ending more than five decades of nearly uninterrupted rule by the Liberal Democratic Party.

Overseas voters appeared eager to cast their ballots in the pivotal poll.

"LDP rule has continued just too long," corporate executive Yushiro Mizukoshi, 55, said at a polling booth set up at the Japanese Embassy in Sydney. "The biggest problem is the party's corrupt ties with the bureaucracy."

Early voting also began Wednesday in Beijing.

"This is the first time I have voted as a Japanese overseas. The domestic situation is a matter of concern because we live away from Japan," said Naoki Aoyama, 41, an executive with a trade group. "Japanese leaders have changed in succession in a short time. Japan's political situation should be stabilized."

Many embassy officials said the number of inquiries about the voting procedure is much higher than for the previous Lower House election, in 2005.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
Sugaya files objection after being barred from voting
Kyodo News

The defense counsel of a 62-year-old man believed wrongly convicted of a 1990 murder in Ashikaga, Tochigi Prefecture, has filed an objection with a local election committee over its decision to bar him from voting in the Aug. 30 general election.

The defense team for Toshikazu Sugaya, who is expected to be acquitted of the murder of a 4-year-old girl in a yet-to-be-scheduled retrial, on Tuesday blasted the decision by the city of Ashikaga's committee as "unjust."

The defense lawyers said they had asked the election committee on Aug. 12 to restore Sugaya's right to vote so he could participate in the Aug. 30 House of Representatives election.

But the committee turned down the request, saying his guilt, finalized by a 2000 Supreme Court ruling, would not lose its validity even if there is a retrial or the sentence is suspended, according to the lawyers.

Under the law, someone who has been convicted is not eligible to vote until the sentence is completed.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
Entrepreneur checks on 'Shibuya gal' rice farm

AKITA (Kyodo) Young entrepreneur Shiho Fujita, known for her trademark "Shibuya gal" look, has caught media attention by starting up a rice farm. And her latest visit to her paddies in the village of Ogata, Akita Prefecture, to check out the crop has her back in the spotlight.

At first glance, Fujita, 24, looks no different from many other girls walking in the streets of the Shibuya district in Tokyo, the country's fashion and entertainment center for young people.

Since starting up a marketing firm targeting young females at age 19, Fujita has grabbed the hearts of young girls. Currently, she is focusing on growing Akita rice and marketing it under the brand Shibuya Rice.

Fujita's rice farming project is dubbed Nogyaru — a combination of "nogyo" ("agriculture") and "gyaru"("girls")

"I forgot to put sunscreen on," Fujita said as she worked on her farm along with three other young women, wearing colorful boots and gloves for the work.

Their appearance caught the attention of local high school girls.

"This is totally new. Girls like models are farming," said Kana Sato, 18, as she watched them work.

Rural areas have long seen young people fleeing to cities after they reach working age and the number of young farmers keeps falling with no end in sight. This is one of the reasons why some farmers decided to lease 24 hectares of paddies to Fujita.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
Policy bureau eyed under DPJ rule
Kyodo News

The Democratic Party of Japan, assuming it wins the Aug. 30 election, wants to establish a new policymaking bureau at its first Cabinet meeting, possibly in mid-September, to let a DPJ-led government swiftly begin translating its campaign pledges into action, party sources said Wednesday.

Via the bureau, the DPJ-led government would immediately revise the supplementary budget for the current fiscal year and compile a new budget for the next fiscal year to put into action policies proposed in the party's campaign platform, the sources said.

To ensure the bureaucracy is hobbled so lawmakers can engage in unified policymaking, the DPJ would have a senior Cabinet member serve as state minister in charge of the new bureau as well as being the party's policy chief.

Acting DPJ leader Naoto Kan has said the party would cancel and recompile the \4.36 trillion portion of the supplementary budget that is to be disbursed to 46 funds.

A controversial \11.7 billion project to build a state-run animation center would be canceled, and any funds made available through the closure would be used to restore single-mother allowances.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
Renowned soprano Behrens dies in Tokyo
The Associated Press

Soprano Hildegard Behrens, one of the finest Wagnerian performers of her generation, has died while traveling in Japan. She was 72.

Jonathan Friend, artistic administrator of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, said Tuesday in an e-mail message to opera officials that Behrens felt unwell while traveling to a festival near Tokyo. She went to a Tokyo hospital, where she died of an apparent aneurysm.

Friend's e-mail was shared with AP by Jack Mastroianni, director of IMG Artists.

Her funeral was planned in Vienna.

Organizers for Behrens' Japan visit said she was here to give lessons at the hot-spring resort town of Kusatsu, Gunma Prefecture, from Aug. 21 to 29. The lessons were being sponsored by the Kanshinetsu Music Association.

The organizers refused to comment further.

A Web site for the Kusatsu Summer Music Festival said Behrens' performances had been canceled, but gave no further details. It said she was to perform Thursday.

Behrens was among the finest actors on the opera stage during a professional career that spanned more than three decades. She made her professional stage debut in Freiburg as the Countess in Mozart's "Le Nozze di Figaro" in 1971 and made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Giorgetta in Puccini's "Il Tabarro" in 1976.

One of her breakthrough roles came the following year, when she sang the title role in Strauss' "Salome" at the Salzburg Festival in Austria.

She gave 171 performances at the Met, where she appeared until 1999. Her breakthrough there came as Leonore in Beethoven's "Fidelio" under conductor Karl Boehm in 1980. She was most acclaimed in the late 1980s and early 1990s for her portrayal of Bruennhilde in the Otto Schenk production of the Ring Cycle, the Met's first televised staging of Wagner's tetralogy.

"She is the finest Bruennhilde of the post-Birgit Nilsson era," AP critic Mike Silverman wrote in 1989. "Though she lacks the overpowering vocal resources of a great Wagnerian soprano, she makes up for that with dramatic intensity as she changes before our eyes from a frisky young Valkyrie to a passionate and then betrayed lover, and finally to a compassionate woman whose sacrifice returns the ring to its rightful owners, the Rhinemaidens."

She recorded Isolde in Munich in 1981 with conductor Leonard Bernstein and received praise for her Bruennhilde with conductor Georg Solti at the Bayreuth Festival in 1983. Her "Tosca" at the Met, opposite Placido Domingo's Cavaradossi, is preserved on video along with her Met Ring Cycle.

According to Behren's official Web site, she was born in the north German town of Varel-Oldenburg. Her parents were both doctors and she and her five siblings studied piano and violin as children. It said she earned a law degree from the University of Freiburg, where she was also in the choir.

news20090820jt3

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
DPJ to shed light on secret pacts
Pledge to declassify documents could harm relations with U.S.
By JUN HONGO
Staff writer

Will the Democratic Party of Japan shine a light on the government's darkest security secrets if elected to power, and if so, how will this affect relations with the United States?

The DPJ, the largest opposition party and predicted winner of the Aug. 30 election, has pledged to disclose some of the secret pacts between Tokyo and Washington that were kept hidden from the public during decades of rule by the Liberal Democratic Party.

But while some argue that putting such information into the public sphere is in line with the nature of democracy, others point out that declassifying Japan's worst-kept secret may come at a cost.

"Secret pacts are a part of diplomacy, but they need to be made public after a certain period," said Takashi Kawakami, a professor of security issues at Takushoku University.

"But it is also true that if the government acknowledges secret agreements, for example on Okinawa's return to Japan, it could influence anti-American sentiments or plans on relocation of U.S. bases," he added.

The LDP has hidden a good number of skeletons in the government closet, most notably the secret pact with Washington on U.S. ships and aircraft carrying nuclear weapons stopping over in Japan. Details of this arrangement, under which Japan agrees to turn a blind eye to such stopovers, have been confirmed by declassified U.S. diplomatic documents.

In June, former Vice Foreign Minister Ryohei Murata told the media that bureaucrats would customarily inform foreign ministers about the agreement. But Tokyo has yet to acknowledge its existence, maintaining no such accord was made.

Other secrets during the long years of LDP rule are believed to include a 1971 agreement under which Tokyo shouldered $4 million in costs for Okinawa's reversion to Japan. The claim has been backed by U.S. government documents and former Japanese diplomats, but Tokyo has still not acknowledged making the payment.

The DPJ, heading toward the Lower House election with a healthy lead over the LDP in opinion polls, has said it will search in every nook and cranny of the Foreign Ministry for documents that prove LDP-led governments concealed information from the public. DPJ Secretary General Katsuya Okada has vowed that such documents, if found, will be made public.

Some claim denying the existence of secret pacts benefited Japan's security by serving as a deterrent, especially during the Cold War. Thus by not acknowledging there were any U.S. nuclear weapons in the country, Tokyo kept the Soviet Union and China constantly guessing and unsure of its defense capabilities, and could claim at home that Japan's three nonnuclear principles, of not producing, possessing or permitting entry of atomic arms into the country.

But there have been recent internal moves within the LDP to make such information public, with Taro Kono, chairman of the Lower House Foreign Affairs Committee, urging the government to come clean on the matter.

