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

[Economy]
THE ECONOMY
Unemployment in California hits post-World War II high
The state's rate jumps to 11.9% in July as the U.S. rate declines to 9.4%. Job losses have an outsize effect on Latinos in the state as work in the construction and hospitality sectors vanishes.
By Alana Semuels
August 22, 2009

California's jobless rate reached a fresh post-World War II high in July, climbing to 11.9%, a sobering reminder that though the nation's deep downturn may be nearing its end, the state's employment woes are far from over.

Golden State employers cut their payrolls by 35,800 jobs in July, according to figures released Friday by the state Employment Development Department. That's a significant improvement over monthly losses that averaged 76,000 over the first half of the year.

Still, July's numbers were worse than some analysts had expected, rising from 11.6% in June and led by declines in trade, construction and manufacturing. Even with the rise in unemployment here, however, a consensus is growing that the worst of the recession may be over.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke on Friday declared the economy to be "leveling out," and the National Assn. of Realtors reported a sharp rise in July home sales. Wall Street responded by pushing the Dow index to its highest point since November.

Still, a robust recovery appears unlikely, and some regions of the country are expected to suffer fallout from the bursting of the housing bubble for years to come. That includes California, which is now tied with Oregon for the fourth-highest unemployment rate in the nation, behind Michigan, Rhode Island and Nevada. The U.S. unemployment rate is 9.4%, down from 9.5% in June.

California's battered construction and housing industries, long pillars of the state economy, remain troubling sources of weakness. Over the last year, the state has lost 760,200 jobs, nearly 1 in 5 of them in construction. White-collar workers have likewise suffered from the housing crash as thousands of jobs in banking, mortgage processing and real estate sales have vanished.

The number of new-home permits issued in July fell 47.4% from a year earlier, according to the Construction Industry Research Board.

"We've disproportionately benefited from two sectors, construction and financial services," said Esmael Adibi, an economist at Chapman University.

"The demise of these two sectors has hurt us disproportionately."

That's had an outsize effect on California's 13.5 million Latinos, who are heavily concentrated in the building trades. In 2007, Latinos made up 47% of the construction workforce in the state, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

In July, California's Latino unemployment rate hit 12.7%, dwarfing the white jobless rate of 9.5%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Black unemployment remains the highest in the state at 14.2%. But Latino joblessness has grown much faster. In July 2007 the Latino unemployment rate stood at just 5.9%, compared with 9.2% for blacks and 4.8% for whites.

Last month, 805,000 California Latinos were jobless. That's up 127% over the last two years. The number of unemployed whites in the state grew 103% over the same period, while the number of out-of-work African Americans rose 66%.

"You really begin to see desperate times for lots of Latino families throughout California," said Vince Vasquez, a senior policy analyst with the National University System Institute for Policy Research.

East Los Angeles resident Robert Gonzales said he was struggling to support his three children after his job as an industrial painter disappeared a year ago when his employer moved to Ohio.

When he first lost his job, he was able to find odd carpentry and plumbing work, but his phone has stopped ringing. Now, he can barely pay the taxes on the home he owns, and he struggles to put food on the table.

"I come to the EDD every day, and nothing happens," he said, standing outside the workforce development office in East L.A., where the computers had malfunctioned. "They say, 'Don't call us, we'll call you.' "

A large proportion of Latinos also are in hospitality, nondurable-goods manufacturing and warehousing, said Jerry Nickelsburg, senior economist for the UCLA Anderson Forecast. As consumer demand for products worldwide shrinks, companies responsible for making and shipping goods are jettisoning employees.

That leaves people like Juan Cortez, a 33-year-old from Monterey Park, scrounging for work. He was laid off from his job as a shipping clerk nine months ago, moved back in with his parents, sold his Chevy Tahoe and now is hoping to get a callback about a job as a forklift operator.

He and a few friends have been talking about moving back to Mexico, he said, where it's cheaper to live and the job prospects seem better.

"There's jobs there," he said. "There's no jobs in L.A."

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Los Angeles County also reached 11.9% in July, up from a revised 11.2% in June. The government sector was especially hard hit as state budget cuts took their toll, with the number of jobs dropping 4.6% from June. Education and health services was the only sector in the county to employ more people this month than it did in July of last year.

The Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario area felt the most pain in the Southland, with the unemployment rate rising to 14.3% in July, up from a revised 13.9% in June. A major center for warehousing and distribution, the area has shed 20,100 jobs since July 2008 in the trade, transportation and utilities sector. The area's construction sector lost 20,700 jobs over the same period.

The recession has been particularly hard on less-educated Californians. People without a high school diploma had a 16.8% unemployment rate in June compared with a 10.8% unemployment rate in June 2008.

That's plagued the region's Latinos, many of whom have less schooling, fewer linguistic skills and spottier community connections than people who have lived in the country for generations, policy analyst Vasquez said.

"It's about where you went to school, it's about having relationships, and those are the things that really affect Latinos in a situation like this," he said.

About 44.5% of Latino adults in the state do not have a high school diploma, compared with 20% of the state overall, and 6.8% have a bachelor's degree, compared with 18.7% of the state overall, according to U.S. Census estimates.

After being laid off from her job as a receptionist at an oncology office in June, 22-year-old Denise Muralles decided it was time to hit the books. She's taking classes at Los Angeles Community College in the fall, she said, and hopes to eventually study physiology.

Her mother, a secretary, has been adamant that Muralles not follow in her footsteps.

"She really wants me to get an education," she said. "She doesn't want me to be a secretary."

Economists predict that the unemployment rate in the state will continue to climb. Job growth doesn't usually begin until about six months after the end of a recession, economist Adibi said. He expects the unemployment rate to keep rising into early 2010.

Still, there is some reason to be optimistic, economists said. The rate of job losses in the state is slowing.

Two categories, professional and business services and leisure and hospitality, added jobs last month. Employment in other sectors, including financial activities and natural resources and mining, were stable, which economists say is a good sign.

"There is a ray of hope," Adibi said.

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

[Economy]
World Bankers Suggest Rebound May Be Under Way
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: August 21, 2009

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Central bankers from around the world expressed growing confidence on Friday that the worst of the financial crisis was over and that a global economic recovery was beginning to take shape.

“The prospects for a return to growth in the near term appear good,” declared Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, offering optimism both about the United States and the worldwide outlook.

Though the Fed chairman repeated his warning that the economic recovery here was likely to be slow and arduous and that unemployment would remain high for another year, he went beyond the central bank’s most recent statement that economic activity was “leveling out.” Speaking to central bankers and economists at the Fed’s annual retreat here in the Grand Tetons, Mr. Bernanke echoed the growing relief among European and Asian central bankers that their own economies had already started to rebound.

Even as they indulged in a bit of self-congratulation over what had been achieved since the financial crisis of last year, these central bankers were beginning to focus quietly on another big task, how they will unwind the vast emergency measures they put in place to fight the crisis.

At almost the same time that Mr. Bernanke spoke, the National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes jumped 7.2 percent in July — the biggest monthly increase in more than a decade and much bigger than analysts had expected.

Investors reacted ebulliently to both the housing news and to the Fed chairman’s remarks. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped as soon as the markets opened and ended the day up 155.91 points, or 1.67 percent, at 9505.96. Though stock prices are far below their record highs, the Dow has risen 45 percent from March and is at its highest point this year.

Shares of major home builders surged on the improvement in home sales, which was the fourth monthly increase in a row. While forecasters had expected a gain, the size of it jolted investors.

But stocks for a wide range of other companies climbed higher as well, as did the prices of oil, copper and gold. Shares climbed for industrial companies, energy producers and manufacturers of chemicals, plastics and other basic materials.

“This is a bull market,” said Laszlo Birinyi Jr., president of Birinyi Associates, who said he was investing in large banks, well-established technology companies like Apple and big industrial companies like 3M and United States Steel. “There’s just a desire to be in the market and hope that the train will again leave the station.”

Here in Jackson Hole, the mood of relief and cautious confidence among central bankers and economists on Friday was almost palpable — a stark contrast to the anxiety and tension that permeated their retreat here one year ago.

“It is reasonable to declare that the worst of the crisis is behind us, and that the first signs of global growth have appeared earlier than we generally expected nine months ago,” said Stanley Fischer, governor of the Bank of Israel and a top former official at the International Monetary Fund.

In the past week, France and Germany both surprised forecasters by reporting positive growth after a string of quarterly contractions. Japan followed with its own growth report.

The Fed and other central banks will have to unwind a number of emergency measures deployed during the peak of the crisis as growth returns.

A growing number of economists and some Fed officials say the shift to tighter monetary policies and higher interest rates, though unlikely to start until at least the middle of next year, may have to be much more abrupt than normal if they are to prevent inflation two or three years from now.

“When you get into a crisis like this, gradualism is not the right strategy,” said Frederic S. Mishkin, an economist at Columbia University who was a Fed governor from 2006 until 2008. “Of course, when things turn around, you have to be aggressive in the other direction.”

Indeed, the Federal Reserve’s “exit strategy” could lead to a clash with the Obama administration. The White House plans to release its newest budget estimates next week, and administration officials said that the 10-year deficit will rise to $9 trillion — a big jump from its earlier estimate of $7 trillion.

