news20090902nyt1

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

[Asia Pacific]
Fresh Off Victory, Japanese Party Flexes Muscle
By MARTIN FACKLER
Published: September 2, 2009

TOKYO — Moving quickly to fulfill an election promise, Japan’s newly victorious Democratic Party has begun its battle to rein in the nation’s powerful bureaucracy by challenging a seemingly mundane appointment at the consumer affairs agency.

The unusually heated fight began on Tuesday, when Japan’s lame-duck prime minister, Taro Aso, whose long-governing Liberal Democratic Party was routed in Sunday’s election, ignored Democratic objections to appoint a retired Land Ministry official.

The Democrats immediately criticized Mr. Aso for rushing to fill the post with a former bureaucrat, a common practice here that has allowed Tokyo’s central ministries to exert broad influence over government. On Wednesday, the national daily Asahi Shimbun quoted a top party official, Tetsuro Fukuyama, as saying that the Democrats may reverse the appointment when they formally take power later this month.

Controlling the bureaucracy was the signature campaign pledge of the Democrats, and one that found overwhelming support among voters fed up with the nation’s insider-driven politics. But many former bureaucrats and political analysts are doubtful that the Democrats, as the inexperienced former opposition party, can make much headway against a force that has run this country for decades.

“I wish the Democratic Party the best of luck,” said Hiro Kishi, a professor of public policy at Tokyo’s Keio University, a former Trade Ministry bureaucrat who has himself battled bureaucrats. “But I am afraid that they will fail.”

If so, they will not be the first to battle in vain against the elite career officials at the nation’s central ministries, who write the laws and divvy up government budgets in backroom negotiations.

For most of their postwar rule of Japan, the Liberal Democrats were content to let the bureaucracy steer the nation, which they did spectacularly well during the economic miracle. But recent prime ministers have tried to curtail the bureaucracy’s powers after corruption scandals and a failure to end the nation’s long stagnation made it the target of growing populist ire.

This anger helped drive Sunday’s landslide victory by the Democrats. But while the Democrats may win some high-profile battles like the one this week, political analysts and former bureaucrats warn that they may end up losing the war.

For one, they say, the bureaucrats have an overwhelming advantage in experience and know-how, from running the nation literally for generations.

Of the 308 Democrats elected on Sunday, 143 are first-time lawmakers; of the rest, only a handful have ever held a cabinet post. What is more, they have few outside sources of help. Japan does not have the United States’ vast number of research groups with their legions of policy experts. And unlike on Capitol Hill, Japanese lawmakers also lack the large staff of aides knowledgeable on policy issues.

This makes it hard for lawmakers to shake their dependence on bureaucrats, who are often the only people who know where in the stacks of paperwork to find important information, and how to navigate laws and regulations to get things done.

This greater experience also extends to the techniques of political combat, say political experts and former bureaucrats.

Mr. Kishi, the professor, said that when he was as an adviser in the government of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, a reformist, bureaucrats in the Financial Services Agency did everything they could to block efforts to force banks to undertake an expensive bad-loan cleanup.

He said officials hid information, went behind his back to lobby sympathetic lawmakers and even leaked damaging stories to the press.

“They tried their best to stop us,” Mr. Kishi said. “They’ll fight much harder against the Democrats” since their own interests are at stake.

The Democrats have vowed to shift key powers, including drawing up national budgets and filling top bureaucratic posts, into a new National Strategy Agency, which will answer to the prime minister. The party also promised to shrink the number of career bureaucrats and to bar retired ministry officials from taking comfortable jobs in government or the private sector, a practice known as “amakudari,” or “descent from heaven.”

In the weeks before Sunday’s election, ministries rushed to fill amakudari spots ahead of the widely forecast Democratic victory. The Land Ministry, which manages public works, put a retiring official in charge of Japan’s housing finance agency, while a retiring Education Ministry bureaucrat became an executive director at the Tokyo National Museum.

This angered Democrats, setting the stage for this week’s fight. On Monday, the Democratic leader and presumptive next prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, signaled his displeasure at Mr. Aso’s plans to name a former bureaucrat to fill the top job at the newly created consumer agency.

“Given that the Democratic Party is going to take over government, why rush to establish the agency and make personnel appointments?” Mr. Hatoyama asked reporters.

Mr. Aso went ahead anyway the following day with appointing Shunichi Uchida, who also served as a vice minister in the Cabinet Office. When Mr. Fukuyama responded by threatening to remove Mr. Uchida, major Japanese newspapers pronounced the dispute the first battle between politicians and bureaucrats.

The fight seems to have fed a growing mood of bureaucrat-bashing. Besides Mr. Uchida, several ministry officials who long worked behind the scenes have suddenly come under unheard of public scrutiny. Newspapers have begun criticizing top bureaucrats by name, while television news programs show footage of them humbly ascending Nagatacho, Japan’s Capitol Hill, to answer the summons of Democratic lawmakers.

Still, in the end, political analysts and former bureaucrats say, the Democrats may be forced to quietly make peace with the bureaucracy, to get its help in achieving other parts of their agenda — like strengthening Japan’s social safety net and cutting wasteful spending — to show voters before upper house elections next July.

The Democrats already seem to be toning down their rhetoric. Mr. Hatoyama no longer says he will fire every bureaucrat above the level of agency chief, as he first vowed in February. On Monday, he even backed away from his party’s campaign slogan, which called for a “post bureaucrat” Japan, saying that what he meant was getting beyond an over-reliance on bureaucrats.

“The Liberal Democrats needed the bureaucracy to run the country,” said Masayasu Murakami, a former Finance Ministry bureaucrat who is now executive director of the Japan Forum on International Relations, a Japanese research group. “The Democrats will realize they need the bureaucracy, too.”

news20090902nyt2

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

[Asia Pacific]
U.S. Is Seeing Policy Thorns in Japan Shift
By MARK LANDLER and MARTIN FACKLER
Published: September 1, 2009

WASHINGTON — Japan’s landmark election presents the Obama administration with an untested government, creating a new set of imponderables for a White House already burdened by foreign policy headaches in Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea.

Inside the administration, the historic change in Tokyo is raising concerns that Japan may back away from supporting key American priorities like the war in Afghanistan or the redeployment of American troops in Asia, according to senior officials.

Specifically, the newly elected Democratic Party says it may recall the Japanese naval forces from a mission to refuel American warships near Afghanistan. And it wants to reopen an agreement to relocate a Marine airfield on Okinawa, which requires Japan to pick up much of the cost for moving thousands of Marines to Guam.

The victory of the Democrats on Sunday means the White House must deal, for the first time in decades, with a Japanese government that is a complete stranger, and one that has expressed blunt criticism of the United States. The party’s leader and presumptive prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, recently spoke out against American-led globalization and called for a greater Japanese focus on Asia.

