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[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Climate Camp]
Climate Camp activists launch direct action on City of London
Campaigners set up Climate Change Casino outside carbon trading exchange
Peter Walker
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 27 August 2009 10.41 BST Article history

Environmental activists from the Climate Camp protest today launched their first direct action in the City of London since setting up a temporary base in a park overlooking Docklands and Canary Warf.

Around a dozen people from the group, who yesterday took over part of Blackheath common in the south-east of London, occupied the entrance to the Climate Exchange on Bishopsgate.

Wearing evening dresses and dinner suits, the protestors unrolled a Climate Change Casino board along with fake banknotes and over-sized playing cards in the columned entrance gate to the exchange's courtyard.

Staff were not prevented from entering or leaving, and – in keeping with promises for a "community-style" approach at the Climate Camp following complaints of heavy-handed and violent policing during April's G20 – officers from the City of London force made no initial attempt to break the event up.

Activists stood on the pavement outside the exchange, yelling, "Roll up to the Climate Change Casino!" bringing the occasional toot of support from cars, but mainly looks of bafflement from passing office workers.

Leila Deen, one of the protesters, who is best known for throwing green custard over Peter Mandelson as an anti-airport expansion stunt, said this year's Climate Camp had long planned to target the exchange.

"I think a lot of people inside here believe they're doing something good for the environment, but our message is that they're not," she said. "Too many governments are using carbon trading as an excuse not to cut emissions. People are making a lot of money on this, but nothing is really being done."

Up to 2,000 people are expected to stay at the Climate Camp site at any one time from now until the end of Tuesday, when it closes. Volunteers spent much of yesterday unpacking tents, marquees, composting toilets and communal kitchens from trucks to cope with the numbers.

As well as a base for direct action, the camp is intended to be a focal point for activists to meet and exchange information and learn protest techniques. It is also intended as a place where local people and the curious can see environmental methods at work, and how a community can organise itself in a non-hierarchical way, with decisions taken by consensus.


[Environment > Ceo-engineering]
Fake trees, algae tubes and white roofs among UK engineers' climate solutions
Report from Institute of Mechanical Engineers calls for £10m to develop geo-engineering ideas that would be 'an integral part' of the solution to global warming
Alok Jha, green technology correspondent
The Guardian, Thursday 27 August 2009 Article history

Artificial trees and tubes of algae on the sides of buildings could absorb most of the UK's annual carbon dioxide emissions, according to a report from engineers that will be circulated at party conferences in the autumn.

In research examining the role that geo-engineering could play in tackling climate change, a 12-month study by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IME) also found that painting city roofs white could also prove to be a simple but effective way to curb excessive global warming.

Geo-engineering is a set of technologies that could prevent or slow global warming - it includes everything from sending mirrors into space to reflect away sunlight to dumping iron into the oceans to encourage the growth of algae, thereby removing atmospheric CO2. For their study, the IME searched for ideas that were most practical and could have impacts on CO2 or global energy use levels as soon as possible.

Setting out their recommendations in a report published today, the IME called on the British government to put up £10m aimed at turning the three most promising ideas into reality. They advocate this being part of a £100m global fund for geo-engineering research.

"Geo-engineering is no silver bullet, it just buys us time," said Tim Fox of the IME, who led the study. "We're not proposing that geo-engineering should be a substitute for mitigation [but] should be implemented alongside mitigation and adaptation."

Top of their list of practical solutions that would be low-carbon to build and require only existing technologies were artificial trees. These units, invented by Columbia University scientist Klaus Lackner, would be the size of a standard shipping container and could remove CO2 directly from the atmosphere. "100,000 trees would take up an area of around 600 hectares, which is less than 10% of the surface area of the Firth of Forth, and that would be able to absorb the CO2 emissions of the UK's non-power sector annually," said Fox.

Currently the UK produces 556 megatonnes of CO2 per year and the 100,000 trees could absorb around 60% of that amount. The engineers calculated that forests of artificial trees powered by renewable energy and located near depleted oil or gas fields, where the trapped CO2 could be buried, would be thousands of times more efficient than planting trees over the same area.