Some Fed officials are already worried about criticism that they are financing the government’s deficits by buying up long-term Treasury securities, and the central bank announced last week that it would end that program next month.

In the future, Fed officials could feel more pressure to further tighten monetary policy as a way of countering the government’s deficit spending. The immense amount of borrowing could push up long-term interest rates, if foreign investors balk at buying up United States debt.

Assessing the extraordinary events of the last year, Mr. Bernanke argued that aggressive action by countries around the world prevented a collapse that would have been even worse than what actually took place.

Asserting that short-term lending markets are functioning more normally, that corporate bond issuance is strong and that other “previously moribund” securitization markets are reviving, Mr. Bernanke said that both the United States and other major countries were poised for growth.

In emphasizing not just an imminent end to the recession but also good chances for actual growth, Mr. Bernanke’s assessment was in some ways surprising.

Despite encouraging signs on many fronts, American retailers have reported unexpectedly weak sales in the last week — a sign that that consumer spending could drag down economic growth in the months ahead. And on Thursday, the Labor Department reported that new unemployment claims jumped again.

And on Friday, a prominent banking analyst warned that hundreds more American banks would fail over the next year, adding to the difficulties that small businesses have experienced in routine borrowing.

“There will be over 300 bank closures,” Meredith Whitney, the Wall Street analyst who accurately predicted last year that Citigroup would have to cut its dividend, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Jackson Hole.

Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, cautioned against assuming that the world was back to normal.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” he said, adding that “it would be a catastrophe” if governments failed to heed the lessons of the crisis and financial regulation.

Mr. Bernanke acknowledged that the banking system’s problems were far from over.

“Strains persist in many financial markets across the globe,” he cautioned. “Financial institutions face significant additional losses, and many businesses and households continue to experience considerable difficulty gaining access to credit.”

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

[Technology]
Apple Denies It Rejected Google Application for iPhone
By SAUL HANSELL
Published: August 21, 2009

Apple told the Federal Communications Commission on Friday that it did not reject an iPhone application submitted by Google and that it was still studying it, in part because of privacy concerns.

Apple was formally responding to a commission inquiry into the reason the Google Voice service, which offers users free domestic telephone calls, deeply discounted international calls and SMS messages, had not been allowed into the Apple iPhone App Store.

Apple said in a letter to the F.C.C. that Google Voice duplicated the functions of the iPhone, which uses the AT&T network in the United States, and might confuse users. The application “appears to alter the iPhone’s distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging and voice mail,” the letter said.

Apple also raised concerns that Google Voice copied all of the information about a user’s contacts onto Google’s servers. “We have yet to obtain any assurances from Google that this data will only be used in appropriate ways,” the letter said.

As a result of these questions, Apple said it was “still pondering” whether to allow the Google Voice application.

Apple said that it had not discussed the Google Voice application with AT&T and that in most cases its contract with the wireless carrier gave it the sole authority to decide whether to accept applications. Apple did say that it had agreed not to allow any applications that sent voice calls over the Internet, bypassing AT&T’s network, without the phone company’s permission. As a result, applications for voice calling services, like eBay’s Skype, can be used only on Wi-Fi connections, not on AT&T’s network. The Google Voice application does not send calls over the Internet. Rather, Google’s servers connect to both parties in the call over the telephone network.

AT&T filed its own letter, asserting that it was not consulted by Apple on the Google voice application. It defended the restriction on voice-over-Internet protocol, or VoIP, service as important to preserving the revenue it needed to offset the subsidized price of the iPhone. Apple and AT&T, it said, “required assurances that the revenues from the AT&T voice plans available to iPhone customers would not be reduced by enabling VoIP calling functionality on the iPhone.”

Other wireless carriers, including Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel, do not have restrictions on applications that make calls over the Internet using their smartphones. And in its letter to the commission, AT&T said it would now reconsider this policy.

The commission is examining Internet calling in response to a complaint by Skype that wireless companies are blocking its service from some handsets.

The question of Internet calling and more broadly, whether wireless carriers and handset makers should exercise control over the applications that run on phones, may well play a part in a broad F.C.C. inquiry that is expected to be approved at its Aug. 27 meeting. This is seen as a move by the new commission chairman, Julius Genachowski, to look at the power of AT&T and Verizon, which together control 60 percent of the wireless business in the United States.

In Google’s letter to the commission, it said it did not screen applications for its Android cellphone operating system, but that it did reject apps that contained pornography or other objectionable material.


[Fashion & Style]
Dude, You Are So (Not) Obama
By DOUGLAS QUENQUA
Published: August 21, 2009

LAST week, if you wanted to use the latest slang to tell a friend he was cool, you could have called him “Obama,” as in: “Dude, you’re rocking the new Pre phone? You are so Obama.”

This week? Best not to risk it.

The sudden shift in meaning has nothing to do with the fortunes of the president, regardless of what the health care debate may do to his cool factor. The fault rests entirely with what has happened to the life span of slang, which seems to shorten with every click of the mouse.

“Obama” was one of the most noteworthy new entries in “U.C.L.A. Slang 6,” a recently released compendium of student colloquialisms.

And the word’s very inclusion in the dictionary signifies that its street cred has evaporated.

“I think that word has completely left us,” said Pamela Munro, the U.C.L.A. professor who edited the latest edition of that dictionary, which is compiled once every four years.

What’s a hipster (hepcat?) to do? Keeping up with the latest slang is at once easier and harder than ever. The number of slang dictionaries is growing, both online and off, not to mention social networking media that invent and discard words, phrases and memes at the speed of broadband. The life of slang is now shorter than ever, say linguists, and what was once a reliable code for identifying members of an in-group or subculture is losing some of its magic.

The Internet “is robbing slang of a lot of its sociolinguistic exclusionary power,” said Robert A. Leonard, a linguistics professor at Hofstra in Hempstead, N.Y., whose slang credentials include being a founding member of the doo-wop group Sha Na Na, formed in the late 1960s. “If you are in a real inside group, you are manufacturing slang so that you can exclude the wannabes.”

And that becomes harder, he added, as the whole world has access to your language.

Part of the problem is that electronic media are making it too easy to compile dictionaries like “U.C.L.A. Slang 6.” While slang dictionaries have been around in one form or another since the 18th century, they now number more than a dozen in print, to say nothing of online resources like UrbanDictionary.com and slangsite.com that are updated hundreds of times daily.

“It used to be that the guys who did all the slang dictionaries would take years just to track it down,” said David Crystal, a linguist who has written more than 30 books. “Now, with the Internet, you just put something up on Facebook and say ‘send me in your slang terms,’ and in a few days you have hundreds of examples and the ability to check it out with other readers.”

Urban Dictionary, which is 10 years old, may be the ultimate example. It is a sprawling, chaotic collection of street talk, all of it user-submitted, giving everyone access to the meaning behind the coded lyrics of someone like Lil Wayne.

Slang is meant to be “something that keeps groups together and keeps people out,” said Aaron Peckham, who began the site when he was a freshman at California Polytechnic State University. But the slang on Urban Dictionary is “from every group you can imagine, so it’s helping people understand each other.”

In July, the Urban Dictionary attracted 15 million unique users and 1,000 new words a day, Mr. Peckham said.

But widespread understanding is the opposite of what slang is about. Indeed, it is accepted wisdom among linguists that once a word actually shows up in a slang dictionary, it effectively ceases to be slang.

What does that mean for language in the age of Urban Dictionary? Will it be the end of slang? Hardly, says Jonathon Green, author of “Chambers Slang Dictionary” and other books about neologisms. “I think slang is the salsa, the great hot sauce on our language,” he said. “I think apart from losing its power, it keeps reproducing itself. There are now 2,500 words for ‘drunk.’ Soon there will be 3,500.”

In the past, slang has proved resilient, if only because it recycles itself almost as quickly as it wears out. Mr. Green said that, when he was a hippie in England in the 1960s, “the language that we were using was in fact the language of 1930s black America, though very few of us were aware of this.”

Back then, “it took 20, 30 years to cross the Atlantic,“ he said. “The difference now is it takes 20 to 30 hours.”

Tracking a word’s arc from hip to lame is notoriously difficult, especially because different social groups grab hold of different terms at different times. But Professor Leonard cites “pwned” (rhymes with owned) as a relatively recent invention that is already falling out of favor with the gaming crowd that coined it. “It comes from the mistyping of ‘owned’ on some computer game,” as in “I just owned you,” he said.

And the site Gawker recently tried without success to ban the phrase “I’m just sayin,’ ” which has become ubiquitous on blogs and Twitter as a way of defanging — disingenuously, perhaps — a potentially confrontational statement. In a sign of just how quickly such phrases are now being co-opted, CNN recently unveiled a segment called “Just Sayin,’ ” in which an anchorwoman offers a common-sense opinion about some curious cultural phenomenon, followed by the passive-aggressive catch phrase.

“These words that once might have marked you as a member of a certain group or social set, as soon as they get into circulation, they spread very quickly and lose their specialness,” said Gabriel Snyder, Gawker’s editor in chief.

Indeed, banning tired slang has become something of a regular feature on the site, a reaction to the rapid pace at which insider terms become worn out.

So is slang in danger of losing its cool? Not exactly, says Ms. Munro, the U.C.L.A. linguistics professor.