Despite the party’s campaign rhetoric, its leaders insist they will not threaten the alliance with the United States, particularly when Japan faces a fast-rising China and a nuclear-armed North Korea. Senior American officials said they expected Japan to remain a bulwark in Asia, even noting that the new government, unburdened by history, could play a more central role in negotiating with North Korea.

But for the most part, the United States is perplexed by what one official described as a “seismic event,” with unknown consequences for one of its most important relationships.

“The election of a new party could produce new ways of doing things, which we will have to adjust to,” said a senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter. “You’ll have this period of unpredictability.”

The big question many in Washington are asking is whether the vote was a harbinger of a deeper change in Japan, away from its historic dependence on the United States.

“There is a fear of dramatic change in the U.S.-Japan alliance,” said Michael Auslin, an expert on Japanese foreign policy at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “No one knows what will happen next, or even who to talk to for answers.”

The Democratic Party struck a chord with its talk of improving ties with China and other neighbors, reflecting the fact that Japan’s $5 trillion economy has grown more dependent on commerce with its neighbors.

Fears of Japanese drift seemed to be confirmed last week when an article by Mr. Hatoyama, excerpted and translated from a Japanese journal, appeared on the Web site of The New York Times. It stirred a hornet’s nest in Washington by casting Japan’s embattled economy as the victim of American-inspired free-market fundamentalism. Yet it also stressed the importance of the American alliance.

Mr. Hatoyama’s views sent many in Washington’s diplomatic establishment scurrying to learn more about him and the Democrats. That highlighted a problem: While American officials and academics have spent decades cultivating close ties with the Liberal Democrats, who have governed Japan for most of the last half century, they have built few links to the opposition.

Some Japan experts said it would be a mistake to read too much into Mr. Hatoyama’s remarks, and Japanese officials privately conveyed that same caution to the Obama administration.

“It was an indication they still haven’t figured out what they’re going to do in power,” said Michael J. Green, a professor of international relations at Georgetown University who served on the National Security Council during the last Bush administration. “This could get confused and dysfunctional for a while.”

Stung by the reaction, Mr. Hatoyama appears to be back-pedaling and engaging in damage control. On Monday night, he said he had not intended for the article to appear abroad, and said it was being misinterpreted. “If you read the entire essay, you will understand that it is definitely not expressing anti-American ideas,” he said.

Professor Green noted that in many ways, relations between the United States and Japan were smoother now than in years past because the trade disputes of the 1980s and 1990s were largely settled.

He said the new government would find that some of its proposals, like reopening talks on the relocation of the Futenma Marine airfield on Okinawa, were unrealistic, given the years it took to negotiate that deal. For the Obama administration, he said, the challenge will be to give Japan’s new leaders a face-saving way to back down.

Japan, experts said, could play a more muscular role in talks with North Korea if, as expected, the Democrats turn down the heat on the issue of Japanese abducted by North Korea decades ago, a perennial sticking point for the Liberal Democrats.

And Obama administration officials said they were eager to dispel perceptions in Japan that a better relationship with China would somehow undermine its alliance with the United States.

“We have no desire to see our defense commitment tested by battle,” a senior official said. “We see no contradiction between Japan reducing frictions with China and a strong Japan-U.S. alliance.”

In recent years, many Japanese have thought the United States took the relationship for granted, paying more attention to China.

Traditionally, the United States has sent high-powered diplomats or political figures to Tokyo. But the Obama administration chose to send a big campaign donor, John Roos, as ambassador, passing over a longtime Asia hand, Joseph S. Nye Jr., who had been championed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Administration officials counter that Mr. Roos, a Silicon Valley lawyer, will be influential because he has the ear of President Obama.

Political analysts and former diplomats say the Democrats are so sharply divided ideologically — between pacifist former Socialists and flag-flying former Liberal Democrats — that they will avoid treading too heavily on divisive foreign policy issues for fear of splitting the party.

Policy analysts also say the Japanese public would turn against the Democrats if they undermined the Washington alliance, pointing out that the opposition won because of anger with the incumbents’ failed economic policies, not because of a desire to change the nation’s reliance on the United States, which remains widely accepted here.

“They do not have a mandate for changing the alliance with the U.S.,” said Yukio Okamoto, a former adviser to several prime ministers on foreign affairs.

news20090902wp1

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

[Asia/Pacific]
Japan's ruling party could re-emerge after losses
By JAY ALABASTER
The Associated Press
Wednesday, September 2, 2009; 1:00 PM

TOKYO -- For the past half-century, the Liberal Democratic Party has called the shots in Japan, naming the prime ministers, filling the Cabinets and setting the national agenda. Now, it is learning to look at itself in a new way - as the opposition.

After the party was trounced in elections Sunday, those members who managed to hold onto their seats described themselves as "lucky."

But while the pro-U.S., pro-big business Liberal Democrats learn to live with their worst defeat ever, analysts say they remain a force to be reckoned with and could even stage a comeback in the next year or so if the rival Democratic Party of Japan fails to deliver on its promises to turn around Japan's moribund economy.

The idea of losing power is so new - the Liberal Democrats have governed almost without break since 1955 - that the chief spokesman for outgoing Prime Minister Taro Aso said he wasn't sure exactly what to do.

"Japan isn't like the United States or Britain," Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said Wednesday. "We don't have a framework to carry out this transition."

Democratic Party of Japan leader Yukio Hatoyama met Wednesday with senior leaders of his camp and two smaller parties that are expected to join them in the new administration. He also had his first telephone call with President Barack Obama early Thursday, his party said. Hatoyama was expected to be formally installed as prime minister on Sept. 16, and name his Cabinet within a day or two of that.

Some time as the leading opposition party could give the Liberal Democrats the impetus they need to regroup and get back in touch with the needs of voters, analysts said.

"In a way, the loss is positive for the LDP because many of the old-timers have been swept away," said political analyst Eiken Itagaki.

Among the old guard party members who lost were a former prime minister and several former Cabinet ministers. Itagaki said the house-cleaning may provide an opportunity for relatively young LDP stars such as Nobuteru Ishihara, 52, the son of Tokyo's governor, to bring a fresher approach to the party's platform and appeal to a broader range of voters.

Jiro Yamaguchi, a politics professor at Hokkaido University, warned that as the party seeks to revive itself, it could be tempted to pursue a more conservative agenda, including possibly revising the country's pacifist constitution and advocating a more bellicose approach toward North Korea.

He said, however, that to survive the party should move in the other direction.

"If they don't become more moderate, they risk becoming a minor party," he said.