Making each artificial tree would require energy and materials but this would only account for 5% of the CO2 that the device could capture in its lifetime. On a global scale, between 5-10m artificial trees could absorb the CO2 emitted from all sources other than power stations.

Another geo-engineering solution highlighted by the engineers was attaching tubes filled with algae to the sides of buildings. "Algae is a naturally-occurring eco-friendly biomass that tends to have a high level of CO2 use in photosynthesis," said Tom Bowman of IME. The algae that grows can be collected and turned into charcoal, which can be buried so that the CO2 it has captured is locked away from the atmosphere.

Painting roofs white was recommended by the engineers to counteract the urban heat island effect, where major cities can be up to 4C hotter than their suburbs. This means more use of air conditioning or other cooling methods and it also speeds up the formation of smog. The IME said that reflective roofs can reduce the energy use of a building by up to 60%.

Fox said that global carbon emissions had continued to rise despite two decades of attempts at mitigation, so geo-engineering should not be regarded by policymakers as a plan B, but an integral part of the solution to global warming. "£10m would get us significantly far forward in terms of sorting out the wheat from the chaff in this debate," he said. "The government can then look at piloting them and testing them in the field and then making decisions about their deployment."

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[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[Nature News]
Published online 26 August 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.866
News: Q&A
Sweden outlines its research ambitions
Research minister Tobias Krantz talks to Nature about the nation's vision for science.
Marta Paterlini

It is a busy time for science in Sweden. Last year, the government committed to its largest-ever investment in research, with plans to increase annual funding from 25 billion kronor (US$3.52 billion) in 2008 to 30 billion kronor in 2012.

In May, the country claimed victory in the hard-fought battle to host the European Spallation Source (ESS), a €1.4-billion (US$2-billion) facility that will produce beams of neutrons to study the structure and properties of materials.

Then, on 1 July, Sweden took up its six-month presidency of the European Union, giving it an opportunity to shape the research agenda. Just over a week later, at a science-policy conference at Lund University, about 350 scientists and policy-makers called for a new deal on the way that funding is distributed under the framework programmes for research and technological development — Europe's main route for science investment.

The resulting 'Lund Declaration' says that European research should focus more on "grand challenges" and less on the "rigid thematic approaches" of the current funding round. At the conference, the declaration was handed over to Tobias Krantz, who took up the post of Sweden's Minister for Higher Education and Research in June. Nature spoke to Krantz about Sweden's research ambitions, and its vision for Europe.

What are the most pressing issues you face?

Increasing financial support for academic research and strengthening emphasis on quality are very important issues. But more pressing is the future of European research policy, defining the priorities for the next framework programme.

The new thinking about this is that we should take national budgets into account, and not just consider European-level budgets and the framework programmes.

There is an urgent need for more coordination and cooperation but it is also necessary to safeguard academic freedom and pluralism — we do not want to have a situation where everything is dictated from Brussels. Based on the Lund Declaration, I feel that this is an opinion shared by European researchers as well as politicians.

How do you respond to scientists in Sweden who say that too much funding is channelled into large grants, and not enough to individual researchers?

It is important to have different kinds of funding and government spending for research. As politicians, we learn from the scientific community itself what areas should be pursued more than others, which topics should be focused on, which institution or network should have the money. So, I believe there is space for both big networks and for more individual projects.

Some people think strategic funding won't work, but I am confident that this approach will be successful. There is, for example, a growing problem with diabetes in Sweden. Therefore I do not think it is so strange that the government gives an extra injection of money to it, while giving the research community the freedom and independence to direct its own work in the area.

Do you have any plans to save the Institute of Genetics in Lund, which is being disbanded due to financial problems? (see 'Deficit dooms Swedish gene institute')

I should not comment on this specific event. It is up to the university and its administration to decide how to organize itself and, as a minister, I should not intervene on such aspects.

There are also complaints about the bureaucracy that pervades the management of Swedish research. What's your view?