People who learn slang secondhand, she says, will tend to use it incorrectly.

“I feel that your grandmother would have a real hard time sounding like Lil Wayne,” she said.

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

[Environment]
By Degrees
In Brazil, Paying Farmers to Let the Trees Stand
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: August 21, 2009

QUERENCIA, Brazil — José Marcolini, a farmer here, has a permit from the Brazilian government to raze 12,500 acres of rain forest this year to create highly profitable new soy fields.

But he says he is struggling with his conscience. A Brazilian environmental group is offering him a yearly cash payment to leave his forest standing to help combat climate change.

Mr. Marcolini says he cares about the environment. But he also has a family to feed, and he is dubious that the group’s initial offer in the negotiation — $12 per acre, per year — is enough for him to accept.

“For me to resist the pressure, surrounded by soybeans, I’ll have to be paid — a lot,” said Mr. Marcolini, 53, noting that cleared farmland here in the state of Mato Grosso sells for up to $1,300 an acre.

Mato Grosso means thick forests, and the name was once apt. But today, this Brazilian state is a global epicenter of deforestation. Driven by profits derived from fertile soil, the region’s dense forests have been aggressively cleared over the past decade, and Mato Grasso is now Brazil’s leading producer of soy, corn and cattle, exported across the globe by multinational companies.

Deforestation, a critical contributor to climate change, effectively accounts for 20 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions and 70 percent of the emissions in Brazil. Halting new deforestation, experts say, is as powerful a way to combat warming as closing the world’s coal plants.

But until now, there has been no financial reward for keeping forest standing. Which is why a growing number of scientists, politicians and environmentalists argue that cash payments — like that offered to Mr. Marcolini — are the only way to end tropical forest destruction and provide a game-changing strategy in efforts to limit global warming.

Unlike high-tech solutions like capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide or making “green” fuel from algae, preserving a forest yields a strikingly simple environmental payback: a landowner reduces his property’s emissions to zero.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change, said that deforestation “absolutely” needed to be addressed by a new international climate agreement being negotiated this year. “But people cut down trees because there is an economic rationale for doing it, and you need to provide them with a financial alternative,” he said.

Both the most recent draft of the agreement and the climate bill passed by the House in late June in the United States include plans for rich countries and companies to pay the poor to preserve their forests.

The payment strategies may include direct payments to landowners to keep forests standing, as well as indirect subsidies, like higher prices for beef and soy that are produced without resorting to clear-cutting. Deforestation creates carbon emissions through fires and machinery that are used to fell trees, and it also destroys the plant life that helps absorb carbon dioxide emissions from cars and factories around the globe.

But getting the cash incentives right is a complex and uncharted business. In much of the developing world, including here, deforestation has been tied to economic progress. Pedro Alves Guimarães, 73, a weathered man sitting at the edge of the region’s River of the Dead, came to Mato Grosso in 1964 in search of free land, pushing into the jungle until he found a site and built a hut as a base for raising cattle. While he regrets the loss of the forest, he has welcomed amenities like the school built a few years ago that his grandchildren attend, or the electricity put in last year that allowed him to buy his first freezer.

Also, environmental groups caution that, designed poorly, programs to pay for forest preservation could merely serve as a cash cow for the very people who are destroying them. For example, one proposed version of the new United Nations plan would allow plantations of trees, like palms grown for palm oil, to count as forest, even though tree plantations do not have nearly the carbon absorption potential of genuine forest and are far less diverse in plant and animal life.

“There is the capacity to get a very perverse outcome,” said Sean Cadman, a spokesman for the Wilderness Society of Australia.

Global as well as local economic forces are driving deforestation — Brazil and Indonesia lead the world in the extent of their rain forests lost each year. The forests are felled to help feed the world’s growing population and meet its growing appetite for meat. Much of Brazil’s soy is bought by American-based companies like Cargill or Archer Daniels Midland and used to feed cows as far away as Europe and China. In Indonesia, rain forests are felled to plant palms for the palm oil, which is a component of biofuels.

Brazil has tried to balance development and conservation.

Last year, with a grant from Norway that could bring the country $1 billion, it created an Amazon Fund to help communities maintain their forest. National laws stipulate that 80 percent of every tract in the upper Amazon — and 50 percent in more developed regions — must remain forested, but it is a vast territory with little law enforcement. Soy exporters officially have a moratorium on using product from newly deforested land.

Here in Mato Grasso, 700 square miles of rain forest was stripped in the last five months of 2007 alone, according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, which tracks vanishing forests.

“With so much money to be made, there are no laws that will keep forest standing,” John Carter, a rancher who settled here 15 years ago, said as he flew his Cessna over the denuded land one day this summer.

Until very recently, developing the Amazon was the priority, and some settlers feel betrayed by the new stigma surrounding deforestation. Much as in the 19th-century American West, the Brazilian government encouraged settlement through homesteaders’ benefits like cheap land and housing subsidies, many of which still exist today.

“It was revolting and sad when the world said that deforestation was bad — we were told to come here and that we had to tear it down,” said Mato Grosso’s secretary of agriculture, Neldo Egon Weirich, 56, who moved here in 1978 and noted that to be eligible for loans to buy tractors and seed, a farmer had to clear 80 percent of his land.

He is proud to have turned Mato Grosso from a malarial zone into an agricultural powerhouse. “Mato Grosso is under a microscope — we know we have to do something,” Mr. Weirich said. “But we can’t just stop production.”

Even today, settlers around the globe are buying or claiming cheap “useless” forest and transforming it into farmland.

Clearing away the trees is often the best way to declare and ensure ownership. Land that Mr. Carter has intentionally left forested for its environmental benefit has been intermittently overtaken by squatters — a common problem here. In parts of Southeast Asia, early experiments in paying landowners for preserving forest have been hampered because it is often unclear who owns, or controls, property.

There are various ideas about how to rein in deforestation.

Mr. Carter has started a landowners’ environmental group, called Aliança da Terra, whose members agree to have their properties surveyed for good environmental practices and their forests tracked by satellite by scientists at the Amazon Institute for Environmental Research (IPAM), ensuring that they are not cultivating newly cleared land. Mr. Carter is currently negotiating with companies like McDonalds to purchase only from farms that have been certified.

The United Nations program, called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation or REDD, will reward countries that preserve forests with carbon credits that can be sold and turned into cash for forest owners through the global carbon market. The United Nations already gives such credits for cleaning factories and planting trees. Carbon credits are bought by companies or countries that have exceeded their emissions limits, as a way to balance their emissions budget.

Daniel Nepstad, a scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center, has mapped out large areas of the Amazon “pixel by pixel” to determine the land value if it was converted to raise cattle or grow soy, to help determine how much landowners should be paid to conserve forest. Most experts feel that landowners will accept lower prices as they realize the benefits of saving forest, like conserving water and burnishing their image with buyers.

Mr. Weirich, the agriculture secretary, said he was skeptical about that. But he, too, senses that there may for the first time be money in forest preservation and has recently decided to be certified by Aliança da Terra.

“We want to adopt practices that will put us ahead in the market,” he said.

The initial offer Mr. Marcolini has from the environmental group is perhaps not enough to save the forest here. But, he said, if his land was in a more remote part of the Amazon, with less farming potential, “I’d take that offer and run with it.”

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

[National News]
Economy Is 'Leveling Out,' Bernanke Says
With Fed's Role Under Review, Chairman Cites Strength of Its Actions
By Neil Irwin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 22, 2009

JACKSON, Wyo., Aug. 21 -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke rendered his most positive assessment of the economy yet in a speech Friday and gave credit in part to his own institution's handling of the worst economic crisis in decades.

The U.S. and global economy "appear to be leveling out," Bernanke told an audience of some of the world's leading economists and central bankers, and "prospects for a return to growth in the near term appear good." He warned, however, that the recovery is "likely to be relatively slow at first," with unemployment declining only gradually.

The idea that the economy is starting to improve was bolstered Friday by a report that sales of existing homes soared 7.2 percent in July to the highest level in two years. Bernanke's comments and the housing news sent Standard & Poor's 500-stock index up 1.9 percent to a new high this year.

But the meat of Bernanke's speech was not about the stabilizing economy, but rather an extensive defense of the Fed's handling of the financial crisis and recession. It is part of a broader effort to shore up confidence in the central bank, which has come under fire in Congress and in public opinion polls for its role in various bailouts.

And it comes as speculation heats up over whether President Obama will reappoint the chairman when his term expires Jan. 31.

"History is full of examples in which the policy responses to financial crises have been slow and inadequate," Bernanke said at the annual symposium sponsored by the Kansas City Fed. By contrast, in the current crisis "policymakers in the United States and around the globe responded with speed and force to arrest a rapidly deteriorating and dangerous situation."

With the recession waning, Bernanke and other Fed leaders are trying to make the case that their actions, including unconventional lending programs and the bailouts of Bear Stearns and American International Group, are part of the reason. He has offered broad outlines of this idea in the last month to Congress (in two days of testimony on Capitol Hill) and to the American people (in a late July town hall-style television broadcast on PBS).

His comments are not merely intended to set the record straight: Congress is looking to remake the financial regulatory system, which could include changes to the Fed's mission and governance.