"Documents and testimony have been made over the issue in the U.S," the LDP lawmaker wrote on his Web site, adding there will be no issues even if the government takes back its previous denials.

Asked to comment on Kono's demand, Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone told reporters in July that no secret pacts ever existed — the position his predecessors and past prime ministers maintained.

Robert Eldridge, director of the U.S.-Japan Alliance Affairs Division at Osaka University, said the Lower House election could decide whether such documents are brought to light.

The expert on U.S.-Japan relations said disclosure of past secret agreements will be necessary for an honest exchange of opinions between the two nations, which would open up talks on how the U.S. nuclear umbrella can continue to provide regional security. Denial of an evident fact, on the other hand, may put off frank discussions and influence bilateral trust on both the government and public level.

The debate on disclosure should also include setting a standard on which documents can be disclosed and after how long, Eldridge added.

One possibility could be for Japan to disclose information concurrently with the other country, for example by revealing the same amount of information simultaneously with the U.S. That would prevent Japan from being the odd man out in denying the accord on stopovers by vessels and aircraft carrying nuclear arms, even though U.S. documents have confirmed this, Eldridge said.

"The government will continue to appear opaque to the public's eye as long as the information remains secret," he added.

But many doubt that concealed documents will surface if the DPJ takes power, since it would be solid proof that past administrations, as well as Foreign Ministry bureaucrats, blatantly lied to the public.

If the DPJ demands the release of the documents, the ministry is likely to avoid coming clean by showing past surveys that concluded there are no secret pacts.

Some observers say the ministry is expected to stand by the outcome of a 1981 investigation that took place after former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Edwin Reischauer told the media of the secret pact's existence. The investigation turned up no evidence of such documents, the ministry said.

In addition, media reports indicate that the Foreign Ministry destroyed any proof that would verify the secret pact sometime before the enactment of the information disclosure law in April 2001.

Any breakthrough may depend on who becomes foreign minister, Osaka University's Eldridge said.

In 1996, then health minister Naoto Kan, the current DPJ deputy president, opened a Pandora's box when he revealed that thousands of people, mainly hemophiliacs, had contracted HIV from tainted blood products that the ministry, much earlier forewarned by the U.S. about the dangers of unheated blood products, could have and should have banned, instead of allowing drug firms to continue providing. His move effectively opened litigation floodgates and led to criminal charges.

Researchers and the public can also play a role in disclosure of information by raising their voice for transparency in foreign affairs, Eldridge said.

But if elected to power, the question arises as to whether the DPJ could manage foreign affairs without signing any secret pacts of its own.

"The DPJ's Hatoyama has taken positions on some intricate issues, such as calling for the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to be relocated outside Okinawa (in defiance of a bilateral pact)," Takushoku University's Kawakami said, doubting whether the see-through policy could be applied to such detailed and complex diplomatic negotiations.

The foreign affairs expert also remained uncertain about whether the relatively novice DPJ could handle the complex give-and-take nature of diplomacy to begin with.

Ironically, Kawakami also said the DPJ will have a tough time carrying the burden of a secret pact if it ever signs one.

With the DPJ being a mixed assortment of liberals and conservatives, its diplomatic policies are believed to be more diverse than the LDP.

"The party is an ensemble of lawmakers from a variety of backgrounds. It will break into pieces if a certain group tries something as risky as signing a secret pact," he said.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
Art galleries target youths
Kyodo News

Reform-minded art gallery managers in Tokyo's Ginza district are welcoming new kinds of guests, including first-timers and children, with tours to encourage and nurture potential patrons in an attempt to weather the economic downturn.

Ginza Yanagi Gallery Co., a major gallery operator, is leading a joint project with more than 10 other galleries, accepting guests on tours a few times a month in the upscale shopping district, which is dotted with some 200 galleries.

In July, a group of six, including office workers, took part in a tour of five galleries featuring both Western and Japanese paintings.

The guests, taking advantage of the opportunity to talk to gallery operators, asked several questions about the trade, inquiring about such things as the differences between pictures with frames and without them, and the dissimilarity between paintings drawn with mineral pigments and oil colors.

"I didn't want to go to a gallery by myself. But this tour helped me visit one more easily," one participant said.

The minimum price of such tours, including professional lectures and sweets, is ¥2,000.

Yoko Noro, vice president of the art company, said the industry needs reform.

"The art market was too tied up with financial instruments, thus making it hard for ordinary people to approach it," Noro said.

The galleries also tried to increase younger clients by offering a tour of four galleries to 60 third-graders from Taimei Elementary School in Ginza the same month.

news20090820jt4

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

[BUSINESS NEWS]
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
TAKING A CHANCE
Starting up Net portal for women turns into lifetime career choice
By HIROKO NAKATA
Staff writer

Kikuko Yano was searching for a job she could do her entire life, and found it in the Internet firm she started on her own.

Yano's career as a magazine editor helped her found cafeglobe.com, a front-runner in Internet portals catering to working Japanese women.

Yano founded the site in 1999, when Internet use began proliferating in Japan. The site (www.cafeglobe.com) began drawing attention for its wide range of content, which includes not only fashion, but also economics and politics — topics women's magazines usually avoid.

The site has been a success. It currently draws about 400,000 visitors a month — larger than most monthly magazines — and logs about 8 million page views.

The first thing the company had going for itself was timing.

"The era of the Internet was coming, so I thought I should start the Web site as soon as possible," the 47-year-old president told The Japan Times in an interview.

Cafeglobe.com advanced quickly, chalking up its first monthly profit in March 2001 and first annual profit in 2003.

Another plus has been its e-commerce platform.

The portal conducts marketing on visitors, mostly working women in their 20s and 30s, and sells clothing, shoes, cosmetics and other goods online.

But launching the company was not easy. When Yano began working as a magazine editor more than 20 years ago, she found herself spending countless days and nights on the job. That was when she started wondering how long she'd be able to keep it up. Until her 60s? Unlikely.

"I wondered what I could do to work on the front lines as long as I live," Yano said.

Kikuko Yano's career highlights
1985 — Joins Nikkei Business Publications Inc.

1986 — Becomes a freelance writer and editor.

1999 — Establishes cafeglobe.com and opens Web site.

2000 — Cafeglobe.com begins Web consulting and Web page production business.

2001 — Cafeglobe.com logs first monthly profit.

2003 — Cafeglobe.com starts e-commerce business and generates first annual profit.


The idea nagged her for a few years. Then she made the decision to quit her job and become a doctor. She started attending a preparatory school to pass the entrance exam for medical school.

"I thought that doctor and lawyer jobs were those worth betting one's life on," she said, adding that the idea stemmed from all the health stories featured in magazines.

But her dream ran into a major setback after 20 months when, after passing the test for a private medical school, she failed to get into a public one. There was no way she could afford the extremely high tuition at the private school.

Yano continued to study anyway with plans to try again the next year but soon found that she was unable to support herself. So she returned to her original life, spending 24 hours a day as a magazine editor.

But things were different this time, thanks to a feature story that changed her life at age 31. The topic: "Japanese women who work across the world."

"I thought the topic was the only one I could do then, physically and mentally," she said. So she applied for a related job.

She spent three to four years traveling in the United States, Europe, Singapore and Hong Kong to interview working Japanese women. The interviews moved her, she said, because these people were directly experiencing political and social tensions outside Japan and naturally had a better understanding of politics and economics — two topics many Japanese women are unfamiliar with, she said.

That was when she decided to start her own business.

Yano set up shop on the Internet in November 1999, and the rest is history. Her site runs a column on domestic political news and offers news reports from more than 50 cities around the world.

The highest hurdle Yano had to overcome was her unfamiliarity with business management.

"I'm totally a layperson in the fields of business management because all I had done was just work as a magazine editor," Yano said.

The fact that the Internet was such a new industry at the time was a plus for Yano, and many people have given her advice on dealing with the ins and outs of running a business.

Still, Japan is not a good place for entrepreneurs compared with the United States, where the whole idea of Internet startups was born, she said.

"It is not comfortable to start a business in Japan. People didn't learn it was an option to start up a firm, and there are few people who succeed in doing it around you," she said.

Although Yano admitted the global economic slump is weighing on her business, she believes she made the right decision.

"I had a job that I wanted to do, and there was no other option for me but starting up a new business in order to continue what I wanted to do," she said.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
Exports to China place a first first
Kyodo News

China was Japan's biggest trading partner in both exports and imports in the January to June period of this year, with exports to China surpassing those to the United States for the first time ever, the Japan External Trade Organization said Wednesday.

Although exports to China fell 25.3 percent from a year earlier to $46.5 billion and imports from the country dropped 17.8 percent to $56.2 billion, trading with other countries and regions, including the United States, showed larger declines, JETRO said in its report.

While the total value of the two-way trade in the half-year period with China slid 21.4 percent, the trade with China accounted for 20.4 percent of the total, while that with the United States accounted for 13.7 percent and that with South Korea 6.1 percent.