In Sunday's vote, the Liberal Democrats lost 60 percent of their seats and their majority in the more powerful lower house of parliament. It was a stunning defeat for the party that has run the country for nearly 54 years, yielding power only for an 11-month period more than 10 years ago and fielding 35 of the country's last 38 prime ministers.

"We must solemnly reflect on the state of the Liberal Democratic Party and on whether our policies reflect the will of the people," a grim-faced Aso said in a news conference Monday, conceding defeat and announcing he would step down as party chief.

Takashi Tanihata, an LDP lawmaker from near Osaka, said on his Web site he was "lucky" to be re-elected and said his party must work to rejuvenate itself.

Still, while Sunday's election demonstrated that Japan is clearly tired of the status quo, it is not certain that voters are sold on the Democratic Party, which is in effect being given a trial run.

If they fail to deal with the stumbling economy and record unemployment, they could suffer a rebuke by voters when elections for the weaker upper-house of parliament are held next year.

"The Democrats have a year to make things work," said Martin Schulz, a senior economist at the Fujitsu Research Institute.

That view was underscored Wednesday by the first major poll conducted since the elections.

In the poll, published by the Asahi, a major newspaper, 81 percent of respondents said they felt the reason for the Democrats' win was that the nation wanted a new administration, but only 38 percent said the victory was due to support for the party's polices.

The poll also showed support for the Democrats was just 39 percent - meaning they go into their new administration with a weak mandate.

The poll was a random telephone survey of 1,104 eligible voters conducted on Monday and Tuesday. It gave no margin of error, but a poll of that size would generally have one of about 3 percentage points.

"The truth is that this was a crushing defeat for the Liberal Democratic Party rather than a victory for the Democratic Party," Shigeru Ishiba, an LDP heavyweight who served in the latest Cabinet as agriculture minister, wrote on his blog Tuesday.

news20090902wp2

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

[Asia/Pacific]
Japan's incoming government seeks to reassure U.S.
By Chisa Fujioka and Tetsushi Kajimoto
Reuters
Wednesday, September 2, 2009; 4:50 AM

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's incoming government sought to reassure security ally Washington on Wednesday that no upheaval was in store for U.S.-Japan relations, as the country groped toward a rare handover of power.

The Democratic Party is preparing to take over after trouncing the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in an election on Sunday. Parliament is due to vote in Democratic Party leader Yukio Hatoyama as prime minister in two weeks.

Managing ties with the United States is high on the agenda after the party said it wanted to chart a course more independent of Washington.

But Hatoyama is not expected to damage an alliance long at the core of Japan's diplomacy and a senior Democratic Party lawmaker sought on Wednesday to allay any simmering concerns, including among investors, over the relationship.

"We have repeatedly said Japan-U.S. relations are most important as a basic principle in diplomacy and stressed the importance of continuity in diplomacy," Kohei Otsuka said in an interview with Reuters.

The Democrats have said they want to reexamine an agreement governing U.S. military forces in Japan and a deal under which about 8,000 Marines will leave for the U.S. territory of Guam and a Marine Corps air base shifted to a less-populated part of the southern island of Okinawa.

New U.S. ambassador to Japan John Roos said in an interview with U.S. National Public Radio the deals were not negotiable.

"Just to make it abundantly clear, both the United States and Japan, at the government-to-government level, have made it absolutely clear that these agreements have been signed, agreed to, and are going forward," Roos said.

The Democrats have said they want the air base moved off Okinawa, where many residents feel they shoulder an unfair share of the burden for the U.S.-Japan security alliance.

Hatoyama will head to the United States soon after forming his cabinet to make his diplomatic debut at a U.N. General Assembly meeting and a G20 summit in Pittsburgh. Japanese media said he would also hold talks with U.S. President Barack Obama.

The U.S.-educated Hatoyama raised eyebrows in Washington with a recent essay in which he attacked the "unrestrained market fundamentalism" of U.S.-led globalization. He sought to play down those comments on Monday, saying he was not anti-American.

TRANSITION IN PROGRESS

Other party executives pushed ahead with process of handing over power in Japan.

Democrat Secretary-General Katsuya Okada met the top aide to outgoing Prime Minister Taro Aso and requested that government ministries help ensure a smooth transition. It is only the second time the LDP has lost power since its founding in 1955.

"For the sake of the country, I think we should cooperate fully with the new administration," the aide, Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura, told reporters before the meeting.

The Democrats made curbing the clout of bureaucrats who have long controlled policy-making a key election promise, but also need their cooperation to implement programs such as putting more money in the hands of households.

Reviving the economy is a key challenge, with unemployment at a record high and investors worried whether the new government will raise spending and further increase Japan's soaring public debt, already at 170 percent of GDP.

Otsuka said the next government would not meddle in the Bank of Japan's policy and market operations, shrugging off speculation it might pressure the central bank to print money to buy government debt.

"The incoming government and the central bank got off to a smooth start," Otsuka said, a day after Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa met with Hatoyama.

Hatoyama suggested it might be necessary eventually to raise the 5 percent sales tax in the future to fund growing social security costs as more Japanese become pensioners.

Japan is aging more rapidly than any other rich country. Over a quarter of Japanese will be 65 or older by 2015.

The Democratic Party has pledged not to raise the sales tax for at least four years, prompting questions about where it will get the money for its spending plans. The Democrats say they can fund the programs by cutting waste and redirecting spending.

The Democrats also need to firm up a proposed coalition with two tiny partners on the left and the right, whose cooperation is needed to keep control of parliament's less powerful upper house.

The three agreed some policies before the election, but have shied away from talks on security matters, where large gaps loom.

(Additional reporting by Colin Parrott, Yoko Nishikawa and Yoko Kubota; Writing by Linda Sieg and Isabel Reynolds, Editing by Dean Yates and Hugh Lawson)

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[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[World news > Japan]
Is Japan's sun rising or setting?
While Europe and China seem complacent, America has reflected unease over Japan's election result
Simon Tisdall
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 September 2009 18.30 BST Article history

Is Japan's sun rising or setting?While Europe and China seem complacent, America has reflected unease over Japan's election result
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Simon Tisdall guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 September 2009 18.30 BST Article history
It's tempting to dismiss the weekend election landslide victory of Japan's opposition Democratic party (DPJ) as reflecting no more than a bad-tempered "throw the bums out" mood among recession-hit voters. European commentators transfixed by China's rise have jumped two-footed into this trap. They play down the result's wider significance for a country they view as a declining power while predicting that little will change in practice.