"He's trying not to be defensive, but to explain why the Fed did what it did," said John Makin, a principal at hedge fund Caxton Associates and participant in the conference.

The question of Bernanke's future increasingly hangs over his public appearances. Obama has several alternatives, including White House economic aide and former Treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers. But Bernanke enjoys strong support from the financial community and economists, and the conventional wisdom in those circles is that his reappointment is the most likely outcome and Obama's safest choice.

Bernanke has about a 79 percent chance of being reappointed, based on trading Friday on the online betting exchange InTrade.

The annual conference, at a lodge in the shadow of the Grand Tetons, is a gathering spot for the world's leading central bankers and other top economists. Two years ago, ominous clouds were gathering for the world economy, and last year, there had already been a few thunderstorms.

But this year, the economists were trying to piece together how last fall's financial typhoon has altered the financial system, and what they, as policymakers, can do to stop it from happening again.

Bernanke and a Fed colleague, Brian Madigan, argued that the Fed's extraordinary interventions were a logical extension of central banking practices first explained by Walter Bagehot, the 19th century British father of modern central banking.

Bagehot said that central banks should halt panics, an idea that has long been government policy for conventional banks. Bernanke and Madigan said Fed programs to support money market mutual funds, commercial paper and consumer and business lending are an adaptation of that notion for the 21st century.

"Bagehot's dictum continues to provide a useful framework for designing central bank actions for combating a financial crisis," said Madigan, director of the Fed's division of monetary affairs. But, he said, that framework should be used amid "the modern structure of financial markets and institutions."

While speakers were generally cautiously optimistic about the future, many seemed wary of becoming complacent about continuing risks to the economy -- or forgetting the lessons of the last year.

"I am a little a bit uneasy when I see that because we have some green shoots here and there, we are already saying, 'Well, after all, we are close to back to normal,' " said Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, commenting on a paper presented at the conference. "We know that we have an enormous amount of work to do and we should be as active as possible."

Stanley Fischer, governor of the Bank of Israel and a onetime thesis adviser to a young Ben Bernanke, gave a particularly sharp warning about the risk that world governments will fail to rein in the excesses that created the crisis.

"At this stage, we seem to be taking it for granted that we should go back to the structure of the financial system as it was on the eve of the crisis," Fischer said in a speech. "But we need to be thinking more broadly, including the possibility that some radical restructuring is needed," such as sharply restricting the ability of banks to have large trading operations.

news20090822slt

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

Bernanke: We're Bouncing Back
By Ben Whitford
Posted Saturday, Aug. 22, 2009, at 6:33 AM ET

All the papers lead with news that the battered global economy could finally be on the mend. The Washington Post (WP) and the New York Times (NYT) both top their front page with yesterday's declaration from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that the economy appears to be "leveling off," his most upbeat assessment since the global meltdown began. "Prospects for a return to growth in the near term appear good," he told a gathering of economists and central bankers, adding that aggressive action by governments and central bankers around the world appeared to have successfully staved off the worst of the downturn.

The Wall Street Journal leads with news that sales of existing homes expanded by more than 7 percent last month, the fastest rate in more than 10 years, driving up global stock prices and prompting hopes that the U.S. housing market could be stabilizing after years of decline. The Los Angeles Times (LAT) puts a glass-half-empty spin on the news, noting that California's jobless rate reached a post-World War II high last month, climbing to almost 12 percent; even if the national recovery pans out as expected, the Golden State could be hurting for years to come.

The world's central bankers struck a positive and slightly self-congratulatory tone yesterday at a retreat in Grand Tetons, on the back of strong reports from major European and Asian economies and signs that the U.S. housing market could finally be recovering from its lengthy swoon. Adding to the sense of optimism, the WSJ reports, stocks and oil prices rallied to their highest levels of the year, while European stocks posted their biggest gain for a month; the Post notes that even credit-card charge-off rates—a measure of hopelessly delinquent balances—fell last month for the first time since September, providing a glimmer of hope for the struggling industry.

Still, it's not all good news. Banks will continue to take credit-card hits until employment rates improve, and the Post notes that while things are looking up in Washington, D.C. and Virginia, unemployment rates are continuing to rise in 26 states. That means many banks will remain on the ropes; another bank collapsed yesterday, bringing the year's total failures to 81, and analysts predict that hundreds more institutions will fail in coming months. To make matters worse, the bust banks have flooded the market: With few domestic buyers available, the federal government is now selling off defunct banks to foreign investors.

The Post fronts word, via a late-breaking Newsweek scoop, of a long-concealed CIA report that found that agency interrogators staged mock executions using a handgun and an electric drill in an attempt to frighten a captured al-Qaida commander into giving up information. A redacted version of the report is due to be published Monday, following a lawsuit brought by the ACLU. The report is also believed to list a number of other incidents in which CIA and contracted interrogators overstepped their authority, in some cases violating international bans on cruel and inhumane treatment.

The CIA also remained under scrutiny yesterday for its reliance on private contractors, following the disclosure that the agency had used hirelings from Blackwater USA for elements of an assassination program; the Post notes that lawmakers this week criticized the use of private companies for "inherently governmental" activities like intelligence work. The NYT reports that despite publicly breaking with Blackwater, the State Department continues to pay the company more than $400 million to transport and guard diplomats in war zones and to train security forces at its base in North Carolina; the WSJ focuses on Afghanistan, where contractors now significantly outnumber military personnel despite the Obama administration's efforts to reduce the Pentagon's reliance on hired help.

In Kabul, meanwhile, the WSJ reports that President Hamid Karzai and former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah both claimed significant leads as the vote count continued after Thursday's election. Each candidate claimed to have garnered more than 50 percent of the total vote, the threshold for avoiding a run-off contest, raising concerns that their supporters' impossibly high expectations might undermine the final result or even lead to ethnic clashes, potentially impeding international efforts to stabilize the country.

Members of America's largest Lutheran denomination yesterday voted to allow the appointment of noncelibate gays to the clergy, reports the NYT, in what religious scholars called a watershed moment in American Christianity. "Today I am proud to be a Lutheran," said one gay-rights leader after the vote; still, many conservative members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America were dismayed by the result, with some calling for "faithful" ministries to break away from the national church.

The WSJ reports on the Scottish government's attempts to contain the fallout from its decision to release terminally ill Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi after TV images of the terrorist receiving a hero's welcome in Tripoli sparked outrage on both sides of the Atlantic. The NYT notes that questions remain over the extent to which the decision to release al-Megrahi was influenced by efforts to clear the way for British companies to pursue lucrative oil contracts in Libya. In an editorial, the Post calls for the U.S. to impose sanctions against Libya unless al-Megrahi is placed under house arrest until his death. "To bestow freedom and the comforts of home on a man serving a life sentence for one of the most horrific acts of terrorism in modern times is a breathtaking abuse of power," the Post declares. "There was only one appropriate way for Mr. Megrahi to have returned home: in a box."

With Obama's health care reforms teetering, the LAT runs a pre-emptive autopsy of his strategic blunders: Democratic strategists say he wheeled out too many messages, and failed to give the public a clear sense of why reforms were necessary. Perhaps it's just as well that the president is about to take a breather, notes the WSJ, leaving surrogates to continue the debate while he spends the week at Martha's Vineyard. The Post reports that former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle visited the White House yesterday and reportedly asked Obama to "get off the airwaves" while lawmakers attempted to reach a deal. The paper also eyes Senate negotiators' efforts to build consensus behind a slimmed-down compromise bill but notes that it's not clear that a smaller bill would be any easier to write or to pass.

And finally, the NYT reports from state fairs across the country, where officials are grappling with a new health threat: bug-ridden sightseers are infecting pigs with swine flu. "The whole idea of the animals getting sick from people is a foreign concept," says one state veterinarian. "But that's what we're looking at here." It's no laughing matter: Officials say that if the H1N1 flu strain is allowed to recirculate in pig populations, it could mutate into more virulent and deadly forms. In an attempt to insulate the prize porkers, officials at many fairs now bar visitors from petting the animals and are asking people to wash their hands before approaching the pig pens.

news20090822gc1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Abdelbaset al-Megrahi]
Government forced to deny Lockerbie bomber trade dealBusiness secretary says there was no bargaining over Megrahi's release as anger grows in London, Washington and Scotland
Staff and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 22 August 2009 16.38 BST Article history

The business secretary, Lord Mandelson, has denied any trade deal was made between Libya and Britain over the freeing of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, describing the allegations as "offensive".

The government has come under increasing pressure over claims by the son of Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, that the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was linked to negotiations over oil and gas. Opposition parties said the claims left ministers with "serious questions" to answer.

Speaking as he left hospital after prostate surgery, Mandelson said: "It's not only completely wrong to make such a suggestion, it's also quite offensive."

Mandelson said he had met Colonel Gaddafi's son, Saif, twice this year and no deal was done. "As I have already stated, on both occasions Mr Gaddafi raised the issue of the Libyan prisoner in Scotland's release as all representatives of the Libyan government do.

"They had the same response from me as they would have had from any other member of the government.

"The issue of the prisoner's release was entirely a matter for the Scottish justice minister. That is how it was left, that is how it was well understood."

He said it was a matter devolved to Scotland and there was "no agreement between the Libyan government and the British government".