When I was a scientist myself, I remember complaining about it as well. Of course, the process of applying for funding could be made more transparent and simpler in many aspects. In fact, we increased the funding that goes directly to universities to 1.6 billion kronor — that cuts bureaucracy simply by removing the need to apply for those funds at all.

Relatively few senior foreign scientists consider coming to work in Sweden. Do you see that as a problem and, if so, do you have a plan to tackle it?

This is a very important issue and Sweden still has a lot to do. There is definitely a need to stimulate more available positions at the senior level in Swedish universities, but we have to take measures in different policy areas to make Sweden more attractive. The ESS project may test how Sweden can be effective in recruiting foreign specialists.

How much will the ESS drain Swedish research spending?

We are negotiating the exact final figures, but the original Swedish bid was to fund 30% of the €1.4-billion cost of the ESS. It's a very exciting project because it can show that Sweden is a good country to establish infrastructure and locate important international projects.

news20090827bn1

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

[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 11:45 GMT, Thursday, 27 August 2009 12:45 UK
Young Guantanamo Afghan to sue US
One of the youngest detainees held at the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay will sue the United States for compensation, his lawyers say.

Mohammed Jawad was released and arrived in his native Afghanistan earlier this week. His family says he was 12 at the time of his detention in 2002.

He was in custody for seven years. The Pentagon, however, disputes his age.

Mr Jawad had been accused of injuring two US soldiers and their interpreter by throwing a grenade at their vehicle.

Much of the case against him had been ruled inadmissible by a US military judge in 2008.

Mr Jawad's release was ordered last month by US District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle, who described the US government's case against him as "an outrage" that was "riddled with holes".

US government lawyers had said they were considering pursuing a criminal case against Mr Jawad, but no charges were filed.

US President Barack Obama has pledged to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay by January 2010.

'Unacceptable'

Mr Jawad's lawyers said his family would sue for compensation in US courts, but added that he needed as much financial assistance as possible in the short term.

{There is no difference between being confined in Guantanamo Bay or being left out in the wild
Major Eric Montalvo}

"The way forward right now is to avail the Afghanistan government and the US government of funding to help train him and get him back to normalcy," Mr Jawad's lawyer Major Eric Montalvo was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying.

"So to not give him any compensation - any way to help him back to civilisation - this is unacceptable," Mr Montalvo told a press conference in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

"There is no difference between being confined in Guantanamo Bay or being left out in the wild without assistance," he said.

Mr Jawad's family say he was 12 when he was arrested in 2002.

The Pentagon says a bone scan showed he was about 17 when taken into custody.

Mr Montalvo, a US military lawyer, says Mr Jawad, who does not have a birth certificate, was between 12 and 15 years old at the time of arrest.

"I was an innocent child when they put me in prison," Mr Jawad told The Associated Press in an interview.

His family and lawyers say Mr Jawad was subjected to torture while in detention.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 11:47 GMT, Thursday, 27 August 2009 12:47 UK
'Militants die in drone attack'
At least four suspected militants have been killed in a US drone attack in north-west Pakistan, officials say.

A militant hideout was targeted in the South Waziristan tribal region, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

A similar attack in the same region in early August killed Pakistan's top Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.

Hundreds of militants and civilians have been killed in dozens of drone attacks in the past year, chiefly in North and South Waziristan.

See a map of the region

The attack took place in the Tapar Ghai area in the Kanigram district in South Waziristan. The area is a remote and mountainous part of the region, out of the reach of the local authorities.

Local residents told BBC Urdu that the target was a house occupied by militants.

It was not immediately clear if the strike targeted a particular Taliban leader, officials said.

But the house was said to be close to an area where Pakistan's security forces clashed with militants loyal to Baitullah Mehsud on Wednesday evening.

"I saw drones flying over the area and then there were two huge explosions," resident Mohamad Omar told the Reuters news agency.

Pakistan has criticised drone attacks, saying they fuel support for the militants.