A slightly smug response is evident in Beijing, too. There is quiet satisfaction there at the decimation, after half a century in power, of the Liberal Democratic party of the nationalist former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, a hate figure for many Chinese. Pledges by the DPJ's incoming prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, to eschew visits to the Yasukuni war shrine in Tokyo and pursue closer Asian co-operation are seen as tacit acknowledgement of Tokyo's past mistakes.

American reactions have been notably less complacent, reflecting real unease about where the DPJ's untested, vaguely anti-capitalist, anti-globalisation stance and its vow to forge a "more equal" relationship with the US may lead. The Obama administration said it was ready to work together "to further cement this indispensable alliance". But it quickly stressed Washington had "no intention" of re-opening negotiations on American bases and troop re-deployments in Japan, as urged by DPJ leaders.

Although Hatoyama backpedalled recently, saying the US-Japan alliance will "continue to be the cornerstone of Japanese diplomatic policy", the presence of 47,000 American military personnel, occupying 134 bases covering over 100,000 hectares of prime real estate, is one of several weak points in the edifice.

"The vast tracts of land set aside for US forces in Japan impede community development and have a major impact on the lives of our citizens," said Matsuzawa Shigefumi, governor of Kanagawa prefecture, abutting Tokyo. Crime and environmental damage associated with the bases were of especial concern, he said. The 1960 Status of Forces agreement between the two countries should be reviewed or, failing that, specific Japanese laws should be applicable to US bases and personnel.

Hatoyama says the new government will not renew the mandate for Japanese refuelling ships in the Indian Ocean, tasked with supporting US military activities in Afghanistan, when it expires in January. He also wants a US pledge not to bring nuclear-armed vessels or aircraft into Japanese ports and airports. At the same time, the prime minister-elect favours the establishment of an East Asian regional community, not dissimilar to early forms of the EU, with Japan and China (like France and Germany) at its heart.

Indeed, some have compared Hatoyama to Germany's former chancellor Gerhard Schröder's mould-breaking bid to loosen Washington's stifling postwar embrace. These unsettling ideas, plus his guiding political mantra of yuai (friendship and love), will add spice to his first meeting with Barack Obama around the G20 summit in Pittsburgh later this month.

Contradicting the suggestions that the wrinkles will be ironed out given time, rightwing American commentators sense a real threat to US interests. "Hatoyama dreams of an Asian union, a utopia free of rapacious American capitalism, a region bound together by fraternity and a common currency," wrote Tim Kelly in Forbes magazine. "He describes his country as being 'buffeted by the winds of market fundamentalism'." His dangerous vision was of Japan and China marching hand-in-hand as American economic and military power waned. Hatoyama, Kelly concluded, was living on "fantasy island".

Mary Kissel of the Wall Street Journal was scarcely less scathing. "Hatoyama is scoring populist points by talking about distancing Japan from [the US] alliance," she said. And his domestic policies were just as damaging. "He stands for agricultural protectionism, higher minimum wages, higher taxes in the name of environmental responsibility, and more [state] handouts … Hatoyama's Keynsian worship may spell another lost decade for the world's second-largest economy."

Veteran Asia commentator Philip Bowring is less alarmist; he rules out any significant change in Japan's foreign policies, the main reason being China. In this regard, he suggested, Hatoyama and the DPJ were behind the curve and faced a sharp reality check.

"In some [Asian] countries rising fears of China's goals are now cancelling out criticism of the US-led invasion of Iraq and the 'war on terror'. Worries about the impact of reduced US demand is offsetting resentment of Wall Street-style capitalism," Bowring said. In other words, Japan could become more dependent on Washington, not less.

"The [DPJ] assumes that Japan and China can share leadership of an East Asian community. But the prevailing view in China appears to be that 'there cannot be two suns in the sky'. For Beijing, the Japanese sun is setting as the Chinese one rises."

news20090902gc2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Copenhagen climate change summit 2009]
India will be key player at Copenhagen conference, says Miliband
Climate change secretary praises India's renewable targets and 'big ambitions', cementing cordial relations between the countries
Randeep Ramesh in Delhi
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 2 September 2009 18.31 BST Article history

Ed Miliband, Britain's climate change secretary, hailed India as a potential "deal maker" in the forthcoming talks in Copenhagen for an international treaty to tackle global warming, stating that the country would not face targets to cut its emissions in the near future because it "took climate change seriously".

The UK's "softly-softly" approach has won plaudits in India, and contrasts with that of US secretary of state, Hilary Clinton, whose visit in July resulted in a spat with environment minister Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh. India has categorically ruled out greenhouse gas cuts, arguing that rich nations caused the problem and must not deny Indians the opportunity to grow out of poverty.

In an interview with the Guardian, Miliband and development secretary Douglas Alexander said India would not have to reduce emissions by 2020 – the year when the European Union has offered to cut by a third its greenhouse gas output – given that Delhi was "not doing things on a 'business as usual basis'".

"India has very stretching targets on solar energy, on renewable energy … it has big ambitions on energy efficiency … I think India wants to be a deal maker not a deal breaker in Copenhagen," said Miliband.

Ed Miliband: 'India has very stretching targets on energy' Link to this audio India already generates 8% of its power from renewables – more than the UK. It says it aims to have 20,000MW of solar energy in place by 2020 and make fuel efficiency standards mandatory for cars from 2011 as part of a package to reduce the nation's carbon footprint.

After Clinton's visit, Delhi accused the United States of applying pressure on India to curb its greenhouse gas emissions. The United States wants big developing countries such as India and China, whose emissions are quickly rising as their economies grow, to agree to rein them in before Washington commits to any global deal.

Today the Indian government released a series of studies showing the country's greenhouse gas emissions would continue to rise – citing a range between 2.8 and 5.0 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person in 2031. The government estimates India's current per-capita emissions at 1.2 tonnes – significantly below the current global average of 4 tonnes.

"Even two decades from now, India's per-capita greenhouse gas emissions will be below the global average of 25 years earlier," said the Indian minister.

Although Miliband welcomed the report, the British minister said the negotiations in the run up to Copenhagen centred on when "emissions in different countries peak past 2020".

Miliband highlighted July's L'Aquila agreement – where the world's richest nations reached a symbolic deal with India, China and other major polluters on the need to limit global warming to within 2 degrees centigrade to prevent catastrophic climate change.

Despite this pledge Miliband stopped short of calling of emission reduction targets for big, emerging economies such as India after 2020. "That is one of the questions we have got to resolve… we want to work with India".

Another key area of difference revolves around carbon capture and storage technologies that Britain has promoted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Indian officials have complained about the cost of such plants, which aim to capture carbon dioxide created by industry and pump them deep underground.

However Miliband pointed to India's rising reliance on coal as a source of power as a reason why the Asian nation might embrace the technology. "India seems to be most interested in solar technology. Let me be honest with you there is no solution to the problem of climate change that does not solve the problem of coal."