The data were calculated by JETRO based on yen-denominated trade figures released by the Finance Ministry.

But JETRO said Japan's trade with China is almost certain to contract in 2009 for the first time since 1998, when bilateral trade was affected by the Asian currency crisis.

In order for Japan-China trade to see a recovery, it is necessary that advanced nations' economies recover and give China greater external demand, a JETRO official said.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
Toyota raises 2009 global production target

NAGOYA (Kyodo) Toyota Motor Corp. has raised its parent-only global production target for 2009 to 5.95 million units, up 150,000 units from its initial forecast in May amid signs of recovery in auto sales due to worldwide stimulus measures, sources said Wednesday.

The automaker has received robust orders for its new Prius and Lexus hybrids thanks to recent government tax breaks and subsidies introduced in Japan for fuel-efficient cars.

In addition to reduction in inventories due to heavy production cuts, auto demand has also been picking up elsewhere due to other support measures worldwide, including the Cash for Clunkers incentive program introduced in the United States and similar programs in Europe.

Toyota has already notified its key auto parts suppliers of the revised target in view of the number of car orders it has received recently, the sources said.

In 2008, Toyota produced 8.21 million units globally.

news20090820jt5

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

[BUSINESS NEWS]
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
Toyota to buy lithium-ion batteries from Sanyo Electric for hybrids

NAGOYA (Kyodo) Toyota Motor Corp. is looking to procure lithium-ion batteries from Sanyo Electric Co. to widen the number of suppliers for its increasingly popular gas-electric hybrid vehicles, sources said Wednesday.

The quality of Sanyo's batteries is "high," a senior Toyota official said. Osaka-based Sanyo, which is scheduled to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Panasonic Corp., also supplies nickel metal hydride batteries for Honda Motor Co.'s Insight hybrid.

Toyota plans to install Sanyo's batteries, which are lighter and more powerful than the nickel metal hydride batteries currently used in the Prius and Toyota's other hybrids, in the minivan-type hybrid it is expected to launch in 2011. The company will likely procure enough supplies to make around 10,000 units per year, the sources said.

Toyota may also use them in plug-in hybrids or electric vehicles that can be charged using the household electricity grid.

Sanyo plans to produce the batteries at its new factory in Kasai, Hyogo Prefecture, which is scheduled to be completed next July, they added.

Toyota has a joint venture with Panasonic called Panasonic EV Energy Co. that produces rechargeable batteries for hybrids, but production is far behind booming orders for the redesigned Prius. If customers want to order the hybrid now, they will have to wait until after the government subsidy for energy-efficient cars expires at the end of March.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
Nissan all moved in at new HQ

Political pitchman: Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi (center) is introduced as Nissan Motor Co. CEO Garlos Ghosn (far left), Kanagawa Gov. Shigefumi Matsuzawa (second from left), and Yokohama Mayor Hiroshi Nakada (second from right) applaud at the company's headquarters on Aug. 2. AP PHOTO

YOKOHAMA (Kyodo) About 2,800 Nissan Motor Co. employees started their first day of work Wednesday at the company's new headquarters in Yokohama's Minato Mirai district.

It's been 41 years since the automaker was last headquartered in Yokohama, the place of its birth. The company plans to sell the building that housed its previous headquarters in Tokyo's Ginza district.

The company also relocated its showroom to the new HQ.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
JAL also to resume fuel surcharges
Kyodo News

Japan Airlines said Wednesday it will resume fuel surcharges on international flights for three months from October due to a rebound in fuel prices.

For tickets issued between Oct. 1 and Nov. 30, JAL will charge a one-way surcharge of ¥10,000 on flights between Japan and Brazil, ¥7,000 on routes between Japan and North America or Europe and ¥1,500 on services between Japan and China.

The surcharges are comparable with those announced Tuesday by All Nippon Airways.

ANA said it will resume fuel surcharges for two months from October, instead of three months as in the past, in order to allow a more flexible response to market changes.

But JAL decided to reinstate three-month surcharges because more frequent changes in fares may confuse customers, the carrier said.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
Suntory to debut nonalcoholic beer
Kyodo News

Suntory Liquors Ltd. said Tuesday it will launch a nonalcoholic drink that tastes similar to beer called Suntory Fine Zero in late September, adding to the already keen competition to sell such beverages.

The new drink will hit the market Sept. 29 to compete with Kirin Brewery Co.'s Kirin Free, launched in April, and Asahi Breweries Ltd.'s Asahi Point Zero, which will debut Sept. 1.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
Sony cuts price of PlayStation 3
Pressure mounts on rivals Microsoft, Nintendo to follow suit amid slowing sales
Bloomberg

Sony Corp. has cut the price of its PlayStation 3 console by 25 percent, bowing to demands from game publishers and increasing pressure on industry leader Nintendo Co. to follow.

The PlayStation 3's price will be $299 in the United States starting Wednesday, with comparable reductions in Europe and Japan, the Tokyo-based company said at a games conference in Germany on Tuesday. Nintendo offers the Wii for $250 and Microsoft Corp. sells its Xbox 360 machine for as little as $200.

Sony Chairman Howard Stringer, who rebuffed calls for lower prices as recently as last month, reversed course after PS3 sales tumbled to a two-year low. Sales of Nintendo's market-leading Wii dropped for the first time last quarter as the global economic slump drove down consumer spending.

"The price cut may push Nintendo to lower the Wii price sooner rather than later," said Naoki Fujiwara, chief fund manager at Tokyo-based Shinkin Asset Management Co., which oversees $3.7 billion in investments. "There seems to be an increasing number of people who aren't satisfied with the Wii, so the price cut will likely help Sony entice those users."

according to Arvind Bhatia, an analyst at Sterne Agee & Leach Inc.

"We feel these hardware price cuts were much needed and are hopeful it will provide a boost to hardware and software sales this Christmas," Bhatia wrote in a report Monday.

Sony also introduced a slimmer version of the PS3 that will begin replacing current models in the first week of September. The $299 system, equipped with a 120-gigabyte storage drive and a Blu-ray player, is 32 percent smaller, 36 percent lighter and consumes 34 percent less power, the company said.

The price cut is necessary to meet sales projections of 13 million consoles worldwide in the year ending next March, Jack Tretton, head of Sony Computer Entertainment America, said in an interview Monday.

"The new PlayStation 3 pricing finally makes the Sony console a much more competitive product," Jesse Divnich, a game analyst with researcher Electronic Entertainment Design & Outreach, said in an e-mail message.

Bobby Kotick, chief executive officer of top game publisher Activision Blizzard Inc., said in June the developer of the "Guitar Hero" games may shift away from making products for Sony. Daniel DeMatteo, head of GameStop Corp., the largest video-game retailer, said in May that console prices are "too high."

Stringer, who's also Sony's chief executive officer, last month at an Idaho conference referred to Kotick as a person who "likes to make a lot of noise" and spurned calls for price cuts because PlayStation consoles are unprofitable.

"We believe this is a great price," Tom Aiello, a spokesman for Sears Holding Corp., which is taking orders for the new PS3 at Kmart and Sears outlets, said in an e-mail message.

U.S. sales of video-game hardware, software and accessories tumbled for a fifth-straight month in July, led by declines in sales of the PS3 and the Wii, according to Port Washington, N.Y.-based researcher NPD Group Inc.

Sony has sold about 24 million PS3s worldwide since it debuted, the company said. Kyoto-based Nintendo leads with sales of 52.6 million Wii consoles through June, according to company reports, while Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft has sold more than 30 million Xbox 360s, according to filings.

The unit that makes the PlayStation machines posted a \39.7 billion loss last quarter after sales fell 37 percent. The Networked Products & Services Group, led by Kazuo Hirai, 48, recorded the biggest loss among the company's divisions.

Sony also announced it will start a movie store in November for the PlayStation and mobile devices. The download service will compete against Microsoft's Xbox Live, which offers movies through a partnership with NetFlix Inc.

The online services are part of Sony's plan to keep the PS3 on the market for at least 10 years.

"We are not exactly looking at a price war, but the pressure on the rivals to cut prices is rising," said Mitsushige Akino, who oversees $624 million in assets at Ichiyoshi Investment Management Co. "Wii's large sales volumes give it breathing room to cut prices, but Sony should really be more concerned about its profit margins."


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009
SMFG, Daiwa in talks on JV stake
Bloomberg

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc., Japan's second-largest bank by market value, is in talks with Daiwa Securities Group Inc. to raise its stake in their investment banking joint venture, two sources said.

Sumitomo Mitsui is negotiating to raise its stake from 40 percent to a majority position, said the sources, who declined to be identified because the matter is private.

Chika Togawa, a spokeswoman for Tokyo-based Sumitomo Mitsui, declined comment, as did Daiwa spokesman Yukiko Kishino.