The US military does not routinely confirm drone attacks but the armed forces and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are believed to be the only forces capable of deploying drones in the region.

On Tuesday two senior Taliban commanders confirmed that their leader, Baitullah Mehsud ,had died of injuries sustained in a US missile strike on 5 August.

The confirmation came after weeks of intense speculation about the fate of the Taliban leader following the attack.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 07:20 GMT, Thursday, 27 August 2009 08:20 UK
Bollywood star 'wants IPL team'
Bollywood star Salman Khan is interested in buying a team in the India Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament, IPL authorities say.

The actor met IPL chairman Lalit Modi and showed interest in a "new team", Mr Modi said.

Bollywood stars Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty already own or jointly own IPL teams with partners.

IPL will expand the competition from eight to 10 teams for 2011, when a fresh player auction will take place.

Mr Modi told reporters that Khan had been in talks about buying a team for a number of months.

"He was interested in knowing what it takes to own a team and the process involved - when his move could be initiated and how long it would take. I think he is a serious buyer," Mr Modi was quoted as saying by The Times Of India.

A member of the IPL governing council Rajeev Shukla said there would be "other bidders [for teams] as well along with Salman Khan".

"And whosoever comes up with the maximum bid will win a team."

Mr Modi said "over 20 celebrities" were interested in buying new IPL teams.

Shah Rukh owns the Calcutta team, while Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty co-own the Punjab and Rajasthan teams.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 13:37 GMT, Thursday, 27 August 2009 14:37 UK
China angry at Dalai Lama invite
China has criticised an invitation from Taiwan to the Dalai Lama, calling him a separatist who wants to sabotage improving cross-strait relations.

Taiwan's president granted opposition requests for Tibet's spiritual leader to comfort victims of Typhoon Morakot.

But a statement from Beijing's Taiwan Affairs Bureau said the Dalai Lama was not a "pure religious figure".

"Under the pretext of religion, he has all along been engaged in separatist activities," the statement said.

Beijing was "resolutely opposed" to the visit," China's state-run news agency Xinhua reported.

The authorities in Beijing said Taiwan's pro-independence opposition had ulterior motives in asking President Ma Ying-jeou to approve the Dalai Lama's visit.

"Some of the people in the Democratic Progressive Party use the disaster rescue excuse to invite Dalai to Taiwan to sabotage the hard-earned positive situation of cross-straits relations," the statement said.

"He raises the religious banner and continues to carry out attempting to split the country."

China considers the exiled Dalai Lama a dangerous separatist and self-governed Taiwan to be part of its territory, and usually reacts angrily to nations that welcome the Dalai Lama.

Comforting victims

Under Taiwan's previous pro-independence administration, the Dalai Lama visited the island several times - most recently in 2001.

But President Ma, who came to power in 2008, is much closer to China than his predecessor Chen Shui-bian.

{Cindy Sui, BBC News in Taipei
Allowing the Dalai Lama's visit is being seen as a politically-calculated move by President Ma Ying-jeou aimed at avoiding further public criticism of him and his administration.
The president cannot afford to have his approval ratings, already at a record low, plunge further for being seen as bowing to pressure from Beijing. And analysts said he would face a public backlash if he did not let the visit go ahead.

Mr Ma's office sounded confident ties with China will not be damaged.}

Last year he refused to grant permission for a visit by the Dalai Lama, saying the timing was not right as his government was working to improve relations with Beijing.

But the typhoon and its aftermath have left Mr Ma in a difficult position.

The Chinese government considers Mr Ma's administration far easier to deal with than the island's previous pro-independence leadership.

However, an estimated 500 people were killed by severe flooding and mudslides caused by the typhoon - the worst Taiwan has suffered for 50 years - and Mr Ma's administration has been criticised for its slow and inefficient response.

His popularity has plunged to a record low of 20% over his handling of the disaster.

According to the BBC's Cindy Sui in Taipei, the president needed to give the green light to the Dalai Lama's visit because he could not afford to hurt his and his party's image any further.