Campaigners said British ministers' softly-softly approach showed the west had "come a long way". "I think they are beginning to understand the ground realities in India. You have to talk to each other not at each other," said Sunita Narain of Delhi's Centre for Science and the Environment.

However Narain said that there was still some way to go. She said industrial nations must curb their own pollution and provide funding and technology to help developing nations before the latter are asked to set limits that could crimp their economic expansion.

Douglas Alexander, Britain's development secretary, pointed out that Gordon Brown had proposed $100bn (£62bn) a year for a global green fund that could "unlock new sources of financing".

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[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 2 September 2009 | Nature 461, 20-21 (2009) | doi:10.1038/461020a
News
Pandemic flu: from the front lines
Researchers describe the scientific and public-health challenges they face in battling the H1N1 virus.

Mexico — Population 110 million

Data suggest that Mexico has seen two waves of infection — the first, which peaked in late April, affected the Mexico City area, and the second, broader wave spanned June through August in southern states, including Chiapas, Yucatan and Quintana Roo. To prepare for a potentially larger wave this winter, Mexico is raising public awareness, standardizing timely diagnosis and treatment and reinforcing equipment and management protocols in intensive-care units throughout the country.

To improve surveillance, Mexico has accelerated the upgrading of its public-health laboratory network. The national reference laboratory and 28 states will soon have real-time PCR for running diagnostic tests. This builds on a restructuring of Mexico's national surveillance and reporting systems, which started in 2007.

As Mexico's strategic reserve of antivirals would cover only 1% of the population for community cases and up to 80,000 hospitalized cases, the nation is implementing a central logistics and delivery system to assure their efficient allocation. The country also expects to have 20 million doses of the H1N1 vaccine available by December. As even this would cover only a fraction of the population, the government will prioritize health-care workers, then individuals at risk of severe disease, such as pregnant women and people with chronic underlying illnesses.

Stefano Bertozzi, executive director at the Center for Evaluation Research and Surveys at the National Institute of Public Health in Cuernavaca

Australia — Population 21 million

The timing of the epidemic has differed across the country, which has meant that we needed different public-health measures and messages in individual states. The pandemic virus seems to be outcompeting the seasonal flu viruses. The great majority of flu cases around the country are now pandemic H1N1.

One interesting question is whether this pandemic virus will completely replace any of the seasonal flu strains. If it doesn't, that's going to complicate the production of future seasonal flu vaccines, as we will need a vaccine against four strains instead of the current three. The Australian government has ordered 21 million doses of dedicated pandemic virus vaccine, so if we need two doses per person, that covers half the population. There has been a lot of discussion about who should get it first, and when.

We are seeing similar patterns of disease severity to those reported worldwide, with most cases being mild. But there have been a significant number of cases with severe disease, not just in the at-risk groups, but also in healthy people. Our indigenous population is being hit harder, and we are seeing disproportionate numbers hospitalized with severe disease.

An important message for other countries that have intensive-care facilities is to expect significant pressure on them. There is a need for mechanical ventilators, and we have seen heavy use of scarce extracorporeal membrane oxygenation units.

Anne Kelso, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza in Melbourne

Japan — Population 128 million

Japan stopped counting cases on 25 July and launched a new cluster surveillance system that is directly in the hands of the health ministry. Our Infectious Disease Surveillance Center no longer has any disease data feed, making it difficult to analyse epidemiological trends or disease burden. But we have received hundreds of reports through routine sentinel-based surveillance of clusters of disease from many regions and big cities, so there is extensive spread.

The demand on public-health services to report and investigate all cluster cases is overwhelming public-health staff and leading to a breakdown in the normal public-health diagnostic service in local laboratories.

With the rising numbers of cases we are seeing a corresponding increase in deaths. As elsewhere, it is younger people who are affected with more severe disease requiring hospitalization, but the overall hospitalization rate is no greater than that of human seasonal influenza. Japan has an ageing population with large numbers of people older than 65, many with at-risk underlying health conditions, but so far pandemic H1N1 seems to be largely sparing the elderly.

The country's pandemic plan was based almost entirely on a severe pandemic of H5N1 avian influenza, which limited medical consultations to just a few hospitals.

The government seems to be relaxed with the low level of epidemic by the less virulent virus since May, and seems to have yet to draw any lessons from the pandemic. As a result, local and regional authorities have now independently started to prepare for the coming flu season.

Masato Tashiro, director of the Department of Viral Diseases and Vaccine Control at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in Tokyo

Argentina — Population 40 million

The current epidemiological situation is a generalized spread of the virus throughout the country, although with a marked downward trend in the number of reports of the levels of influenza-like illness. The epidemic started in mid-May in Buenos Aires, and three weeks later spread to the city's larger metropolitan area. Activity peaked on 25 July, with influenza A representing 80% of the circulating respiratory viruses; 65% were H1N1-pandemic confirmed. Very few isolates were H3 and H1 seasonal.

Health systems in Argentina were overloaded because of government advice to people to consult a physician on first signs of flu symptoms such as fever or cough.

The major challenge at the lab level was in diagnosing the first cases produced by a new, unknown virus. Later, the challenge was for lab capacity to meet demand. Information transmitted to the public was not always clear enough, and the mass media had a negative role, including providing contradictory information and producing fear.

Vilma Savy, head of the respiratory virus service at the National Institute for Infectious Diseases in Buenos Aires

Vietnam — Population 85 million

The first cases in Vietnam were at the end of May, a bit later than in many other parts of Asia, probably because Vietnam does not have a major international airport hub. We are now seeing an increase in disease and a small number of severe cases. Vietnam was a hotspot for H5N1 avian influenza in 2003 and 2004, and the pandemic preparation that resulted from both this and SARS has made a massive difference to the current situation.

Prior to avian flu, few hospital staff had community-acquired pneumonia on their radar; attention was concentrated on malaria, dengue fever and tuberculosis. Now clinicians have a much greater awareness of the need to look out for clusters of respiratory illnesses. There has also been greater interaction and collaboration between clinical and other researchers, and between centres across the country.

Access to vaccines and drugs remains an important issue. There is a global shortage of vaccines, and the rich countries have bought up all the first stocks. This is a really urgent issue; if we can get this right now, then many of the past issues around sharing of samples, data and general openness on emerging infectious diseases will be helped, maybe resolved. If we get it wrong, we will be back to square one. If ever there was a time for the rich world to reach out and ensure equity of access to drugs and vaccines, it is now.