Sumitomo Mitsui is seeking to increase its stake in Daiwa SMBC to as much as 67 percent, the Yomiuri newspaper reported earlier Wednesday, without saying where it obtained the information.

news20090820lat

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

[News > Iraq]
Iraq bombings kill 95
Baghdad attacks target government buildings and a market area, wounding hundreds on the sixth anniversary of the bombing of U.N. headquarters in the capital.
By Liz Sly and Usama Redha
August 20, 2009

Reporting from Baghdad - Thunderous truck bombs targeted the heart of the Iraqi government Wednesday in a blunt challenge to Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and his assurances that Iraqi police and soldiers will be able to maintain control as U.S. forces pull back.

Most of the 95 dead and 536 wounded were casualties of attacks on the foreign and finance ministries. The blasts took place on the sixth anniversary of the bombing of United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which is regarded by many as the start of the insurgency that gripped Iraq until the United States sent more troops and cut deals with former insurgents two years ago.

Wednesday's blasts, for which government officials blamed Al Qaeda in Iraq and followers of former President Saddam Hussein, illustrated the dangers Maliki faces as Iraqi forces take over from the Americans.

Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, has based his fortunes on overseeing the sharp reduction in violence and fostering a sense of national pride among Iraqis who are eager to see the Americans leave. U.S. helicopters were seen buzzing over the blast sites Wednesday, but Maliki did not ask for help. U.S. troops left Iraq's cities June 30 with great fanfare, and Iraqi politicians said that for Maliki to ask them back would be tantamount to admitting failure.

Scenes on the bloodiest day since that U.S. withdrawal were reminiscent of the worst of the insurgency and served as a reminder that attackers still can strike with devastating effect.

The Foreign Ministry is on the edge of Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, in the heart of what should be one of the most closely guarded areas of the city. At least 59 people were killed in that blast, and 411 were injured, many of them ministry employees.

Another massive blast minutes earlier outside the Finance Ministry killed 28 people and collapsed a major overpass.

Two rockets exploded about the same time in Bab al Muadam, a busy central market area, killing six, and a blast in west Baghdad's Bayaa district killed two more. As the midmorning blasts rippled across Baghdad, rattling windows for miles around, people shuttered their shops and raced for home. Police sealed off bridges and highways, and the normally bustling city center fell silent save for the sirens.

At least two hospitals, swamped with casualties, closed their doors. Many of the injured were forced to make their way through checkpoints and traffic jams for treatment elsewhere.

Maliki acknowledged in a statement that the bombings exposed deficiencies in Iraqi security forces.

"The criminal attacks that happened today require without a doubt a reevaluation of our security plans and mechanisms to face terrorist challenges," he said. "We have directed orders to our forces in the army, police and the security apparatus on the urgency of maintaining the highest state of alert and of striking hard against the forces of evil."

Sami Askari, a prominent Shiite legislator who is close to the prime minister, said there was no talk of inviting the U.S. military to take on a bigger role. The insurgents "coordinated well and chose important targets, but we had such explosions when Americans were in the city," he said. "I don't think their presence would make a difference."

Maliki is hoping to retain his job in national elections due in January, though it remains unclear whether he will be at the head of his own list of candidates or as part of the Shiite coalition that propelled him to the premiership in 2005.

Several recent bombings targeted Shiite civilians in an apparent attempt to spark sectarian strife, but these attacks on high-profile ministries seemed designed to send the message that Maliki is failing to protect even his own government's facilities.

In June, Maliki trumpeted the U.S. withdrawal as a victory for Iraq. He has since hailed the relative calm that had prevailed as evidence that his government is in firm control. Such was his level of confidence that he recently called for the removal of all the concrete barriers that had been erected to protect buildings against blasts.

One such barrier, protecting the Foreign Ministry, recently was removed, employees said.

The truck bomb left no floor in the 11-story building unscathed. Saad Khalaf, a part-time photographer for the Los Angeles Times and a Foreign Ministry employee who was slightly wounded by flying glass, said that almost all employees suffered some injury and that at least two dozen of the dead worked at the ministry.

Ambulances quickly filled up, so ministry buses were recruited to ferry the injured.

The bomb left a massive crater in the road and destroyed several nearby buildings, including a girls school that was empty because of summer vacation. Windows were shattered at the nearby Rashid Hotel and the parliament building in the Green Zone.

"This is an unacceptable mistake by the government, and it is a barbaric attack to destabilize the stability and security in this peaceful country," said Sheik Chasib Tamimi, who was attending a tribal meeting in the Rashid Hotel when the blast sent people hurrying for cover.

Gaith Abdullah, 38, who owns a fabric store in the market area that was hit by rockets, described scenes of panic and mayhem as the explosions echoed across the city. After hearing the first blast at the Finance Ministry, he decided to close his shop. As he headed home, two mortar rounds struck the road ahead of him.

"I saw people killed and wounded on the ground and many cars were ablaze," he said. "The security forces started shooting and were firing randomly. Then another massive explosion shook the whole place." That apparently was the blast at the Foreign Ministry.

U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill and the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Army Gen. Ray Odierno, issued a joint statement condemning the "terrorist attacks that serve no legitimate purpose."

"They will not deter Iraqis from continuing their efforts to build a peaceful and prosperous society and engage the international community, nor will they weaken our resolve to help them in their efforts," the statement said.

news20090820nyt

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

[U.S. News]
C.I.A. Sought Blackwater’s Help in Plan to Kill Jihadists
{Blackwater security contractors flew over Baghdad in 2007. For years, Blackwater played a significant role in the Iraq operation.}
By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: August 19, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.

Executives from Blackwater, which has generated controversy because of its aggressive tactics in Iraq, helped the spy agency with planning, training and surveillance. The C.I.A. spent several million dollars on the program, which did not successfully capture or kill any terrorist suspects.

The fact that the C.I.A. used an outside company for the program was a major reason that Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A.’s director, became alarmed and called an emergency meeting in June to tell Congress that the agency had withheld details of the program for seven years, the officials said.

It is unclear whether the C.I.A. had planned to use the contractors to actually capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance in the program. American spy agencies have in recent years outsourced some highly controversial work, including the interrogation of prisoners. But government officials said that bringing outsiders into a program with lethal authority raised deep concerns about accountability in covert operations.

Officials said the C.I.A. did not have a formal contract with Blackwater for this program but instead had individual agreements with top company officials, including the founder, Erik D. Prince, a politically connected former member of the Navy Seals and the heir to a family fortune. Blackwater’s work on the program actually ended years before Mr. Panetta took over the agency, after senior C.I.A. officials themselves questioned the wisdom of using outsiders in a targeted killing program.

Blackwater, which has changed its name, most recently to Xe Services, and is based in North Carolina, in recent years has received millions of dollars in government contracts, growing so large that the Bush administration said it was a necessary part of its war operation in Iraq.

It has also drawn controversy. Blackwater employees hired to guard American diplomats in Iraq were accused of using excessive force on several occasions, including shootings in Baghdad in 2007 in which 17 civilians were killed. Iraqi officials have since refused to give the company an operating license.

Several current and former government officials interviewed for this article spoke only on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing details of a still classified program.

Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, declined to provide details about the canceled program, but he said that Mr. Panetta’s decision on the assassination program was “clear and straightforward.”

“Director Panetta thought this effort should be briefed to Congress, and he did so,” Mr. Gimigliano said. “He also knew it hadn’t been successful, so he ended it.”

A Xe spokeswoman did not return calls seeking comment.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who leads the Senate Intelligence Committee, also declined to give details of the program. But she praised Mr. Panetta for notifying Congress. “It is too easy to contract out work that you don’t want to accept responsibility for,” she said.

The C.I.A. this summer conducted an internal review of the assassination program that recently was presented to the White House and the Congressional intelligence committees. The officials said that the review stated that Mr. Panetta’s predecessors did not believe that they needed to tell Congress because the program was not far enough developed.

The House Intelligence Committee is investigating why lawmakers were never told about the program. According to current and former government officials, former Vice President Dick Cheney told C.I.A. officers in 2002 that the spy agency did not need to inform Congress because the agency already had legal authority to kill Qaeda leaders.

One official familiar with the matter said that Mr. Panetta did not tell lawmakers that he believed that the C.I.A. had broken the law by withholding details about the program from Congress. Rather, the official said, Mr. Panetta said he believed that the program had moved beyond a planning stage and deserved Congressional scrutiny.

“It’s wrong to think this counterterrorism program was confined to briefing slides or doodles on a cafeteria napkin,” the official said. “It went well beyond that.”

Current and former government officials said that the C.I.A.’s efforts to use paramilitary hit teams to kill Qaeda operatives ran into logistical, legal and diplomatic hurdles almost from the outset. These efforts had been run by the C.I.A.’s counterterrorism center, which runs operations against Al Qaeda and other terrorist networks.

In 2002, Blackwater won a classified contract to provide security for the C.I.A. station in Kabul, Afghanistan, and the company maintains other classified contracts with the C.I.A., current and former officials said.

Over the years, Blackwater has hired several former top C.I.A. officials, including Cofer Black, who ran the C.I.A. counterterrorism center immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks.

