news20090915gdn

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[News > Politics > Boris Johnson]
Boris Johnson ups carbon footprint by courtesy flight to New York
Hélène Mulholland and Patrick Wintour
The Guardian, Tuesday 15 September 2009 Article history

Boris Johnson will today help out British Airways's commercial interests by speaking out against using video conferencing as a way of doing business, at a press conference in New York which he is attending courtesy of four business class tickets provided by the airline.

The mayor of London's backing will again lead to questions on the Conservative commitment to cutting unnecessary CO2 emissions. Government advisers argue that restraining air travel is a prerequisite of reducing overall carbon emissions. Research has suggested that business air travel affects carbon emissions significantly, partly because the profitability of such passengers allows airlines to offer economy class tickets.

The European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association claims that a 20% cut in business travel would save 22m tonnes of CO2 each year – "equivalent to taking one third of the UK's cars off the road".

Carriers with large business class cabins have higher emission levels per passenger than those that carry many more economy passengers in the same aircraft type.

In July BA launched a "Face to Face" campaign to encourage business meetings in person, claiming that "tangible, human connections are a crucial driver of business growth".

The mayor's spokesman said Johnson's role at the BA campaign in the terrace lounge at Terminal 7 of JFK airport today would be to see the winners of the campaign off to pitch their business ideas face to face in London.

Asked how this fitted in with the Conservatives' call for a reduction in unnecessary air travel, his spokesman said that the mayor supported video conferencing as a tool of business, but was keen to bring tourists and business leaders to London: "Air travel account for a very small part of carbon emissions. It's important to contain the growth, and Boris Johnson has been fiercely critical of plans for a third runway at Heathrow.

"But the mayor believes that flying remains important to London's prosperity."

On travelling courtesy of BA, the spokesman said the airline was "very close partners" with Visit London, the agency promoting tourism to the capital. "Taxpayers of London will appreciate the mayor is able to conduct such an ambitious marketing drive for zero cost."

A study of Harvard Business Review subscribers, commissioned by BA, found that 95% believed that face-to-face meetings were the key to success in building long-term relationships, while more than 50% said recent restrictions on business travel had hurt their business.


[Environment > 10:10 climate change campaign]
Local councils and police sign up to 10:10
Cambridge, Nottingham and Coventry councils and Cheshire police have signed up to the 10:10 climate change campaign
James Randerson
guardian.co.uk, Monday 14 September 2009 18.11 BST Article history

Six local councils representing over 1.4 million people and a police authority have signed up the 10:10 climate change campaign. The new sign-ups, which include Cambridge, Nottingham and Coventry, boost the number of councils to 16, while Cheshire police is the first of the UK's police forces to join the campaign.

The new arrivals join a cross-section of UK society including nearly 16,000 individuals, over 600 businesses including the Royal Mail, the entire cabinet and Tory front bench, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club and Tate Modern, as well as numerous celebrities, schools, universities and hospitals.

The campaign, which was launched two weeks ago, is encouraging people and organisations to cut their carbon emissions by 10% by the end of 2010. It aims to build a coalition from all sectors of society to put political pressure on the government for more robust action on climate change. It is supported by the Guardian.

Simon Chubb, sustainable city manager at Cambridge council said that the 10:10 campaign offered a good opportunity to communicate the council's climate policies on climate change to the people in the city. "[Councillors] saw that as an opportunity to remind people that it is one of our key priorities," he said.

He said the council will target its car parks that have electric lighting 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. "They have some of the largest electricity bills in the council," he said. It plans to invest £120,000 in more efficient lights and cut energy use by around 75%. He calculates that the investment will pay back in just over three and a half years.

A spokesperson for Nottingham City Council said that it would soon be moving its operations from two sites to one, which would cut down on energy use.

Stoke-on-Trent, Camden and Haringey councils are three other recent council sign ups who join a diverse group of over 300 large and small organisations including Cambridge University Conservative Club and West Leeds Rugby Union Football Club, which describes itself as "probably the most social rugby club in Leeds".

Karen Wickstead, Cheshire Constabulary's environment officer said that 10:10 was a "small step towards making a big difference".

"As staff within the organisation are extremely keen in reducing their carbon footprint it took literally minutes from sending an email highlighting the 10:10 event to the first member of staff registering – showing that staff are aware of climate change and are committed in doing their bit for the environment," she added.

Other recent signees include Brighton and Hove Primary Care Trust and Sherwood Forest Hospitals Foundation Trust as well as the Danish Embassy in London's Sloane Square.


[Life & style > Cyling]
Blackpool launches on-street cycle hire scheme
Lancashire resort copies Parisian scheme to get residents and visitors cycling
Peter Walker
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 September 2009 00.10 BST Article history

Just over a century ago, it happily borrowed the idea of the Eiffel Tower. Now, Blackpool has taken inspiration from a more recent Parisian innovation – mass on-street cycle hire.