"It has been a matter entirely for the Scottish justice minister to exercise his discretion."

The shadow foreign minister David Lidington said it was essential that Gordon Brown himself answer the questions as to whether British ministers had at any time suggested or requested that Megrahi be released or transferred to a Libyan jail.

Lidington challenged the government to release official civil service notes of the relevant meetings between ministers and the Libyans.

"I think there are some serious questions to be asked," he told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4.

"It is very important, I think, for the reputation of our institutions of justice that it is made clear beyond any doubt that this was not connected with some political trade."

Libyan television showed Gaddafi meeting Megrahi and praising "my friend" Gordon Brown and the British government for their part in securing his freedom. The meeting defied calls by Gordon Brown and Barack Obama for Megrahi's return to be handled in a low-key fashion.

"To my friends in Scotland, the Scottish National party and Scottish prime minister, and the foreign secretary, I praise their courage for having proved their independence in decision making despite the unacceptable and unreasonable measures that they faced. Nevertheless they took this courageously right and humanitarian decision," he said.

"And I say to my friend Brown, the prime minister of Britain, his government, the Queen of Britain, Elizabeth, and Prince Andrew, who all contributed to encouraging the Scottish government to take this historic and courageous decision, despite the obstacles."

Mandelson criticised the scenes of celebration in Libya at Megrahi's return. "It's very insensitive. You just have to think about what is going through the minds of the families who have lost loved ones in a terrible tragedy."

Lord Mandelson praised the NHS after his "very successful" operation for an enlarged prostate gland. As he left St Mary's hospital in Paddington, west London, he thanked staff who treated him.

"I have been treated really well in the hospital. Everything is now flowing extremely well. Actually I have had a jolly time. I am very proud to be an NHS patient."


[Afghanistan]
Taliban chop off Afghan voters' fingers
European election monitors accused of staying away as threats of violence curtail voter turnout in south
Jon Boone, Kabul
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 22 August 2009 16.44 BST Article history

New evidence of violence against Afghan voters have emerged as election observers confirmed that Taliban fanatics in the south of Afghanistan hacked off the fingers of at least two people who dared to vote in last week's elections.

The country's biggest election monitoring organisation said the Taliban carried out the long-threatened punishment in Kandahar province soon after the voters cast their ballots on Thursday, after which right index fingers were inked to prevent anybody voting again.

Nader Nadery, head of the Free and Fair Elections Foundation (FEFA), said the brutal attacks were only two instances of the violence meted out before and during polling day. Frequent rocket attacks, harassment of election officials and the burning of polling stations in the south were also reported. The violence kept the turnout down to worryingly low levels in the region.

General Phillipe Morillon, head of the European Union observation mission, said that while the election was largely fair, "it was not free in some parts of the territory due to terror ".

Official information on turnout, as well as which candidate is in the lead, will not be released until Tuesday. However, estimates have ranged between 10 and 30 per cent for voter participation in the south. Other election observers have warned that violence in the south also limited the amount of direct monitoring of polling stations where electoral fraud is likely to be highest.

The European Union, which has only 120 observers in place, said it managed to visit just six locations in the volatile south. Those that did go there embedded themselves with Nato forces who have extremely strict security rules preventing observers moving around.

A team in Tirin Kot, the provincial capital of Uruzgan, did not even set foot outside the Dutch base in the town and had to satisfy themselves with observing polling at a voting centre reserved for Afghan National Army soldiers.

During a press conference today Colonel Morillon said security for his observers had been his top priority. He angrily denied "hostile" questions by Afghan journalists that his staff had failed to go out on the ground. He said the presence of so many European observers at one of Kabul's best hotels, the hilltop Intercontinental, showed willingness to "live among the Afghan population".

Other observer groups were also severely restricted in the number of people they were able to field in the south.

The National Democratic Institute warned that "many of the most serious election-related problems are likely to take place in areas of the country that are the least accessible to observers".

With all ballots now counted, attention is turning to whether the election will pass an important credibility test in the south, which is the home to both the Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, and much of the Taliban's support network. The observer missions made damning remarks about how Afghanistan's second ever presidential election has been conducted so far.

The EU report said the Independent Election Commission was perceived as biased by many Afghans as its seven commissioners were all appointed by President Hamid Karzai. It also said state media had shown a "clear bias in favour of President Karzai".

The NDI said that a shambolic pre-election voter registration drive created a "grossly inaccurate" electoral roll as people were easily able to register more than once or even to include the names of non-existent people on the list. It also said the Election Complaints Commission, the independent body for investigating voting irregularities, did not have time to prepare for the elections.

The ECC failed to make adjudication about one apparent infringements of the election regulation that state officials should remain impartial. A number of influential figures appeared to support Karzai, including the governor of Nangahar province, the head of the IEC in Kandahar and the director of the enormously powerful Independent Directorate of Local Governance.

Grant Kippen, the Canadian head of the ECC, said it had been unable to finish its investigation of the claims before polling day, which he conceded was too late to make any difference. The body has received 120 complaints, including ballot box stuffing in Kandahar province.

One western observer who specialises in elections in developing countries said the ECC had "contributed about as much to a free and fair election as a fart in a hurricane".

news20090822gc2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Afghanistan]
Two soldiers killed on foot patrol, taking Afghan death toll to 206
• One of the casualties was sent as a reinforcement
• Bodies of four others returned to the UK
Jo Adetunji and Sam Jones
The Guardian, Saturday 22 August 2009 Article history

Two British soldiers were killed in an explosion in north Helmand, Afghanistan, on Thursday morning as people voted in the country's presidential election, the Ministry of Defence said yesterday.

Last night it was revealed one of them, Sergeant Paul McAleese, 29, of 2nd Battalion The Rifles, was the son of SAS soldier John McAleese who was involved in the raid that ended the siege on the Iranian embassy in London in 1980. The other was named as Private Jonathon Young, 18, of 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment.

Pte Young had only been in Afghanistan for three weeks, after being sent among 125 reinforcements after a wave of casualties in July. They were on a routine foot patrol when they were caught in a suspected blast from an improvised explosive device. Their deaths bring to 206 the number of British troops killed in the country since the invasion.

Sgt McAleese leaves a widow and a son, Charley, born a week before his deployment to Afghanistan. Jo McAleese said: "Mac, my husband, my best friend, my hero. You were an amazing Daddy to Charley and the best husband I could have ever asked for. We will love you and miss you for ever. We will always be so proud of what you achieved in your life and I am so, so proud to be your wife."

Lieutenant Colonel Rob Thomson, commanding officer 2 Rifles Battle Group, said: "He had a huge rucksack full of talents – everyone looked up to him and wanted to be in his team. Militarily, there was nothing that he wasn't good at." Sgt McAleese died in a second explosion while trying to help a soldier wounded in the blast in which Pte Young was killed.

Lieutenant Colonel Tom Vallings, commanding officer of Pte Young's battalion said: "He [Young] had already set his mark as a robust and determined soldier who always put his friends first. He had a strength of character that forced him to be at the very centre of events and it was no surprise that he volunteered to deploy at Afghanistan at short notice."

The bodies of four other British soldiers killed in Afghanistan over the weekend arrived back in the UK yesterday. Sergeant Simon Valentine, 29, died on foot patrol near Sangin six days ago. His coffin was flown to RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire along with those of Fusilier Simon Annis, 22, Fusilier Louis Carter, 18, and Lance-Corporal James Fullarton, 24. Annis and Carter died in a blast on Sunday while trying to rescue Fullarton, their commander.

Valentine, from Bedworth, Warwickshire, was the 201st soldier to be killed in the conflict. He was sent to Kosovo in 1999, took part in anti-terrorist operations in Belfast, and served two tours in Iraq. He leaves a wife, Gemma, and two daughters.

Annis, from Salford, married in February, weeks before he was deployed to Afghanistan. His wife, Caroline, said: "Simon was the perfect husband, son and brother. He will be sorely missed by all of us. He was a true hero."

Fullarton, from Coventry, got engaged while home on leave from Afghanistan in June. Carter, from Nuneaton, joined up in 2007 and was deployed in Afghanistan straight after completing his training.

Richard Hunt, 21, from Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, died in hospital in Birmingham after suffering injuries on patrol near Musa Qala on 12 August.

Protest: Turning point claim

The organisers of a national demonstration against the war say a turning point has been reached in public support for the conflict, with the recent heavy troop casualties forcing many people to question Britain's involvement. The Stop the War Coalition, which co-ordinated the huge protest against the invasion of Iraq in February 2003, is planning a Troops Out of Afghanistan march on 24 October.

The coalition acknowledges that the Iraq march was unique but said the public was now ready to show that it no longer accepted the government's reasons for the continuing presence in Afghanistan. It estimates that between 50,000 and 100,000 protesters will take part in the march in October. At least a million were at the Iraq protest.

Andrew Burgin, a spokesman for the coalition, said: "The tipping point was the increasing casualty rates in July. People began to ask more serious questions of their politicians." However, an ICM poll for the Guardian and BBC Newsnight in mid-July – when British military deaths in Afghanistan passed those in Iraq – found that 47% backed the war, against 46% who opposed it.