C.I.A. operatives also regularly use the company’s training complex in North Carolina. The complex includes a shooting range used for sniper training.

An executive order signed by President Gerald R. Ford in 1976 barred the C.I.A. from carrying out assassinations, a direct response to revelations that the C.I.A. had initiated assassination plots against Fidel Castro of Cuba and other foreign politicians.

The Bush administration took the position that killing members of Al Qaeda, a terrorist group that attacked the United States and has pledged to attack it again, was no different from killing enemy soldiers in battle, and that therefore the agency was not constrained by the assassination ban.

But former intelligence officials said that employing private contractors to help hunt Qaeda operatives would pose significant legal and diplomatic risks, and they might not be protected in the same way government employees are.

Some Congressional Democrats have hinted that the program was just one of many that the Bush administration hid from Congressional scrutiny and have used the episode as a justification to delve deeper into other Bush-era counterterrorism programs.

But Republicans have criticized Mr. Panetta’s decision to cancel the program, saying he created a tempest in a teapot.

“I think there was a little more drama and intrigue than was warranted,” said Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.

Officials said that the C.I.A. program was devised partly as an alternative to missile strikes using drone aircraft, which have accidentally killed civilians and cannot be used in urban areas where some terrorists hide.

Yet with most top Qaeda operatives believed to be hiding in the remote mountains of Pakistan, the drones have remained the C.I.A.’s weapon of choice. Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has embraced the drone campaign because it presents a less risky option than sending paramilitary teams into Pakistan.

news20090820wp

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

[National Security]
CIA Hired Firm for Assassin Program
Blackwater Missions Against Al-Qaeda Never Began, Ex-Officials Say
By Joby Warrick and R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 20, 2009

A secret CIA program to kill top al-Qaeda leaders with assassination teams was outsourced in 2004 to Blackwater USA, the private security contractor whose operations in Iraq prompted intense scrutiny, according to two former intelligence officials familiar with the events.

The North Carolina-based company was given operational responsibility for targeting terrorist commanders and was awarded millions of dollars for training and weaponry, but the program was canceled before any missions were conducted, the two officials said.

The assassination program -- revealed to Congress in June by CIA Director Leon Panetta -- was initially launched in 2001 as a CIA-led effort to kill or capture top al-Qaeda members using the agency's paramilitary forces. But in 2004, after briefly terminating the program, agency officials decided to revive it under a different code name, using outside contractors, the officials said.

"Outsourcing gave the agency more protection in case something went wrong," said a retired intelligence officer intimately familiar with the assassination program.

The contract was awarded to Blackwater, now known as Xe Services LLC, in part because of its close ties to the CIA and because of its record in carrying out covert assignments overseas, the officials said. The security contractor's senior management has included high-ranking former CIA officials -- among them J. Cofer Black, the agency's former top counterterrorism official, who joined the company in early 2005, three months after retiring from government service.

Blackwater became notorious for a string of incidents in Iraq during which its heavily armed guards were accused of using excessive force. In the deadliest incident, 17 civilians were killed in a Baghdad square by Blackwater guards in September 2007 after the guards' convoy reportedly came under fire.

The plan to kill top al-Qaeda leaders was thrust into the spotlight in July, shortly after Panetta briefed members of two congressional panels about the program. Panetta told House and Senate leaders that he had only recently learned of the program and, upon doing so, had canceled it. Panetta also told lawmakers that he thought they had been inappropriately kept in the dark about the plan -- in part because then-Vice President Richard B. Cheney had directed the CIA not to reveal the program to Congress.

The CIA declined to comment Wednesday about Blackwater's alleged involvement in the program, which was first reported Wednesday night on the Web site of the New York Times. Efforts to reach Blackwater for comment late Wednesday were unsuccessful.

Agency officials again defended Panetta's decision to terminate the effort and notify congressional overseers.

"Director Panetta thought this effort should be briefed to Congress, and he did so," CIA spokesman George Little said. "He also knew it hadn't been successful, so he ended it. Neither decision was difficult. This was clear and straightforward."

The House Intelligence Committee has launched an investigation into whether the CIA broke the law by failing to notify Congress about the program for eight years. Current and former agency officials have disputed claims by some Democratic lawmakers that the withholding of key details of the program was illegal.

"Director Panetta did not tell the committees that the agency had misled the Congress or had broken the law," Little said. "He decided that the time had come to brief Congress on a counterterrorism effort that was, in fact, much more than a PowerPoint presentation."

The effort, known to intelligence officials as the "targeted killing" program, was originally conceived for use in Iraq and Afghanistan, but officials later sought to expand it to other countries in the region, according to a source familiar with its inception.

It was aimed at removing from the battlefield members of al-Qaeda and its affiliates who were judged to be plotting attacks against U.S. forces or interests. The program was initially managed by the CIA's counterterrorism center, but its functions were partly transferred to Blackwater when key officials from the center retired from the CIA and went to work for the private contractor.

Former agency officials have described the assassination program as more aspirational than operational. One former high-ranking intelligence official briefed on the details said there were three iterations of the program over eight years, each with a separate code name. Total spending was well under $20 million over eight years, the official said.

"We never actually did anything," said the former official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the program remains highly classified. "It never became a covert action."

A second former official, also intimately familiar with details of the program, said the Blackwater phase involved "lots of time spent training," mostly near the CIA's covert facility near Williamsburg. The official said the teams simulated missions that often involved kidnapping.

"They were involved not only in trying to kill but also in getting close enough to snatch," he said. Among team members there was "much frustration" that the program never reached an operational stage, he said.

The CIA -- and Blackwater -- were not the only agents that sought to covertly kill key members of al-Qaeda using small, highly trained teams. A similar effort, officials say, was undertaken by U.S. Special Forces.

"The targets were generally people on a kill or capture list," said a source familiar with Special Forces operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. "How did people get on the list? Well, if we knew that people were involved in planning attacks, they got on the list. More than half were generally captured. But the decision was made in advance that if they resisted, or if it was necessary for any reason, just kill them."

news20090820slt1

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

Assassination Inc.
By Daniel Politi
Posted Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009, at 6:35 AM ET

The New York Times leads with word that the CIA hired contractors from Blackwater USA to take part in an assassination program that targeted top al-Qaida operatives. Blackwater is a private security contractor, now known as Xe Services LLC, that has come under scrutiny for using excessive force against Iraqi civilians. The Washington Post (WP) also leads the news in its late edition, and while it gives credit to the NYT for first reporting the story, it takes it a step further by saying that the whole of the assassination program was outsourced to Blackwater in 2004 and the private contractor was given "operational responsibility for targeting terrorist commanders." For its part, the NYT isn't clear as to whether the contractors were going to be used to kill or capture al-Qaida suspects or just for training and surveillance in the larger program. Regardless, the program was canceled before any missions were actually carried out.

The Los Angeles Times (LAT), USA Today, and Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox lead with, and everyone else fronts, the deadly day in Baghdad, where a series of coordinated attacks killed 95 people and injured more than 500. Most of the dead were casualties of the two massive truck bombs that hit the foreign and finance ministries in heavily guarded areas of downtown Baghdad. It was by far the deadliest attack since June 30, when U.S. troops withdrew from urban areas, and the WSJ says it might have been the deadliest day in Iraq in more than a year. The Iraqi government quickly blamed al-Qaida in Iraq and followers of former President Saddam Hussein for the attack.

The NYT says that one of the main reasons why Leon Panetta, CIA's director, informed Congress of the agency's assassination program was that he found out about the involvement of the private contractor. The Post explains that the program itself was launched in 2001, but it was revived under a different code name in 2004 using the outside contractor. The NYT states that while the CIA has used private contractors for a variety of controversial efforts, including interrogation, many were uncomfortable about using a private company for assassination-related work. Au contraire, says the Post, it was precisely because they were using a private contractor that the CIA allowed itself to restart the once-moribund program. "Outsourcing gave the agency more protection in case something went wrong," a source tells the paper.

The NYT says that Blackwater's involvement in the assassination program ended years before Panetta informed Congress because senior CIA officials were concerned about using private contractors for such a purpose. But interestingly enough, the paper says there was no actual contract with Blackwater for the program, but rather, the CIA had "individual agreements" with top officials from the company, which makes the whole thing even stranger. The WP's sources say the effort, known as "targeted killing" program, was meant to be expanded to other countries beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. There were apparently three versions of the program over eight years, each with a separate code name. In total, the agency spent "well under $20 million" throughout the eight years, says the Post. But, as has been reported before, the program never really got past the training stage. "We never actually did anything," said a former official.

While much of the attention about Iraqi violence has recently focused on conflicts between Kurds and Arabs in the country's north, the blasts in Baghdad served as a grim reminder that the old sectarian conflict is far from over. The NYT describes a scene of frustrated U.S. troops who couldn't get involved to help deal with the aftermaths because they now have to wait for requests from the Iraqi government, which "apparently never came." USAT, however, says U.S. servicemembers were hardly sitting on their hands. While they may not have taken control of the bombing scenes, they did help guide rescue crews and provided intelligence.