In an attempt to change its reputation as a fading seaside resort for boisterous stag weekenders, and to boost local health, the Lancashire town is today launching the UK's most ambitious municipal cycle hire scheme to date.

Modelled on initiatives such as Paris's popular Vélib, where people can use a swipe card to take a bike from street-side depots, the Blackpool version is beginning with 60 brightly coloured cycles. But by next spring – before a much-heralded equivalent opens in London – this will be expanded to 500 bikes at 100 stands.

Funded by the local council, the town's NHS trust and Cycling England, the system will be run by Hourbike, a private company which operates a smaller version in Bristol. Blackpool is seen as particularly suitable given its flat terrain and low levels of car ownership. Renters will be able to use a network of bike lanes either along the coastline or inland.

The town has some of the lowest levels of adult exercise in the country, and the scheme is aimed at local people as well as its 10m visitors a year.

Unlike in Bristol there is no extra charge for one-way trips, to try to tempt people into trying commuting by bike.

The bikes will be available to visitors for a daily fee of £8, while residents or regular visitors can get a swipe card which lets them use the machines for a £1 hourly charge, with the first 30 minutes free.

"It's a very, very interesting scheme," said Philip Darnton, chairman of Cycling England. "The important thing for something like this is knowing who it is aimed at. It's going to be fascinating to see whether this gets local people riding as well as tourists."

The concept of publicly-available municipal hire cycles first emerged as 1974 in the French Atlantic coast town of La Rochelle, but its recent emergence dates back to mid-2005, when Lyon launched its Vélo'v system. This was adopted as Vélib two years later in Paris, which has now expanded to around 20,000 bikes at almost 1,500 street stations and has proved hugely popular, despite problems of vandalism and theft.

As well as Blackpool and Bristol, there are a handful of smaller schemes around the UK, for example one aimed mainly at tourists in the smaller Merseyside seaside resort of Southport.

The London scheme, due to launch next summer as a joint venture between Transport for London and the company Serco, will dwarf all other UK bike hire operations, with an initial plan for 6,000 bikes at 400 "docking stations".

There are currently no other such municipal schemes in the pipeline, Darnton said, although South West Trains has just launched an initiative where commuters into London can hire folding bikes to get from the station to their workplace. "This is the sort of thing I expect we'll be seeing more of in the future," he said.

news20090915sa1

[Environment] from [scientificamerican.com]

[Greenwire > Energy > Automotive Technilogy]
September 14, 2009
When an Electric Car Dies, What Will Happen to the Battery?
Can millions of lithium ion batteries be recycled?
By Phil Taylor

In the race to put 1 million plug-in hybrid electric vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015, another challenge awaits on the other side of the finish line: recycling all of those batteries.

The Department of Energy recently awarded $9.5 million to a California-based recycling company to boost capacity for lithium-ion batteries, the kind used to power most of the new hybrid and plug-in electric vehicles entering the world market.

Toxco Inc. -- currently the only U.S.-based company able to recycle all sizes and models of lithium-ion batteries -- will use the grant to expand its recycling facility in Lancaster, Ohio, to process vehicle-grade batteries.

The facility currently processes large-format lead-acid batteries, as well as nickel-metal hydride batteries used in the current population of hybrid and electric vehicles.

The grant is part of $2.4 billion in stimulus funds awarded last month to jump-start the manufacturing and deployment of a domestic crop of vehicle batteries, part of President Obama's pledge to transition the country away from a dependency on foreign oil and foreign-made batteries.

"As the U.S. hybrid vehicle market continues to grow, Toxco will provide end-of-life management and recycling of these advanced batteries in a safe and environmentally sound manner," said Todd Coy, executive vice president of Kinsbursky Brothers Inc., Toxco's parent company.

That means batteries that power cars like Nissan Motor Co.'s Leaf, unveiled last month, or General Motors Co.'s Chevrolet Volt, due out in 2010, will likely find their way to Toxco's plant in Lancaster, where they will be transformed into scrap commodities like cobalt, copper, nickel and lithium carbonate.

Toxco's Canadian recycling facility in Trail, British Columbia, already recycles lithium-ion batteries from devices like laptop computers, industrial plants and Tesla Motors Inc.'s all-electric Roadster vehicle. The batteries are frozen to -325 degrees Fahrenheit to defuse the lithium before being sheared, shredded and separated into their constituent parts for resale.

Though lithium currently fetches very little on the open market, other components in lithium-ion batteries, such as nickel and cobalt, will make the batteries far too valuable to send to the landfill. Coy said the Lancaster plant would also be able to reclaim lithium carbonate for reuse in vehicle batteries if a market develops for the material.