Sam Jones and Girish Gupta


[Torture]
Bombshell report on CIA interrogations is leaked
Findings suppressed since 2006 detail death threats against prisoners and other methods that may constitute tortutre
Peter Beaumont
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 22 August 2009 13.25 BST Article history

CIA interrogators threatened a captured al-Qaida leader with a power drill and a pistol in what was described as a mock execution, according to a long-suppressed report due to be released on Monday.

Details of the report by the spy agency's inspector general have emerged in the Washington Post and Newsweek. The full findings on the CIA's interrogation programme are to be made public after a federal judge upheld an appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union for their release.

The report is understood to describe mock executions where interrogators tried to get detainees to talk by firing a gun in an adjoining room to pretend another prisoner had been killed.

According to leaked information from the report, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was threatened with a drill and gun during his detention at one of the CIA's so-called black site prisons after his capture in 2002. He was subjected to the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding, as were two other al-Qaida leaders.

Nashiri, who remains in detention at Guantánamo Bay, has been accused of masterminding the 1999 bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 American sailors.

Sources familiar with the report told the Washington Post that Nashiri was threatened with death or grave injury during his questioning. A CIA officer showed Nashiri a gun and suggested he would be shot, and a power drill was held near Nashiri's body and repeatedly turned on and off. US law on torture prohibits a US national from threatening anyone in his custody with imminent death.

The disclosures come as the CIA faces intense scrutiny. The US attorney general, Eric Holder, has been examining the legality of the CIA's interrogation methods.

The inspector general examined CIA techniques over a period of two years – from 2002 until 2004 – to see whether justice department guidelines for so-called "enhanced interrogations" had been followed. Those guidelines were finally released by the Obama administration despite the objections of the CIA and former senior officials under George Bush.

The report is understood to be the most detailed review of the agency's interrogation programme and is believed to be highly critical of the techniques used, suggesting that a number of them broke international laws and norms. The document has become deeply controversial within the CIA itself, not least because the agency was advised two months before Nashiri's capture in a memo from Jay Bybee, the head of the justice department's office of legal counsel, that threats of "imminent death" were legal if they did not cause permanent mental harm.

The report – originally commissioned by then CIA director George Tenet – has become a cause celebre. It was seen by justice department and congressional intelligence committee leaders shortly after it was written, but not shown to all members of the intelligence committees until September 2006.

Top Bush CIA officials, including Tenet's successors as CIA director, Porter Goss and General Michael Hayden, lobbied for the report to be kept secret, claiming its release would damage America's reputation around the world and damage CIA morale.

Its public release comes after revelations last week that the CIA hired the private military contractor Blackwater – now known as Xe Services – to assassinate al-Qaida leaders. The programme never got off the ground and was kept secret from Congress.

Previous scandals that damaged the reputation of the CIA and the US internationally during the Bush years include the disclosure of the US secret rendition programme for terrorist suspects, the existence of the black site prisons and the use of waterboarding.

Barack Obama has said that waterboarding constitutes torture and is therefore forbidden under US law.

In Europe, the Swiss senator who has led an inquiry across the continent into secret CIA-run detention centres has urged European nations to come clean about their involvement "in this shameful episode".

Dick Marty said Europe's credibility was being damaged by leaks about CIA interrogation facilities in countries such as Poland, Romania and Lithuania. Marty said that instead of having the truth trickle out gradually, all participants in the illegal program should publicly admit their involvement.

In a 2007 probe conducted on behalf of the Council of Europe, Marty accused 14 European governments of permitting the CIA to run detention centres or conduct rendition flights through their countries between 2002 and 2005.

news20090822nn1

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[Nature News]
Published online 21 August 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.848
News
Sugar hit triggers bug's drug slug
An engineered bacterium can deliver a therapeutic protein straight to the gut when fed with xylan.
Mico Tatalovic

A gut-dwelling bacterium has been genetically engineered to deliver a dose of therapeutic protein on demand.

Protein production in the engineered bacterium is switched on only when its host eats the complex sugar xylan. Tests on mice that had colonies of the bacteria in their guts showed that the expressed protein can successfully treat an inflammatory bowel disease called colitis.

The research, to be published in the journal Gut¹, has potential as an alternative method for delivering drugs to the colon. Drugs taken orally are often broken down into inactive forms before they reach their target in the digestive system.

In 2000, Lothar Steidler, then at the University of Ghent, Belgium, and his colleagues showed that Lactococcus lactis bacteria that were engineered to secrete mouse interleukin-10 anti-inflammatory protein were effective at treating colitis in mice². But those bacteria generated the protein non-stop, without the ability to regulate how much was produced.

Now, microbiologist Simon Carding of the Institute of Food Research in Norwich, UK, and his team have engineered the gut bacterium Bacteroides ovatus to carry a gene that encodes the therapeutic protein keratinocyte growth factor-2, which has a crucial role in maintaining and repairing the intestinal lining. Crucially, the protein is expressed only when the bacteria are fed with xylan.

The team found that the protein-expressing bacteria reduced rectal bleeding, accelerated healing of the gut lining and reduced gut inflammation in the mice. The protein could also prevent development of the disease in the first place. "There were no side effects, none at all. We were amazed how well it worked given the small amount of bacteria administered," says Carding.

Because B. ovatus is a natural inhabitant of the mucus within the colon, the team thinks that the protein is being delivered specifically to the damaged cells that line the gut. "A major goal of drug treatment for any disease is to target it to the site of disease activity and to be able to control its levels in the body," Carding explains.

"The system we have developed is a means of delivering proteins to the colon, and it could be used to deliver a variety of proteins for a variety of purposes, including vaccine antigens," adds Carding. His team is currently testing about a dozen bacterial strains that express different proteins, including one that limits tumour growth by restricting blood-vessel formation.

Gérard Eberl, a microbiologist from the Pasteur Institute in Paris, says that "it would probably be very easy to make this work in humans as well, since human and mouse intestinal bacterial communities are very similar".

Francisco Guarner, a gut researcher at the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona, Spain, is more cautious. Although there has been a lot of interest in the idea since Steidler's research was published in 2000, the field has not developed as quickly as expected, he says.

Promising studies have shown that L. lactis that are engineered to deliver therapeutic drugs could be safe in humans. But Guarner says that it may be difficult to translate gut research in mice into a human clinical setting — not least because of unknown effects from the zoo of other bacteria fighting for space in our guts.

References
1. Hamady, Z. Z. R. et al. Gut (in the press).
2. Steidler, L. et al. Science 289, 1352-1355 (2000).
3. Braat, H. et al. Clin. Gastroenterol. Hepatol. 4, 754-759 (2006).


[Nature News]
Published online 21 August 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/4601068a
News
Japan relaxes human stem-cell rules
But scientists fear it is too late to regain lost ground.
David Cyranoski

A long-sought loosening of Japan's guidelines on human embryonic stem-cell research came into effect on 21 August. But some say the new rules are too little, too late for a struggling field that was once a source of national pride.

On the surface the previous guidelines, set in 2001, were permissive. They allowed scientists to derive new human embryonic stem (ES) cell lines and research both home-grown and imported cell lines. But that could be done only after the research was approved, and the approval process was the stumbling block. Proposed projects needed to be approved twice — first by a local institutional review board and then by a science-ministry committee. And researchers working on human ES cells had to use separate facilities from other stem-cell research.

The upshot was a slowing down of research, some say. Roughly 50 groups have passed the application process, says Hirofumi Suemori of Kyoto University's Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences. But that is only about a quarter of the number that he estimates originally wanted to use human ES cells, based on the number of groups that work with mouse ES cells or request materials derived from human ES cells.

{“These irrational guidelines have done and will probably continue to do great damage to all related research fields in Japan.”}

Some charge that the regulations cost the country leadership in the field. It was Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University who, in 2006, created induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells for the first time (K. Takahashi and S. Yamanaka Cell 126, 663–676; 2006) — produced from normal adult cells, iPS cells have the potential, like ES cells, to generate any cell type in the body. But it soon became clear that expertise with ES cells was essential for advancing iPS-cell technology, and further experiments such as comparing the properties of iPS cells and ES cells were done outside Japan. Even in the United States, where until this year federal funding was limited to ES-cell lines derived by August 2001, ES-cell research moved ahead, says Suemori. "Researchers there were able to press forward, and with that as the foundation, they also stole the lead in iPS-cell research," he says.

The Japanese government has been slowly trying to change the restrictions. In April, a new section in the explanatory material for the old guidelines erased the requirement for separate facilities. The latest guidelines also remove the secondary approval step for working with ES cells: a local review committee must still approve the work, but researchers then need only notify the science ministry of this.

Yet some burdensome restrictions remain, says Suemori. For example, the notification must include "word-for-word" minutes of the local review committee's meeting.

And the two-stage approval pro­cess remains for deriving new cell lines. Norio Nakatsuji, director of Kyoto University's Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences, who created all five of Japan's human ES-cell lines, has given up plans to make any more. "I would summarize the change as being from absurd to excessively strict," he says. "These irrational guidelines have done and will probably continue to do great damage to all related research fields in Japan."

Last December, Yamanaka was widely quoted for remarks made at a science-ministry assembly in which he appraised Japan's 2008 record against other iPS-cell research groups, mostly in the United States: "One win, and about 10 losses," he said.