The LAT notes that while some recent attacks targeted Shiite civilians in what seemed to be a brazen attempt to restart a sectarian war, these latest attacks "seemed designed to send the message that [Prime Minister] Maliki is failing to protect even his own government's facilities." Indeed, Maliki said the attacks were "a vengeful response" to his recent optimism that led to ordering the removal of the blast walls that were once a common sight in Baghdad's streets. The barrier protecting the Foreign Ministry was recently removed. Iraqi officials were quick to recognize that the attacks demonstrate how far they still have to go in order to effectively protect the population from terrorist threats. "The criminal attacks that happened today require without a doubt a reevaluation of our security plans and mechanisms to face terrorist challenges," Maliki said.

In an interview with the WP, Sen. Charles Grassley, the key Republican in the health care negotiations of the Senate finance committee, seems to suggest that he makes his governing decisions based on who screams the loudest. The anger expressed in the town-hall-style meetings this month has convinced him that the government needs to scale back its overhaul efforts. Those who want to reform the system are "not quite as loud as people that say we ought to slow down or don't do anything," he said. "And I've got to listen to my people." He insists he still wants to reach a bipartisan agreement but legislation needs to be smaller and cheaper since there is great concern over the national debt considering how much money has been spent to prop up the economy.

The WSJ fronts word that Senate Democrats are in discussion with administration officials about breaking the health care legislation into two parts. Seeing little chance of bipartisan support, key Democrats are thinking about passing the most expensive provisions of the health care bill only with votes from members of their own party. They hope this will help get a bill to Obama before the end of the year. Certain budget-related measures can pass in the Senate with 51 votes, rather than 60 as is usually the norm, through a procedure known as reconciliation. Recently Democrats have come to the conclusion they could use this tactic for a big chunk of their health care plan, perhaps even the "public option," or government-run insurance plan, but no one is quite sure yet. Then other parts of the legislation that are seen as less controversial, such as forbidding insurers from denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions, would more comfortably get the 60 votes.

Democrats say there's now a 60 percent chance the two-bill tactic will be used, although it's unclear who's running up the odds in Capitol Hill. In an interesting tidbit, a senior Democratic aide tells the paper that the statement by Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that led to all the outrage when she suggested the public option wasn't essential was all part of a strategy to see how Republicans would respond. The fact that several key Republicans dismissed the suggestion as mere theatrics and refused to get behind the idea of nonprofit insurance cooperatives told Democrats that it would be nearly impossible to reach bipartisan consensus.

The WP reports that the White House is making progress in its quest to find new homes for Guantanamo detainees who have been cleared for release. So far, six European Union countries have agreed to take detainees, while four others have told the administration privately they want to help out. In addition, five EU countries said they're considering it, and the White House plans to expand the search to other nations around the world. Still at question is the fate of 98 Yemenis, whom the United States wants Saudi Arabia to take. Many lawmakers are vehemently opposed to bringing detainees to the United States, and while administration officials thought that would make it more difficult to convince other countries to take them in, it hasn't been as bad as many anticipated. "Obama has a lot of political capital," explained a senior official. "Countries want to do something for him."

The LAT fronts, and everyone covers, the death of Don Hewitt, who, as creator of 60 Minutes, changed the face of television journalism. In 1960, he made the medium an essential part of politics when he produced and directed the first debate between presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. He spent his career at CBS News and will most be remembered as creator and executive producer of 60 Minutes, the show that launched the TV newsmagazine genre, using a formula that combined journalism and show business that would later be copied numerous times. It became a top-rated TV program and showed that news could make money at a fraction of the cost of scripted programming. Later, that would become the formula for programs that would skew heavily toward entertainment news and prized sensationalism above all else. He was 86.

CONTINUED ON newsslt2

news20090820slt2

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

Assassination Inc.
By Daniel Politi
Posted Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009, at 6:35 AM ET

CONTINUED FROM newsslt1

The WP catches up with the child stars of the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire, which "has been a roller coaster of personal tragedy and red-carpet glamour." Azhar Mohammed Ismaill, 11, recently moved into a two-room apartment bought by the film's director. But his co-star, Rubina Ali, 9, still lives in a shack next to an open sewer. The two may be "experiencing at warp speed the masala of euphoria and turmoil that India's vast poor feel as they emerge from the iron bonds of caste and class," writes Emily Wax. But at the same time, their diverging fortunes "also tells the story of an India where some are forging ahead while others struggle and worry they will be left behind."

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[Environment] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Climate Change]
US Congress inquiry reveals fake letters from 'voters' opposed to climate bill
Bonner & Associates, lobbyists hired to campaign against climate change bill, admit letters sent by sacked employee
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 19 August 2009 17.52 BST Article history

Don't blame it on granny. A US congressional inquiry has found more than a dozen forged letters to members of Congress purportedly from voters opposed to a climate change bill – including a number from old people's homes.

The house select committee on energy independence and global warming now says it has confirmed 13 fake letters to members of Congress apparently from old people's centres and Latino and African-American groups opposing climate change legislation.

The committee is still investigating 45 other letters sent by the lobbying firm Bonner & Associates, which was hired to campaign against the climate change bill. The fake letters unearthed so far were sent to three junior Democrats who represent conservative, coal-mining districts. At least nine bogus letters were sent to Tom Perriello of Virginia in the run-up to the vote in the house on climate change in late June purportedly from Latino organisations, a local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, and a senior citizens' centre in Charlottesville. Two other Democrats - Kathy Dahlkemper of Ohio and Chris Carney of Pennsylvania - also received letters from old people's homes."We are concerned about our electricity bills. Many of our seniors, as you know, are on low fixed incomes," said a letter to Democratic Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper that claimed to be from the Erie Centre on Health and Ageing. "Please don't vote to force cost increases on seniors."

The committee released three different fake letters to Dahlkemper claiming to be from old people's homes. They used almost identical language.

Ed Markey, one of the authors of the bill, said the use of faked letters marked a new low. "We've seen fear-mongering with our nation's senior citizens with healthcare, and now we're seeing fraud-mongering with senior citizens on clean energy," the congressman said. "Lately, democratic debate has been deceptively debased by fake facts and harsh rhetoric. We must return to an honest discussion of the issues."

The prospect of Congress passing climate change legislation this year has led to a lobbying boom in Washington with industry groups – as well as environmental organisations, on a more modest scale – seeking to influence energy reform. More than 460 new organisations paid for lobbying on global warming in the run-up to the house vote on climate change in June, a report from the Centre for Public Integrity said this month.

There are growing signs that the campaign against climate change legislation is finding traction, with Barack Obama slipping in approval ratings and focused on the struggle to preserve his healthcare reform plans.

This month, a group of 10 Democratic Senators from midwestern states wrote to Obama demanding protections for American workers in the legislation.

"Any climate change legislation must prevent the export of jobs and related greenhouse gas emissions to countries that fail to take actions to combat the threat of global warming comparable to those taken by the United States," they said.

This week saw the launch in the oil capital of Houston of a series of "energy citizen" rallies against climate change reform. More than 3,000 people attended the lunchtime rally – many employees bussed in by Chevron and other oil companies.

Greenpeace, which obtained a memo last week from the American Petroleum Institute laying out a plan for the supposed grassroots uprising against climate change legislation, has called such rallies "astroturf" events.

The inquiry has yet to establish the full extent of involvement of major coal firms in the scandal. Bonner had been hired by a PR firm, the Hawthorn Group, to lobby against the bill by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.

The lobbying firm acknowledged sending out the fake letters before the House of Representatives voted on the bill. However, its founder, Jack Bonner, said all 13 forgeries were the work of one employee who has since been sacked.


[Environment > Food]
Food supplies at risk from price speculation, warns expert
Global food markets must be regulated to avoid speculators creating panic with artificial prices rises, says the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute
Jonathan Watts, Asia environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 19 August 2009 14.59 BST Article history

The world food market is still "seriously exposed" to speculators artificially driving up prices and worsening the risks of malnutrition, according to one of the world's leading agricultural researchers.

Linking the recent food and financial crises, Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), warned that the world was at risk of a new panic over grain unless commodity markets were more tightly regulated and production expanded.

"The banking sector is in the process of being re-regulated worldwide, but the food market remains seriously exposed to short-term flows of indexed funds into commodity exchanges. That vulnerability needs to be addressed," he said in an interview with the Guardian.

Von Braun was one of the first to predict the sharp rise in food prices that peaked last year, when 13 nations halted cross-border trade amid fears of shortages.

The crisis, which escalated over four years, hit poor people hardest and saw pasta protests in Italy, tortilla rallies in Mexico and onion demonstrations in India.

During that period, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates the number of hungry people in the world rose from about 800 million to more than 1 billion.

At the time, most of the blame for the price spike centred on growing populations, climate change, biofuels, rising oil prices and increased demand from fast-growing economies like China and India that were running down food stocks.