So after a five-hour meeting with security officials, he chose to allow the trip.

Correspondents say that harsh Chinese criticism might play into the hands of Taiwan's opposition by reducing Mr Ma's popularity even further.
The Tibetan spiritual leader is due to arrive on 31 August and to stay for four days, with the focus of his trip being entirely to comfort those affected by the typhoon.

The Dalai Lama has long been eager to visit Taiwan, and is looking forward to the trip, his aide told Reuters news agency.

Taiwan is home to a large exiled Tibetan community, and millions of Taiwanese are Buddhists.

A spokesman for Taiwan's Presidential Office insisted "cross-strait relations will not be negatively affected" by the decision.

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

[Africa]
Page last updated at 12:49 GMT, Thursday, 27 August 2009 13:49 UK
War in Sudan's Darfur 'is over'
The six-year war between forces loyal to Sudan's government and rebels in Darfur has effectively ended, the UN's military commander in the region says.

General Martin Agwai, who is leaving his post this week, said the vicious fighting of earlier years had subsided as rebel groups split into factions.

He says the region now suffers more from low-level disputes and banditry.

The UN says 300,000 people have died in Darfur, but the Sudanese government puts the figure at 10,000.

Almost three million people are said to have been displaced by the fighting.

Oppression claims

Gen Agwai, who commands thousands of troops from the UN and African Union, said the region now suffered more from "security issues" than full-blown conflict.

"Banditry, localised issues, people trying to resolve issues over water and land at a local level. But real war as such, I think we are over that," he said.

Gen Agwai said only one rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem), posed a real threat.

Sudan analyst Gill Lusk said his comments were "unhelpful" because they could lead people to believe that Darfur's problems had been solved.

"There has been a large decline in fighting in Darfur, and that is undoubtedly a good thing for the people," she told the BBC.

"But it is the government that turns the tap on and off - they can restart the violence whenever they want."

'Strong foundation'

The war broke out in the arid and impoverished region early in 2003 when rebel groups including Jem attacked government targets, accusing Khartoum of oppressing black Africans in favour of Arabs.

Pro-government militiamen hit back with brutal force, which the US and some rights groups have labelled genocide.

Khartoum denies supporting the militias, but the international court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant earlier this year for President Omar al-Bashir accusing him of war crimes.

Although the intensity of the violence has reduced, there is still little prospect of a peace deal.

Last week, US envoy to Sudan Scott Gration said the existence of 26 different rebel factions was a major obstacle to reaching a peace agreement with the government.

He brokered talks which led to four groups agreeing to work together, calling the deal a "very strong foundation for rebel unification".


[Europe]
Page last updated at 13:38 GMT, Thursday, 27 August 2009 14:38 UK
Merkel warns Iran on sanctions
Iran could face new sanctions if it does not show a willingness to negotiate on its nuclear programme, the German chancellor has said.

Angela Merkel was speaking after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Berlin.

She also called on Israel to freeze its settlement construction for the sake of progress in peace talks.

In London on Wednesday, Mr Netanyahu suggested Israel was close to an agreement on settlements.

During his visit to Germany, the Israeli prime minister has also been given original blueprints of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

The plans, which date from 1941-2, were found in a Berlin flat last year and include technical drawings for a gas chamber and crematorium - a symbol of the difficult history which connects Germany with the Jewish state created after the Nazi Holocaust.

'Further measures'

US President Barack Obama has warned that harsher penalties could be imposed on Iran if it does not take up an offer of talks on trade benefits in exchange for shelving its nuclear programme.

"If there is no positive answer by September we will have to consider further measures," said Mrs Merkel.

Speaking at a press conference after their talks, Mr Netanyahu called for "crippling sanctions" against Iran to stop its disputed nuclear programme.

"It is possible to put real pressure, real economic pressure, on this regime if the major powers of the world unite," he said.

On the settlement issue, Mrs Merkel said a freeze in construction would push forward the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

"Progress on the issue of settlements - a freeze on settlements - is an important building block and a prerequisite for a restart of the Middle East peace process," said Mrs Merkel.