The new regulations were pushed through by the Council for Science and Technology Policy, a 15-person group chaired by the prime minister that stands as the country's highest science-policy body. Junichi Iwata, of the science ministry's life-science division, says the changes were targeted at the use of human ES cells and not their derivation, explaining that only two groups are licensed to derive such cells.

Asked why the reform didn't go further in addressing researchers' criticisms, he says: "The new guidelines just went into effect, so we'll see how things go. If need be, we'll change them again."

But it might be too late to make a difference. Most of Japan's stem-cell researchers have already been pushed into iPS-cell research through targeted funding programmes and are unlikely to go back to the ES-cell basics. "I do not expect a dramatic increase in ES-cell research," says Shin-Ichi Nishikawa, a stem-cell researcher at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe.

Suemori likewise sees little change and fading hope. "It will be very difficult for us to catch up now," he says.

news20090822nn2

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[Nature News]
Published online 21 August 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.852
News: Q&A
The low-down on the Sanofi-Aventis shake-up
Research chief Paul Chew talks about the drug company's future.
Elie Dolgin

When pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis unveiled plans on 30 June to reorganize its research and development (R&D) operations, the announcement was noticeably short on details. Officials at Sanofi, the world's fourth largest drug-maker by sales, promised partnerships with public and private institutions, but revealed little more.

The French pharmaceutical giant could certainly use an overhaul. Several of its star drugs are set to lose their patents in the next few years, and the company has failed to deliver many of the blockbuster treatments that were once moving promisingly through its pipeline.

In an exclusive interview with Nature, Paul Chew, Sanofi's senior vice-president and US chief science and medical officer, explains how the company is changing the way it does science. Chew, a cardiologist, oversees the company's five US research sites and is helping to implement the restructuring plan.

Is this just one more example of the increasingly common efforts to make big pharma companies more agile and biotech-like?

This is quite a different restructuring because it involves not merely a change but a transformation of the character of R&D. We have become much more focused not on the end organs of diseases — traditionally cardiovascular, neuroscience, etc — but on the mechanisms and pathways of disease, such as fibrosis, ageing, immunology, infection. That approach, I think, is going to be more productive in the future.

{“We plan to be a major player in emerging markets.”}

What was the motivation behind the plan?

Sanofi-Aventis has traditionally relied a great deal on internal R&D, and we still do. But we also realize that with academic entrepreneurial biotech companies, many good partners are already in the world around us. And so part of the motivation was to really optimize R&D through partnerships or acquisitions.

Can you offer an example?

BiPar Sciences is a very small biotech out in California that we acquired on 15 April. BiPar has the most clinically advanced inhibitor of triple-negative breast cancer [an aggressive form of cancer in which three key receptors are missing], and we just initiated phase III trials. In addition, this mechanism has potential beyond breast cancer — in prostate, lung, ovarian. So as a strategic acquisition, it builds on our franchise with the drugs Taxotere [docetaxel] and Eloxatin [oxaliplatin] as an oncology company; it shows a nimbleness to place our bets behind the inhibitor; and it balances both internal and external R&D. I think it's a timely example of the R&D transformation.

So are you shifting away from conducting your own research?

We don't want to give the impression that we're relying entirely on external innovation. In fact, we have over 50 projects internally that are in various stages of development. But what we have done is go through our portfolio to focus on those with the most clinical value and feasibility of going forwards.

{“As a cardiologist myself, I know there are many available therapies for heart disease, so the new ones have to rise head and shoulders above what's available.”}

Where else are you looking to expand?

We plan to be a major player in emerging markets, which will be springs of growth for the future. The so-called BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China — and Mexico account for 40% of the world's population but only 4% of drug sales. Sanofi-Aventis is very strong in those areas, but we need to develop that further. As those societies emerge, they're spending more on health care and want a higher level of health care, and we want to make sure that we retain a position there.

When Sanofi-Aventis announced the reshuffle, the company said there would be no job losses. How can you achieve all these goals without a single lay-off?

We have a lot more opportunities now. As part of the acquisitions, partnerships and approvals, there will be plenty of work to do. For example, in the Asia-Pacific region we're increasing the head count and increasing our R&D facilities because of the opportunities there. We have a new factory for vaccines but we also have new R&D staff.

Three of Sanofi-Aventis' biggest-selling drugs — Lovenox (enoxaparin), Eloxatin (oxaliplatin) and Plavix (clopidogrel) — will soon face generic competition. How do you plan to make up for the loss in revenue?

Another rationale for the R&D transformation is to get closer to patients. They not only need the innovation of prescription drugs, they also need over-the-counter [OTC] drugs, they need generic drugs, and Sanofi-Aventis has invested recently in three companies with OTC and generic capabilities, making us one of the top ten in generic manufacturing. So with a combination of pharmaceuticals as well as OTC and generics, we feel we can bridge the gap.

How else do you plan to get closer to patients?

We're looking not only at safety and efficacy but actually at value, and that involves bringing in our customers and physicians to help us review the value of our products as we develop them. What do patients want? What does a drug have to show to really be worth developing and worth using? As a cardiologist myself, I know there are many available therapies for heart disease, so the new ones have to rise head and shoulders above what's available. We're supplementing the R&D efforts with information about where we need to go, in terms of clinical usefulness, from people who use and pay for the drugs.

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[One-Minute World News] from [BBC NEWS]

[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 06:37 GMT, Saturday, 22 August 2009 07:37 UK
North and South Korea hold talks
The first meeting between North and South Korean officials in nearly two years has taken place unexpectedly in the South Korean capital Seoul.

A spy chief said to be close to the North's leader Kim Jong-il met Seoul's Unification Minister Hyun In-taek.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak was considering meeting the Northern delegates, who have said they want better relations on the peninsula.

They were in Seoul to pay respects to late ex-President Kim Dae-jung.

The Northern official in charge of inter-Korean relations, Kim Yang-gon, said there was an urgent need to improve the frosty relations between the two countries.

"After meeting with several people [in the South], I felt the imperative need for North-South relations to improve," Mr Kim said ahead of his talks with Mr Hyun.

President Lee's office said he was being briefed by Mr Hyun on the meeting with the delegation and was considering a meeting with them.

Conciliatory gestures

Saturday's meeting is the first between officials from the two Koreas since the conservative Mr Lee came to power in Seoul in February 2008.

Relations soured when Mr Lee made South Korean aid conditional on North Korea's nuclear disarmament.

In the past few months, North Korea has fired a long range rocket over Japanese territory and conducted an underground nuclear test.

But more recently, there has been a series of conciliatory gestures. Two US reporters and a South Korean worker were released from detention and Pyongyang said it was interested in resuming cross-border tourism and industrial projects.

Some observers believe that, with UN sanctions beginning to bite, the North is keen to boost cross-border tourism and trade that bring in badly needed foreign currency, our correspondent adds.

On Friday, the six officials from North Korea's ruling Workers' Party, wearing black suits and ties, placed a wreath of flowers on the steps of South Korea's National Assembly, where Kim Dae-jung is lying in state.

Mr Kim - who died on Tuesday at the age of 85 - devoted his presidency to improving relations between the two Koreas, still technically at war.

He reached out to the North with aid - the main thrust of his "Sunshine Policy" that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000, and held a historic summit with Kim Jong-Il in that year.

Mr Kim's funeral is to be held on Sunday.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 10:54 GMT, Saturday, 22 August 2009 11:54 UK
Taiwan mourns for Morakot victims
Flags are being flown at half-mast in Taiwan as three days of mourning begin for people who lost their lives as a result of Typhoon Morakot.

At least 500 people are still missing, thought killed by floods and mudslides caused by the typhoon, which was Taiwan's typhoon in 50 years.

President Ma Ying-jeou promised to press ahead with a programme of reconstruction and resettlement.

So far the government has confirmed the deaths of 160 people in the typhoon.

Opinion polls suggest President Ma's approval rating among Taiwanese voters has declined sharply following criticism of his government's slow response to the emergency.

Among the memorial services he attended was one at Hsiaolin, perhaps the village worst affected by the typhoon.

"I assure you I will complete the reconstruction and resettlement during my term and I will punish negligent officials," President Ma said at the service.

Hundreds of the victims are believed to be buried by mud in Hsiaolin, which was almost completely covered in a mudslide triggered by several days of extremely heavy rainfall.

The president's critics, some of whom surrounded and heckled him during his visit to a shrine, point to what they see as his inability to take responsibility for a poor response to the emergency.

Three senior ministers remain in place even after offering their resignations over the official response though, correspondents say, a government re-shuffle is likely next month.

Taiwan's parliament, now in recess, is due to hold an additional session in the coming days to review a special budget worth NT$100bn ($3bn, £1.84m) to cover typhoon relief and reconstruction.

The disaster sparked a global response with at least 81 countries, the European Union, and 21 international organisations donating personnel and NT$160m ($4.87m, £2.95m) in relief aid to Taiwan, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 01:42 GMT, Saturday, 22 August 2009 02:42 UK
Vietnam massacre soldier 'sorry'
The US army officer convicted for his part in the notorious My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War has offered his first public apology, a US report says.

"There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened," Lt William Calley was quoted as saying by the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.

He was addressing a small group at a community club in Columbus, Georgia.