But von Braum said recent research highlighted the role of commodity speculators: "What we didn't foresee two years ago is how speculation exacerbated the real market issues. It was not a primary cause but a second-round amplifier, which added seriously to the problem."

Daily trading volumes on the Chicago commodities exchange surged at the peak of the crisis between December 2007 and March 2008, boosted by the entry of non-commercial investors entering the market to speculate.

"When food supply is at risk, speculators are attracted, especially when trade barriers are put in place," he warned.

Exchanges in India and China were closed down to prevent similar speculative attacks.

The global credit crunch also hamstrung government efforts to boost food production by reducing the money available for investment in new technology and better irrigation.

With climate change expected to reduce yields by 15% by 2050 even as demand grows from a rising world population, von Braum said it was important for nations and international institutions to respond with more funds for agriculture.

China, Japan, South Korea and several Middle Eastern nations have begun buying up farmland in Africa and South America as a hedge against food shortage risks.

Global prices are down from their peak thanks partly to effective measures by the Chinese government to rebuild grain stocks, increased agricultural investment in India and a great focus on food production in the aid programmes of the UK and other donor nations.

But von Braun said prices remain high in many African countries because of trade constraints and foreign exchange rates, while an unusually dry Indian monsoon could affect harvests in Asia. A UN report published earlier this week warned that Asia faces dire food shortages unless hundreds of billions of dollars are invested in better irrigation systems to grow crops for its growing population.

"Fundamentally, the crisis of high food prices in the majority of poor countries is not over at all," said von Braun.

news20090820gc2

[Environment] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment]
Brazil's former environment minister leaves ruling party over 'destruction of natural resources'
Marina Silva is expected to make a 2010 presidential bid and put the environment back on the agenda
Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 19 August 2009 17.36 BST Article history

Brazil's former environment minister, the rainforest defender Marina Silva, has resigned from the ruling Workers' party, paving the way for a 2010 presidential bid, which supporters hope will put the environment back on the political agenda of South America's largest country.

For weeks speculation has been growing that Silva, who resigned from government last May after a dispute over the development of the Amazon region, would defect to the Green party in order to dispute the presidential elections next October.

Speaking at a press conference in Brasilia earlier today, Silva, who has been a Workers' party member for over 30 years, said politicians had failed to give sufficient attention to the environmental cause.

In her resignation letter to the president of the Workers' party, Silva said her decision was an attempt to break with the idea of "development based on material growth at any cost, with huge gains for a few and perverse results for the majority" including "the destruction of natural resources".

She added that "political conditions" had meant that "environmental concerns had not been able to take route at the heart of the government."

Silva, 51, stopped short of formally announcing a presidential bid but few doubt that she will now front the Green Party's 2010 election campaign.

The Brazilian media has been overtaken with Marina mania since earlier this month when rumours about a possible bid for the presidency began spreading. This week one major news magazine stamped Silva's photograph onto its front-page alongside the headline: "President Marina?"

Writing in the O Globo newspaper yesterday, the influential columnist Zuenir Ventura said Silva could bring a touch of Barack Obama to the Brazilian elections.

"Marina excites young people, those who are disenchanted with the current situation [and] with the Workers' Party … in such a way that she could create a spontaneous and contagious movement within society … as innovative as that which occurred in the US with Obama," he wrote.

Born in an impoverished community of rubber tappers in the remote Amazon state of Acre, Silva was orphaned at 16 and was illiterate until her early teens.

In 1994, aged 35, she was elected as Brazil's youngest ever female senator and subsequently became renowned for her staunch defence of the Amazon rainforest and its inhabitants, winning a succession of international awards for her work. The president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has not so far commented on her resignation.


[Environment > Insects]
Butterfly lovers hail Duke of Burgundy's second coming
Patrick Barkham
The Guardian, Wednesday 19 August 2009 Article history

One of the most endangered butterflies in Britain has reappeared for a second generation this summer for only the third time in more than a century.

The short-lived Duke of Burgundy usually appears only in spring but a second brood is now flying at Rodborough Common, Gloucestershire, the furthest north a second generation has ever been recorded.

The appearance is a rare conservation success for the delicate butterfly which has endured a catastrophic decline in recent decades.

According to Matthew Oates, conservation adviser for the National Trust, which owns and manages Rodborough Common especially for the butterfly, a second brood of Duke of Burgundies may become more common in the future with global warming.

"This is a really significant moment for one of the Duke of Burgundy strongholds. Second broods for this splendid butterfly are fairly common in southern Europe but extremely rare in the UK," Oates said.

"The flight season for the Duke of Burgundy butterflies has gradually been getting earlier every year. This means that it's becoming increasingly likely that we'll see more second broods in the coming years as our climate gradually gets warmer, providing conservation efforts to keep this little gem in the UK are successful."

There had been no second broods recorded in the UK since the "exceptional" summer of 1893 until the last four years, with butterflies recorded in late summer in Selbourne, Hampshire, in 2005 and again at the same site in 2007.

Originally called Mr Vernon's Small Fritillary, the Duke of Burgundy was driven to extinction in most of Britain's native woodlands, the loss of traditional grazing accelerated its decline.

The species managed to survive in rough downland that was not well grazed and benefited from the impact of myxomatosis on rabbits, but declined as rabbit numbers bounced back.

The second brood now poses a challenge for conservationists, who have to ensure grassland is grazed at precisely the right time to ensure the survival of this fussy butterfly and its caterpillars, which feed on cowslips.

The insect's second generation might have some unexpected consequences in the natural world as the small butterfly is a "little spitfire" with strongly territorial males flying at anything that enters their airspace, Oates said.

Its surprise appearance demonstrated its adaptability, which is encouraging, he added. "We are forever underestimating butterflies."

news20090820nn1

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 19 August 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.842
News
Forest definition comes under fire
Ecologists accuse framework convention of barking up the wrong tree.
Natasha Gilbert

Ecologists have questioned the UNFCCC's definition of a forest.PunchstockThe health of the world's forests — and their capacity to lock away carbon — could be jeopardized by logging if the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) definition of a forest is not changed, a study warns.

A future climate deal could see developing countries financially compensated for preserving their forests. The UNFCCC defines a forest as an area of land 0.05–1 hectare in size, of which more than 10–30% is covered by tree canopy. Trees must also have the potential to reach a minimum height of 2-5 metres.

Countries participating in the UNFCCC can choose how they want to define a forest from within those ranges. For example, in Brazil a forest is defined as an area of land greater than 1 hectare, with more than 30% canopy cover and a minimum tree height of 5 metres. By contrast, Ghana defines a forest as an area of land greater than 0.1 hectare, with more than 15% canopy cover and a minimum tree height of 2 metres.

But a report¹ in the journal Conservation Letters, says that the UNFCCC has set the proportion of land that must be covered by tree canopy too low. Nophea Sasaki, a forest ecologist at Harvard University, and an author of the study, says that woodland could be "severely degraded" but still be classified as a forest under the current UNFCCC definition.

{“Our main concern is that people will take it as a threshold and keep logging until they reach it.”
Nophea Sasaki
Harvard University}

"Our main concern is that people will take it as a threshold and keep logging until they reach it," he says. So even though the region could lose a lot of biodiversity and a large proportion of its carbon stock, it would still be regarded as a forest. Sasaki says that loggers tend to target the bigger, more mature tree species, which hold the most carbon.

In a case study of an evergreen forest in Cambodia, Sasaki and his co-author Francis Putz from the University of Florida in Gainsville use inventory data for plots of trees with trunks wider than 5 centimetres to estimate that the forest holds 121.2 tonnes of carbon per hectare. Of this, 71.4 tonnes is in trees that have trunks wider than 45 centimetres — the trees that loggers are most likely to target. So if all these larger trees were harvested, the carbon stock would be depleted by almost 40%, yet the forest would still be considered a forest under the UNFCCC definition, the study says.

Copenhagen concerns

Sasaki says that the minimum threshold for canopy cover should be raised to 40%, the minimum tree height should be 5 metres and that natural forests should be differentiated from plantations.

Read more about the climate at the Road to Copenhagen special.His proposed threshold for canopy cover, he says, is based not on calculations that show forest degradation would be avoided at these levels, but rather on the definition used by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, as this is likely to be acceptable to participating countries and "40% has to be better than 30%".

Sasaki is also concerned that forest degradation will be "disregarded" in the post-Kyoto agreement on climate change due to be negotiated in Copenhagen in December. But Sasaki says that several prominent studies ignore the issue of degradation of forests and their long-term sustainability — including a report² from the Harvard University project on international climate agreements which was presented to the UNFCCC in Poznań, Poland, in December last year.

Neil Burgess, a conservation scientist at the University of Cambridge, UK, says that part of the problem is that degradation is not easy to measure. Unlike deforestation, which can be measured by remote-sensing methods such as satellites, degradation is evaluated through on-the-ground studies that assess what types of tree species are growing and estimate the forest's carbon stock.