Jeremy Farrar, Vietnam director for the Wellcome Trust Major Overseas Programme, director of Oxford University's Clinical Research Unit in Ho Chi Minh City, and coordinator of the South East Asia Infectious Disease Clinical Research Network

United States — Population 301 million

US health-care systems have been stretched and have no surge capacity. The system cannot handle this pandemic, even it if remains moderate in severity. The same applies to many of the supplies we get. Ask anybody who has tried to order an N95 respirator recently; there aren't any. We recently surveyed a group of world-class pharmacists to identify the essential drugs needed daily to keep patients from dying. They came up with a list of more than 30 — all generics, and most made offshore, mainly in Asia, and China and India in particular. Nobody is thinking what might happen to US or global supply chains when pandemic flu hits these countries, where the primary workforce are the young, who are most affected by the virus.

The United States has a federal programme for vaccine procurement but it is administered at the state level, and the two do not always mesh up. It is still not clear how this vaccine is going to be rolled out, or whether it will be here in time.

I worry most that, given current existing public concerns about vaccines, in the autumn we might see mounting public responses and concerns about pandemic-vaccine safety, and people refusing to be vaccinated. Expect the unexpected over the next six months.

Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy in Minneapolis

CONTINUED ON newsnn2

news20090902nn2

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 2 September 2009 | Nature 461, 20-21 (2009) | doi:10.1038/461020a
News
Pandemic flu: from the front lines
Researchers describe the scientific and public-health challenges they face in battling the H1N1 virus.

CONTINUED FROM newsnn1

India — Population 1.1 billion

The virus is now transmitting in city clusters. Large numbers of people are turning up at designated testing facilities, swamping an already stretched surveillance system, so there is little room for monitoring mutations and reassortment. This should be done. One way would be to bring in academic labs outside of the government testing system, but sharing of clinical materials and trust is low.

Deaths have sparked a fair amount of concern and panic. Poor communication of risks by the government and the public-health system is largely to blame.

Even if this pandemic remains moderate, the impact in India is likely to be severe, owing to its high population density, low awareness of the pandemic and the propensity of the virus to infect the young (50% of Indians are under 25 years of age). Moreover, there is a high load of other infectious diseases as well as chronic conditions, groups that are at higher risks of severe forms of pandemic H1N1 disease. The health-care infrastructure is poor.

Despite this bleak outlook, India has strengths for tackling the virus, including that the government has pandemic plans in hand, and that we have a vibrant generic-pharmaceutical industry as well as a decent capacity for manufacturing vaccines. There is little clarity, however, as to India's vaccine plans, and the regulatory process is archaic, so it is not even clear whether pandemic vaccine could be rapidly approved for use in the country. The government says it has enough Tamiflu for 3 million people.

Shahid Jameel, head of the virology group at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in New Delhi

Sub-Saharan Africa — Population 800 million

H1N1 has not yet been reported in Nigeria, or any of the other sub-Saharan African countries with which we collaborate — Niger, Burkina Faso or the Central African Republic, although the Democratic Republic of Congo has one confirmed case. But surveillance is still very poor, and the virus may well often escape detection. International media attention to the pandemic is probably more than it deserves from an African public health point of view. Any diversion of resources from other important programmes needs to be carefully evaluated for long-term cost-benefit and sustainability.

Systems for lab surveillance and reporting of respiratory illnesses have improved since H5N1, which has hit nine sub-Saharan African countries since it first spread to the continent in 2006. With international support Nigeria, for example, has set up a central national laboratory for human influenza surveillance in Abuja, as well as several decentralized satellite labs.

There is no culture of testing for respiratory viruses, however, and the effort that went into H5N1 control is losing steam. The H5N1 virus was perceived as a major threat to the poultry industry, whereas the disease burden of pandemic flu seems low. Don't expect much mobilization for a virus where most cases are mild.


[naturenews]
Published online 2 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.877
News: Q&A
Forging a future for South African science
The country's science minister talks about her priorities in lean times.
Linda Nordling

Naledi Pandor became South Africa's second post-apartheid science minister in May. A holder of a Master's degree in linguistics and a former lecturer for the University of Cape Town's Academic Support Programme, she has served as a member of parliament since the country's first democratic elections in 1994 and as education minister from 2004 to 2009. Pandor speaks to Nature about her plans.

Your department is set to release detailed science and innovation statistics for 2007-08 in a few weeks' time. Has South Africa reached its goal of spending 1% of gross domestic product on research and development?

We think we have met the target. But 1% is not sufficient. Singapore spends close to 3%. I'm committed to continuing the upward trend in the government science budget, although the current economic circumstances make it unclear whether we can expect more than the baseline increases that have already been agreed [the science and technology department's budget for 2009–10 is 4.2 billion rand (US$532 million), increasing to 4.7 billion in 2010–11 and 5.1 billion in 2011–12]. Also, the private sector is investing a lot but I think they could do more.

Not all of South Africa's research councils fall under your remit. For example, the Medical Research Council comes under the Department of Health. Is this satisfactory?

I don't have enough in-depth knowledge yet to be able to say how this should change. What I do know is that at the moment we are not coordinating sufficiently. I am convening a meeting of all ministers who have research councils in their portfolios to discuss this. One idea is to establish a national advisory body to oversee the councils.

On a related point, the government has been criticized for not using science advice in policy-making. Do you see a need for a chief scientific adviser?

At the moment science advice is obtained from ministers and via reports from the science councils. I don't know what the president would say about having a chief scientist, but I have told the deputy president that I want to establish a science working group consisting of the president and relevant ministers. We don't have one on science and technology, and I think we should.

I also think that we need to speak to our top-rated scientists. We need to get them around the table. I'm thinking of gathering six to eight scientists to meet with me on a regular basis to offer advice. I've already got some names in mind.

South African science is still mainly concentrated in elite, 'formerly white' universities. What are you doing to change this?

At the moment there are 6 universities that perform very well and 17 that need encouragement and support. We are encouraging those in the second group, who lack academic staff and infrastructure, to develop research in niche areas where they can make a name for themselves and attract senior scientists. For example, in the area of materials research we are working with the University of Limpopo, since that part of the country has a huge platinum-mining potential.

University researchers in South Africa complain about poor pay, and most have stories of their students being lured away to industry jobs with starting salaries that exceed their own. As a former academic, do you understand where they are coming from?

Absolutely. While we have improved funding for capital infrastructure in higher education and financial aid for students, I think the academics — professors, senior lecturers and junior lecturers — are really lagging behind. As education minister I signalled that academic pay was one of the budget priorities we needed to address in the current financial year or the next one. This now falls under my colleague's remit [Blade Nzimande, the higher-education minister]. I don't know what his plans are, but I'm sure that his officials have told him that I thought this needed more emphasis.

Does South Africa have a responsibility to help the rest of the African continent boost its science capacity?