After Wednesday's talks in London, the Israeli prime minister said the US and Israel were "getting closer" to a "bridging formula" on the settlement issue, according to his spokesman.

The US wants Israel to comply with Palestinian demands that it halt all building before peace talks can start.

The Palestinians have refused to resume peace negotiations unless Israel stops all settlement building.

Chancellor Merkel has shown herself a staunch supporter of Israel and received a standing ovation in parliament last year when she pledged that her country would stand by Israel's side against any threat.

But, says the BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Berlin, she is ready to criticise when she sees fit.

Tensions

During his visit to Germany, Mr Netanyahu was also due to visit a villa from where senior Nazis planned the extermination of the Jews.

He is the first Israeli prime minister to visit since the site, on Lake Wannsee on the outskirts of the capital, was opened.

The meeting comes a week after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Germany was involved in efforts to secure the release of the captured Israeli soldier Gilat Shalit.

Sgt Shalit is due to mark his 23rd birthday - his fourth in captivity - on Friday, amid a wave of fresh speculation in the regional media about progress towards a deal.

Hamas wants several hundred Palestinan prisoners, including the popular and potentially unifying leader Marwan Barghouti, to be released by Israel in exchange for Sgt Shalit's freedom.

Germany has helped to negotiate Israeli-Lebanese prisoner swaps in the past.


[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 00:33 GMT, Thursday, 27 August 2009 01:33 UK
'Artificial trees' to cut carbon
Engineers say a forest of 100,000 "artificial trees" could be deployed within 10 to 20 years to help soak up the world's carbon emissions.
By Judith Burns
Science and environment reporter, BBC News

The trees are among three geo-engineering ideas highlighted as practical in a new report.

The authors from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers say that without geo-engineering it will be impossible to avoid dangerous climate change.

The report includes a 100-year roadmap to "decarbonise" the global economy.

No silver bullet

Launching the report, lead author Dr Tim Fox said geo-engineering should not be viewed as a "silver bullet" that could combat climate change in isolation.

He told BBC News it should be used in conjunction with efforts to reduce carbon emissions and to adapt to the effects of climate change.

Many climate scientists calculate that the world has only a few decades to reduce emissions before there is so much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that a dangerous rise in global temperature is inevitable.

The authors of this report say that geo-engineering of the type they propose should be used on a short-term basis to buy the world time, but in the long term it is vital to reduce emissions.

They define two types of geo-engineering. Nem Vaughan of University of East Anglia said: "The first category attempts to cool the planet by reflecting some of the sunlight away. The problem with this is that it just masks the problem."

"The other type of geo-engineering is to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it."

Hundreds of options

The team studied hundreds of different options but have put forward just three as being practical and feasible using current technology.

A key factor in choosing the three was that they should be low-carbon technologies rather than adding to the problem.

Dr Fox told BBC News: "Artificial trees are already at the prototype stage and are very advanced in their design in terms of their automation and in the components that would be used.

"They could, within a relatively short duration, be moved forward into mass production and deployment."

The trees would work on the principle of capturing carbon dioxide from the air through a filter.

The CO2 would then be removed from the filter and stored. The report calls for the technology to be developed in conjunction with carbon storage infrastructure.

Dr Fox said the prototype artificial tree was about the same size as a shipping container and could remove thousands of times more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than an equivalent sized real tree.

Another of the team's preferred methods of capturing carbon is to install what they term "algae based photobioreactors" on buildings. These would be transparent containers containing algae which would remove carbon dioxide from the air during photosynthesis.

The third option focuses on the reduction of incoming solar radiation by reflecting sunlight back into space. The report says the simplest way of doing this is for buildings to have reflective roofs.

The authors stress that all of these options will require more research and have called for the UK government to invest 10 million pounds in analysis of the effectiveness, risks and costs of geo-engineering.

Dr Fox said: "We very much believe that the practical geo-engineering that we are proposing should be implemented and could be very much part of our landscape within the next 10 to 20 years."