Burgess says Sasaki's paper has not proven why its proposed definition of a forest would be optimal, but that "the more canopy cover you have, the more intact the forest is, so the more carbon it is retaining".

"Working out the amount of degradation that would be tolerable in a post-Kyoto agreement would be useful. People at the Copenhagen meeting will have to worry about this to some extent," Burgess says.

References
1. Sasaki, N. & Putz, F. E. Conserv. Lett. advance online publication doi:10.1111/j.1755-263x.2009.00067.x (2009).
2. Aldy, J. E. & Stavins, R. N. Designing the Post-Kyoto Climate Regime: Lessons from the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements (Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements, 2008).


[naturenews]
Published online 19 August 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.844
News
Gravity waves 'around the corner'
Sensitive search fails to find ripples in space, but boosts hopes for future hunts.
Calla Cofield

The hunt for gravitational waves may not have found the elusive ripples in space-time predicted by Albert Einstein, but the latest results from the most sensitive survey to date are providing clear insight into the origins and fabric of the Universe.

General relativity predicts that gravitational waves are generated by accelerating masses. Violent yet rare events, such as a supernova explosion or the collision of two black holes, should make the biggest and most detectable waves.

A more pervasive yet weaker source of waves should be the stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB) that was mostly created in the turmoil immediately after the Big Bang, and which has spread unhindered through the Universe ever since.

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, based in Washington state and Louisiana, look for these cosmic gravitational waves by measuring any slight disturbance to laser beams that shuttle between heavy mirrors held kilometres apart. Whereas the gravitational wave signal from a distinct event, such as a black-hole merger, would appear as a spike in the LIGO data, the SGWB is a murmur that is more difficult to detect.

{“For 40 years they've been saying that gravity waves are around the corner ... I think for the first time that's actually a true statement.”
Michael Turner
University of Chicago, Illinois}

Working with the Virgo Collaboration, which runs a gravitational wave detector near Pisa, Italy, the LIGO team has now analysed what their own detector saw between November 2005 and September 2007. Although LIGO did not find any waves, the teams conclude in Nature¹ that the SGWB is even smaller than LIGO can currently detect. This result rules out some theoretical models of the early Universe that would generate a relatively large background of gravitational waves.

Cosmic predictions

"This is the first time that an experiment directly searching for gravitational waves is essentially going and making a statement about cosmology, about the evolution of the Universe," says Vuk Mandic, an astrophysicist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and part of the LIGO team. The data also exclude certain cosmological models involving cosmic strings — hypothetical cracks in the fabric of space that are thinner than an atom but have immense gravitational fields.

The LIGO results reduce the upper limit for the size of the SGWB, which had previously been set by indirect measurements. A relatively large SGWB in the very early Universe, for example, would have had a measurable effect on both the cosmic microwave background radiation left over from that time, and the relative amounts of light elements — such as hydrogen, helium and lithium — created within minutes of the Big Bang.

The LIGO and Virgo collaborations are in the process of merging their scientific efforts, and the teams plan to include data and collaborative work from both experiments in all of their future papers. Detector improvements should help Virgo to match LIGO's sensitivity in the next few years, and a series of upgrades to both experiments should increase their sensitivity to the SGWB by more than a thousand times by 2014 — which astrophysicists say is almost certain to be enough to pin down its quarry at last.

"For some 40 years they've been saying that gravity waves are around the corner," says Michael Turner, an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago in Illinois, who was not involved in the research. "And I think for the first time in 40 years that's actually a true statement."

References
1. The LIGO Scientific Collaboration & The Virgo Collaboration. Nature 460, 990-994 (2009). | Article

news20090820nn2

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 19 August 2009 | Nature 460, 936-937 (2009) | doi:10.1038/460936a
News
Paying to save the rainforests
In Brazil, details are emerging for plans to stop deforestation. Can it serve as a model for other nations?
Jeff Tollefson

Cash incentives could be part of a multi-pronged approach to stopping slash-and-burn deforestation.G. GILABERT/CORBIS SABAAlong the Trans-Amazonian Highway in the Brazilian state of Pará, many landowners try to boost their income by clearing a hectare or two each year for farms or cattle grazing. This year, however, may be different: if all goes to plan, around 350 families will receive payments to put rainforest preservation first.

If approved by the Brazilian Development Bank within the coming weeks, the project would be one of the first to stem from the Amazon Fund, a major initiative created by Brazil last year to attract international aid. It is the largest forest-conservation initiative in the world, and the only national programme that could demonstrate how tropical-forest protection might be folded into the global-warming treaty that international leaders hope to sign in Copenhagen in December.

"The Amazon Fund could be interpreted as the fundamental test case for the rest of the world," says Paulo Moutinho, who heads research at the Amazon Institute for Environmental Research (IPAM) in Brasília. "The international community is watching Brazil and how we will deal with this experiment."

With a total price tag of about US$17 million, the Pará project is just one example of how the Amazon Fund could distribute its money. Landowners who sign up to preserve their forest would begin receiving monthly cheques, starting at around $16 and increasing to $350 in the tenth and final year. Other investments would help to modernize local agriculture in an effort to increase income from land that is already cleared, so that landowners don't need to begin cutting down trees again when the payments stop. Moutinho says the programme could be scaled up to 10,000 families in the Pará region alone.

All told, the project would reduce the otherwise expected greenhouse-gas emissions by 3.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide — equivalent to taking more than half a million vehicles off the road for one year — at a cost of just more than $5 per tonne. That is 75% less than the going price on the European carbon market. Backed by a satellite monitoring system and an increasingly focused enforcement programme, Brazil thus has an opportunity to show whether this way of reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) works.

"I would call the Amazon Fund the biggest experiment in tropical conservation history," says Dan Nepstad, a researcher at the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts. "If it works, REDD will survive. If it fails, there's a chance REDD will fail."

{“The Amazon Fund is the biggest experiment in tropical conservation history.”}

The Amazon River basin covers some 7 million square kilometres and nearly half of Brazil. By some estimates 15% of the basin has been cleared in recent decades. Worldwide, deforestation accounts for as much as 20% of greenhouse-gas emissions, and up to 70% of Brazil's emissions. Climate negotiators in the United Nations talks are looking at various ways to link international carbon markets to forest conservation, but Brazil has long opposed the idea of allowing US or European companies to offset their emissions by paying for forest conservation projects in the tropics.

The Amazon Fund was designed as an alternative, allowing Brazil to deploy direct international aid as part of a comprehensive national strategy. Last year Brazil pledged to reduce deforestation by 70% by the end of 2017; the government has since extended that commitment to 80% by 2020.

Source: Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da AmazôniaAchieving those goals won't be easy, given poverty levels, enforcement difficulties and ongoing questions about who holds title to what land. Even within the federal government, policies promoting agricultural growth are often at loggerheads with those intended to protect rainforest. Deforestation rates fell for three years after peaking in 2004 (see graphic), but then increased in the 2008 season when prices spiked for commodities such as soya and beef. Deforestation rates seem to have dropped again in the most recent season; experts credit better enforcement and new policies but also the economic crisis, which cut demand for many commodities.

The Amazon Fund got off the ground with a pledge from Norway, which committed up to $1 billion until 2015. Brazil will receive around $114 million this year, but must continue reducing emissions in order to receive future payments. Climate negotiators are increasingly focusing on national baselines such as this, instead of on particular projects that might save one patch of forest while pushing loggers, developers and landowners down the road to another patch.

Getting REDD right in Brazil and beyond is "totally possible and essential", says Lars Løvold, director of the Rainforest Foundation Norway in Oslo, which, along with Friends of the Earth Norway, proposed to the Norwegian government that it invest in a big forest conservation initiative. "But you need some projects to show that it works."

Eyes in the sky
In the coming weeks, the Brazilian Development Bank, which manages the Amazon Fund, is expected to announce the first such project awards. Several dozen applications have been submitted, ranging from community initiatives like the project in Pará to land registry programmes and a proposal from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research for a new satellite to monitor deforestation.

Within Brazil, the money coming from abroad has whetted local appetites for more. And in June, the nine governors of the Brazilian states in the Amazon region penned a letter to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva urging the country to reconsider its opposition to directly tapping carbon markets for forest conservation. The governors called the Copenhagen talks "a golden opportunity", suggesting that carbon markets could surpass $2 trillion annually by 2020 and $15 trillion in 2050.

Paulo Adario, Amazon campaign director for the Brazilian arm of environmental organization Greenpeace, is wary of governors opening their states directly to international investments; such a deal, he says, could undermine the idea of a national baseline, without which there is no way to protect the forest as a whole. "The federal government needs to have a national vision about the problems and the solutions for the country," he says, "and then performance will be evaluated against results."

The official deforestation data for the 2009 season, which ended in July, will be available in December. Preliminary results suggest that total deforestation will hit a two-decade low of less than 10,000 square kilometres — low enough to secure another payment from Norway in 2010.