We absolutely have a responsibility to do this and we're doing it. But I think we need to be careful about it being a sort of colonial assistance where everybody has to come here. I think we should empower institutions in other countries to develop their own capacity.

Assuming you stay in this post until the next general election, what do you hope to achieve?

In five years' time I hope that innovation will be a huge part of what scientists are doing, and that our universities will be modern. I also hope research will be recognized as a rewarding career and that we will have forged strong international links.

news20090902bn1

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

[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 10:13 GMT, Wednesday, 2 September 2009 11:13 UK
Wife of Taiwan's ex-leader jailed
The wife of Taiwan's former president, Chen Shui-bian, has been sentenced to a year in jail for perjury.

Wu Shu-chen was found guilty of asking her children to lie in court in an embezzlement case against her.

The verdict is the first in a string of corruption-related cases against the couple, their relatives and associates.

Mr Chen's son, daughter and son-in-law have each been jailed for six months, and the verdict against Mr Chen himself is expected later this month.

The Chens had a dramatic fall from favour after losing power in elections last year. The high-profile case against them is being seen as a test of the new government's resolve to crack down on official corruption.

Prosecutors say Mr Chen could face life in prison if convicted on all the counts against him, including embezzling public funds, money laundering and accepting bribes.

The former president has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, and claims he is being persecuted for his anti-China views by his successor Ma Ying-jeou.

Since taking office in 2008, Mr Ma has tried to improve relations with Beijing, and move away from Mr Chen's pro-independence policies.

'False testimony'

Wu Shu-chen instigated perjury by instructing her children to lie in court, a prosecutor told reporters.

The couple's son, Chen Chih-chung, daughter Chen Hsing-yu and son-in-law Chao Chien-ming were also found guilty of perjury.

The Chen family's "false testimony has wasted the country's judicial resources and prevented the court from exercising justice," a court spokesman is quoted as telling the French news agency AFP.

The court also handed down an 18-month sentence to Diana Chen, the former chairwoman of Taipei 101, one of the world's tallest buildings.

Prosecutors accused her of bribing the former president and his wife for an executive position in a state-run securities firm.

Wu Shu-chen faces further charges in the coming weeks, and the verdict for the case against her husband is due on 11 September.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 18:41 GMT, Wednesday, 2 September 2009 19:41 UK
Blanchett hurt during stage show
Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett has suffered a minor injury after being hit by a prop during a live performance of A Streetcar Named Desire in Sydney.

The Elizabeth star was accidentally hit in the head with a radio during a fight scene with her co-star Joel Edgerton.

Audience members said she left the stage with blood pouring down her head. The show was subsequently cancelled.

Tim McKeough from the Sydney Theatre Company, said the star's injury was not serious and she was "absolutely fine".

"There was a minor incident on stage that unfortunately did injure Cate," he said.

"There was a moment when another actor lifted the prop above his head and she somehow sustained a minor blow to the head."

Blanchett, 40, and her husband, Andrew Upton, are joint artistic directors of the theatre company.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 14:45 GMT, Wednesday, 2 September 2009 15:45 UK
China chemical explosion kills 18
A chemical explosion in eastern China has killed 18 people and injured 10 more, state media report.

The blast happened at around 1600 (0800 GMT) as a lorry carrying chemicals was being unloaded at a warehouse in Shandong province, Xinhua reported.

Some 26 fire-engines attended the site of the blast in the city of Linyi to put out a fire which it caused, the agency said.

The exact nature of the chemical involved has not yet been identified.

Seven people died at the scene and 11 others succumbed to their injuries after being rushed to hospital, Xinhua reported.

An investigation into the cause of the explosion is under way.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 09:15 GMT, Wednesday, 2 September 2009 10:15 UK
Reporters describe N Korea ordeal
Two US journalists jailed for illegally entering North Korea have described their ordeal for the first time.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee admitted entering North Korea for a short time, but said they were on the Chinese side of the border when they were arrested.

After their arrest the pair spent more than four months in detention before being freed at the intervention of former US President Bill Clinton.

Meanwhile a high-level North Korean official is visiting Beijing for talks.

The trip, to mark 60 years of diplomatic ties between the two nations, raises hopes that stalled six-party discussions on Pyongyang's nuclear programme might soon be back on the agenda.

North Korea abandoned the talks in April, following its nuclear and missile tests which prompted tough UN sanctions, but has since made a number of conciliatory moves that appear to indicate a softening of its position.

'Dragged forcibly'

The lengthy account published by Ms Ling and Ms Lee provides the most thorough account to date of the circumstances surrounding their detention.

{We tried with all our might to cling to bushes, ground, anything that would keep us on Chinese soil, but we were no match for the determined [North Korean] soldiers
Laura Ling and Euna Lee, US journalists}

In a statement posted on the website of their employers, Current TV, the two women said North Korean troops had abducted them shortly after they had briefly crossed the border into North Korea on 17 March.

"We were firmly back inside China when the soldiers apprehended us," said the women, who had been working on a story about human trafficking in the region.

"We tried with all our might to cling to bushes, ground, anything that would keep us on Chinese soil, but we were no match for the determined soldiers.

"They violently dragged us back across the ice to North Korea and marched us to a nearby army base, where we were detained."

The women said although there were no signs marking China's frontier with North Korea, they were aware that they were heading towards the border crossing as they moved on foot across the frozen Tumen River.

"Feeling nervous about where we were, we quickly turned back toward China. Midway across the ice, we heard yelling.

"To this day, we still don't know if we were lured into a trap," they added.

After their capture, Ms Lee and Ms Ling were sentenced to 12 years hard labour for trespassing and "hostile acts" against North Korea, but they were pardoned last month after Mr Clinton visited Pyongyang on their behalf.

They said parts of their captivity were "painful", but their experiences "pale when compared to the hardship facing so many people living in North Korea or as illegal immigrants in China".

Hotline restored

North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Yong-il arrived in Beijing on Tuesday, and was scheduled to meet Chinese foreign ministry officials later in the day.

"The two sides will exchange views on bilateral relations as well as other major issues of common interest," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu.

She gave no further details, but analysts suggest that the resumption of nuclear discussions could be one of the items on the agenda during the talks.

There have been numerous signs of a thaw in Pyongyang's relations with the international community in recent weeks.

A hotline between North and South Korea - closed down since May - has just been restored, and normal border traffic between the two Koreas resumed on Tuesday.

news20090902bn2

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

[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 10:39 GMT, Wednesday, 2 September 2009 11:39 UK
China dissident given jail term
A Chinese dissident active in the underground China Democracy Party has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for subversion.
By Michael Bristow
BBC News, Beijing

Xie Changfa was arrested after trying to organise the party's first national congress in the city of Changsha, Hunan Province.