Calley, 66, was convicted on 22 counts of murder for the 1968 massacre of 500 men, women and children in Vietnam.

Cold blood

"I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry," the former US platoon commander said on Wednesday.

He was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the killings in 1971. Then-US President Richard Nixon commuted his sentence to three years' house arrest.

But Calley insisted that he was only following orders, the paper reported.

He broke his silence after accepting a friend's invitation to speak at the weekly meeting of the Kiwanis Club, a US-based global voluntary organisation.

At the time of the killings, the US soldiers had been on a "search and destroy" mission to root out communist fighters in what was fertile Viet Cong territory.

Although the enemy was nowhere to be seen, the US soldiers of Charlie Company rounded up unarmed civilians and gunned them down.

When the story of My Lai was exposed, more than a year later, it tarnished the name of the US army and proved to be a turning point for public opinion about the Vietnam War.


[Technology]
Page last updated at 17:45 GMT, Friday, 21 August 2009 18:45 UK
Brighter idea for bendy displays
The technology behind giant video billboards can now be made into flexible and even transparent displays.

These could be used to create brakelights that fit the curves of a car or medical diagnostics that envelop a patient like a blanket.

It has been made possible by a new technique, outlined in Science, for manufacturing so-called inorganic LEDs.

The new method allows these tiny light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to be attached to materials such as glass or rubber.

"[This] enables new kinds of 'form factors' that would allow you to put lighting sources on curved surfaces or in corners, places where you can't put light sources nowadays," Professor John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign told BBC News.

Stamp of approval

There are two types of light-emitting diode (LED) technology, inorganic and organic.

The vast majority of consumer electronics use the inorganic version.

For a square centimetre of the material these are 400 times brighter than their organic cousins.

"If you look at the billboard displays that exist already, they're inorganic LED based," said Professor Rogers.

"You can see them on a bright sunny day; it would be impossible to generate that kind of brightness out of an organic LED."

When arrays of inorganic LED's are used - such as those in billboard displays - they are made in a large wafer which is sawn into bits.

Each bit is then placed individually by a robot arm, making the production of large or dense arrays complex.

Organic LEDs (OLEDs) on the other hand have been introduced into some consumer electronics such as televisions.

They are in theory easier to manufacture because they can be made individually smaller, processed in high quantities and spread out in thin films that are easy to manipulate and connect electrically.

However, they are not as robust as inorganic LEDs, and must be encapsulated because they are sensitive to oxygen and moisture.

Professor Rogers and his colleagues have now devised a method that in theory comprises the best of both worlds - bright, robust inorganic LEDs that can be processed en masse.

The approach is able to make thin inorganic LEDs in high quantities in such a way that they can be cut up by bathing them in a strong acid.

The separated elements can then be picked up with a "stamp", with holes cut precisely to size for the elements, and then placed on a wide array of surfaces, from glass to plastic to rubber.

The devices can be placed sparsely enough that a bright layer of them is practically transparent.

"Because you can get away with very low coverage by area, it opens up the possibility of making something that's see-through," Professor Rogers explained.

He said that the nearer-term applications for the approach will be in general lighting or in the illumination of instrument panels, but the group is working toward perfecting the application.

"Displays remain the ultimate goal - we don't need a new law of physics to enable it, it's just more of an engineering question," he said.

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[NEWS] from [REUTERS]

[Technology]
Apple says Google Voice app alters iPhone
Fri Aug 21, 2009 7:04pm EDT
By John Poirier

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - IPhone maker Apple Inc told U.S. regulators it has not approved Google Inc's Voice application, which could challenge the wireless industry's giants, because it interferes with the iPhone "user experience."

Apple told the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) on Friday that the Google app appears to replace the iPhone's core mobile telephone functionality and user interface with its own system for telephone calls, text messaging and voicemail.

"Contrary to published reports, Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application, and continues to study it," Catherine Novelli, Apple vice president for worldwide government affairs, said in a letter to the FCC.

The letter was in response to an inquiry launched last month by the FCC, which under new leadership is taking a fresh look into the state of competition in the wireless industry.

The FCC, chaired by Julius Genachowski, wants to know why Apple rejected the Google Voice and what was discussed among Apple, Google and AT&T Inc, the exclusive U.S. carrier for the iPhone.

Responses by the companies were due on Friday. The FCC had no immediate comment.

The application by Google, which has entered the wireless market with its own smartphone operating system called Android, is seen by some as a competitive threat to the voice services that come with the iPhone.

"AT&T was not asked about the matter by Apple at any time, nor did we offer any view one way or the other," said Jim Cicconi, AT&T senior executive vice president for external and legislative affairs.

T-Mobile, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG, provides service for Google's Android.

ROLE OF VOIP

The issue could have far reaching implications for the U.S. telecom industry. Depending on how the FCC responds, it could either pave the way for new entrants or hinder their ability to use large carriers' phones to offer discount services.

With some prodding from several U.S. senators, the FCC is also reviewing exclusive handset arrangements between wireless carriers and cell phone makers and how they affect competition and choice in the marketplace.

Experts are watching what role online calling features, such as voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), will play in the fast changing wireless industry.

Apple said it does not know if there is a VoIP element in the way Google Voice calls and sends text messages but said it has approved some VoIP applications like Skype, owned by online auction site eBay Inc, for use over Wi-Fi but not on AT&T's 3G network.

Apple said there is a provision in its agreement with AT&T that obligates Apple not to include functionality that allows a customer to use AT&T's cellular network to originate or terminate a VoIP session, without first getting AT&T's permission.

"Apple honors this obligation," Novelli said.

AT&T, however, said it regularly reviews its policies regarding certain features and capabilities, leaving open the possibility of allowing the use of VoIP on its network.

"We plan to take a fresh look at possibly authorizing VoIP capabilities on the iPhone for use on AT&T's 3G network," Cicconi said.

Google also filed a response letter with the FCC but portions concerning why Apple rejected its Voice application were redacted.

The Mountain View, California-based company said in the letter that it had no additional proposed iPhone applications pending with Apple.

(Reporting by John Poirier; Additional reporting by Sinead Carew in New York and Gabriel Madway in San Francisco; Editing by Gary Hill, Toni Reinhold)


[Technology]
Microsoft, Yahoo join in opposing Google books deal
Fri Aug 21, 2009 2:46pm EDT
By David Lawsky

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp and Yahoo! Inc are joining a group of opponents to a class action settlement that gives Google Inc the right to digitize millions of books, the companies said on Friday.

The companies are becoming part of the Open Book Alliance, made up of nonprofits and libraries that have raised a red flag against Google's plan to digitize books and put them on the Internet.

"Yes, we've agreed to participate in the coalition," a spokesman for Microsoft said. A Yahoo spokeswoman said they had also signed on.

Amazon.com Inc has also reportedly joined, but a spokeswoman said: "We don't comment on rumor or speculation."

Critics say the deal gives Google the unimpeded ability to set prices for libraries, once they scan books and put them on the Internet. If the service becomes a necessity for libraries they would face monopoly pricing, Google's opponents say.

They also say it would also allow Google -- and only Google -- to digitize so-called orphan works, which could pose an antitrust concern.

Orphan works are books or other materials that are still covered by U.S. copyright law, but it is not clear who owns the rights to them.

Google took issue with the criticism. "The agreement is not exclusive. If improved by the court it will expand access to millions of books in the U.S.," said Gabriel Stricker, a spokesman for Google.

"The agreement stands to inject more competition into the digital book space, so it's understandable why our competitors would fight hard to prevent more competition," he said.

New York University law professor James Grimmelmann, who runs thepublicindex.org site, which carries documents on the case, said he is waiting to see the arguments of the Open Books Alliance.

"Google is right that there are access benefits to making books available," said Grimmelmann. "The question of whether this is good or bad for competition is hotly contested. There are clear ways that the settlement could create a concentration of power, especially over orphan books."

The deal is under review or investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, the European Commission and a group of U.S. state attorneys general.

The proposed settlement was reached in October, 2008, to settle a lawsuit filed in 2005 by the Author's Guild, when Google began scanning books.

The Guild and a group of publishers has alleged copyright infringement.

Google has agreed to pay $125 million to create a Book Rights Registry, where authors and publishers can register works and receive compensation from institutional subscriptions or book sales. A hearing on approval of the settlement is set for October 7 in U.S. District Court in New York.

(Reporting by David Lawsky; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)


[Science]
Satellites put into orbit for Japan and Australia
Fri Aug 21, 2009 9:34pm EDT
By Laurent Marot

KOUROU, French Guiana (Reuters) - An Ariane-5 rocket put into orbit satellites for Japan and Australia after being launched from French Guiana on Friday, space officials said.

The rocket blasted off from the European Space Agency's (ESA) launch center in Kourou, French Guiana on the northeast coast of South America.

One of the satellites, a JCSAT-12, will provide telecommunications services covering Japan, the Asia-Pacific region and Hawaii for Japan's Sky Perfect JSAT Corp. It was built by Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems.

The other satellite, an OPTUS D3, will provide television, Internet, telephony and data transmission services for Australia and New Zealand. It was built in Virginia by Orbital Sciences Corp.

"Australia is a vast continent where the delivery by satellites makes sense," Paul Sheridan, chief executive of Australia's Optus company, told reporters after the launch.