The 57-year-old's lawyer, Ma Gangquan, said his client intended to appeal against the verdict.

The China Democracy Party was set up in 1998, but has never been approved.

"This is one of the most severe sentences of a dissident in several years," said a statement from the group Human Rights in China.

Re-education camp

According to court documents, Chinese prosecutors accused Xie of plotting to overthrow China's socialist system and subvert state power.

The dissident, who denied the charges, was detained in June last year after trying to set up the political party meeting.

He was tried in April at the Changsha Intermediate People's Court and sentenced on Tuesday.

According to Human Rights in China, Xie's brother and six friends were in court during the 30-minute sentencing.

"The charge runs counter to the constitution because that gives citizens the right to establish a political party," Xie's lawyer told the BBC.

Xie previously served two years in a re-education through labour camp for inciting the spread of anti-revolutionary propaganda.

The dissident has been active with the China Democracy Party for more than a decade. He helped set up a branch of the party in Hunan.

Chinese prosecutors said he was dissatisfied with China's socialist system and the communist party, and wanted to bring about a multi-party democracy.

As well as the communist grouping, China has eight other political parties, although these do not seek power for themselves.

They are supposed to advise the Chinese leadership, which uses their existence to claim that China is a democratic country.

Founders of the China Democracy Party attempted to set up a genuinely independent party during a period when the authorities were more relaxed about political debate.

But the government never allowed the party to be registered and some of its founding members were arrested, charged and imprisoned.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 05:36 GMT, Wednesday, 2 September 2009 06:36 UK
Australia Serb avoids extradition
A former Serb paramilitary leader wanted in Croatia for war crimes has won an appeal against his extradition.

Australia's federal court said he faced a "substantial or real chance of prejudice" if he was sent to Croatia.

Dragan Vasiljkovic was arrested in Perth in 2006 after Zagreb requested his extradition for atrocities during its 1991-1995 war of independence.

The Croatian government accuses Mr Vasiljkovic of ordering subordinates to kill Croatian civilians.

It claims he was involved in the torture and killing of local people and prisoners of war in the rebel Serb stronghold of Knin in 1991 and the southern village of Bruska in 1993.

He has denied committing war crimes but has admitted in media interviews to training Serbian recruits, killing people in combat and interrogating enemy troops.

He was working as a golf instructor in Perth when he was found eligible for extradition in April 2007, but has since mounted several legal challenges.

'Political'

He successfully argued that Croatia was partly seeking to try him because of his political beliefs about the right to self-determination of Serbs in the Krajina region of the Balkans.

Extradition of a fugitive sought "for or in connection with his race, religion, nationality or political opinions" was not allowed under Australian law, the court said.

The three judges ordered that Mr Vasiljkovic be freed from prison, where he has been held since his 2006 arrest, but they delayed his release until Friday to allow Croatia time to lodge an appeal if it wishes.

In February, a federal court judge dismissed Mr Vasiljkovic's appeal of a lower court ruling backing the Croatian government's extradition request.

Mr Vasiljkovic, 54, is an Australian citizen.

He came to Australia when he was 15, but returned to his homeland to train Croatian Serb rebels in 1991, when Serbs took up arms against Croatia's secession from the former Yugoslav federation.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 12:57 GMT, Wednesday, 2 September 2009 13:57 UK
US dinosaur had Chinese cousin
Scientists in China say they have identified the first Asian example of a group of dinosaurs previously found only in the Americas and Europe.

Brachiosaurid sauropods were characterised by forelimbs as long or even longer than their hind limbs.

Examples have been found from the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous periods.

Writing in the Royal Society Journal, Proceedings B, scientists say a fossil from Gansu Province is closely related to American specimens.

The fossil consists of a series of articulated cervical vertebrae and the right pelvic girdle, plus several unidentified bone fragments.

It was dug up in 2007 in Yujinzi Basin in the north west of Gansu province in China.

New species

Hai-Lu You of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences in Beijing and Da-Qing Li of Gansu Provincial Bureau of Geo-exploration and Mineral Development have identified it as a new genus and species of this group of dinosaurs.

The researchers say the specimen is closely related to the Sauroposeidon dinosaur fossils of North America and have named it Qiaowanlong kangxii after a Chinese emperor of the Qing dynasty.

The rock that yielded this dinosaur was formed in the early Cretaceous period, around 100 million years ago.

The scientists say the dinosaur would have been a relatively small sauropod about 12m long, 3m high, and weighing perhaps 10 tonnes.

As a member of the brachiosaurid family, it had a long neck and relatively long forelimbs. Its neck would have been held aloft, rather like that of a giraffe.

By Judith Burns
Science and environment reporter, BBC News


[Asia Pacific]
Page last updated at 11:03 GMT, Wednesday, 2 September 2009 12:03 UK
Black Eyed Peas gig ban reversed
The Malaysian government has reversed a ban on Muslims attending a concert by the Black Eyed Peas in Kuala Lumpur.

Officials had imposed the ban because the show is being sponsored by Irish beer giant Guinness.

A culture ministry official said the ban was lifted late last week but did not give any further details as to why.

Government regulations forbid alcohol firms from organising public concerts, but the Black Eyed Peas gig had been allowed in order to boost tourism.

The concert is part of worldwide celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of Guinness' flagship brewery in Dublin.

However the company will not be allowed to sell its famous black stout at the Peas event or use its logo in publicity material.

Muslims account for nearly 60% of Malaysia's 27 million people and they are barred from consuming alcohol under Islamic laws.

Performances by other touring pop stars such as Beyonce, Gwen Stefani and Avril Lavigne have faced opposition in Malaysia from conservative Muslims protesting about immodest clothing, forcing the artists to wear clothes that revealed little skin.


[Asia-Pacific > Business]
Page last updated at 06:22 GMT, Wednesday, 2 September 2009 07:22 UK
Australian growth beats forecasts
The Australian economy grew by more than expected in the second quarter of 2009, boosted by increases in household consumption and business investment.

The economy expanded by 0.6% in the three months to June from the previous quarter, the government said.

Analysts had forecast growth of 0.2% after a sharp drop in export prices was announced earlier in the week.

The government has announced stimulus measures of 42bn Australian dollars ($35bn; £21bn) in the past year.

Australia is one of the few developed countries to have avoided falling into a recession.

Adam Carr, chief economist at ICAP, called the results "fantastic".

"It's looking like we will be firing on all cylinders in H2 [the second half of the year] and 2010," he said.

He added that he thought the Reserve Bank would raise interest rates before the end of the the year.

On Tuesday, figures showed Australian export prices in the second quarter had fallen by 15.8% - the largest drop in the 50 years since records began.