Other recyclers preparing for EV revolution

As demand grows for electric vehicles, so, too, will demand for the nickel, cobalt and manganese metals that power their batteries, said Tim Weekes, spokesman for the Belgium-based materials group Umicore, which applied for U.S. stimulus funds to recycle vehicle batteries but was not awarded a grant.

"We're certainly convinced the electrification of vehicle drivetrains will happen," said Weekes, whose company expects hybrid and electric vehicles to make up about 5 percent of the world market by 2015, a volume that would offer significant new opportunities for recyclers.

Umicore is among several recycling firms looking to position themselves for what could be a major expansion in electric vehicle sales.

Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan, whose electric Leaf was unveiled this month, has said electric vehicle sales will make up 10 percent of the market by 2020, a figure equal to about 65 million units last year.

That may be overly optimistic, according to Ashvin Chotai, managing director of Intelligence Automotive Asia Ltd. in London. Even with competitive pricing, higher gasoline prices and adequate vehicle charging infrastructure, demand for electric vehicles may reach only a few million units by 2020, he said. Auto consulting company CSM Worldwide predicts global electric car production will reach 289,000 units by 2015.

Umicore already recycles a limited number of lithium-ion batteries at its pilot plant in Sweden, recovering the lithium carbonate for use as a residue in the construction industry. But as the market for lithium grows, the company said it hopes to eventually supply lithium from its recycling plants in the United States to battery manufacturers, Weekes said.

Though lithium is among the least valuable materials to recover, lithium-ion batteries could become just as valuable to recycling firms as the nickel-metal hydride batteries found in Toyota's hybrid Prius. "In the case of lithium-ion batteries, the economics are as compelling, if not more so," Weekes said.

And from an environmental perspective, it makes sense to reuse battery materials, as well. Though lithium-ion batteries contain none of the caustic chemicals found in lead-acid batteries, dumping them in landfills would be wasteful and could potentially pollute area groundwater, Weekes said.

Coy, of Toxco, said it is too early to tell what kind of value recyclers will get out of lithium-ion vehicle batteries because developers and automakers are very secretive about what components they will use. The few batteries the company has recycled have been available through only a limited release, he said, adding that he does not know much more than the public about what materials the next wave of lithium-ion batteries will contain.

Plenty of lithium to go around

With most of the world's lithium production centered in Bolivia, Chile and China, some say having a recycling infrastructure in place for vehicle batteries could help save the United States from trading "peak oil" for "peak lithium."

Demand for lithium is currently restrained by the global recession but is expected to catch back up with the world supply by 2013, according to TRU Group Inc. Rising demand for electric vehicles could cause a lithium production crunch as early as 2017 and beyond, the Toronto-based industry research firm said.

However, those fears may be premature, said Linda Gaines, an analyst at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago who is conducting a four-year study into whether the world's supply of lithium can fuel the U.S. transition to battery-driven vehicles.

"Even if we have a very, very energetic program of putting in electric vehicles, we're still not going to use up all the lithium," said Gaines, whose research found that lithium demand could be met through at least 2050. Those calculations assumed the United States would have roughly half a billion electric vehicles on the road by midcentury, with annual sales at about 21 million.

If people should be worried about the supplies of any material, it should be cobalt, a material many times more valuable than lithium but likely to be phased out of vehicle batteries over the coming years, Gaines said. Some battery manufacturers may even be leery about buying recycled lithium compounds from recyclers for fear of contamination, Gaines said.

But most of the lithium used in the United States is imported, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Currently, lithium is mined by only one company in the United States from a brine operation in the Nevada desert, and USGS data show that more than 85 percent of the world's lithium reserves is in Bolivia, Chile and China.

Gaines' research found that the amount of lithium needed for some types of lithium-ion batteries could be cut in half if those batteries are effectively recycled.

"If we had a careful recycling program in the U.S., we could conceivably be self-sufficient," Gaines said. "The ideal would be to take the whole battery apart, clean up the material and recycle them back to battery-grade."

news20090915sa2

[Environment] from [scientificamerican.com]

[News > Energy > Military Defence]
September 14, 2009
Navy Green: Military Investigates Biofuels to Power Its Ships and Planes
The U.S. Navy will begin testing biofuels from camelina and algae
By David Biello

Ships powered by algae and planes flying on weeds: that's part of the future the U.S. Navy hopes to bring to fruition. This week, the seagoing branch of the military purchased 40,000 gallons of jet fuel derived from camelina—a weedy relative of canola—and 20,055 gallons of algae-derived diesellike fuel for ships.

"The intent is for these fuels to be drop-in replacements," although initially they will be blended with their conventional counterparts, says Jeanne Binder, research and development program manager at the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC), the U.S. Department of Defense's combat logistics support agency. "The test results will bear that out."

As the renewable fuels are delivered in increasing batches in coming months, the Navy will begin lab testing them. The Navy hopes to put the biofuels in active planes and ships in 2010 and 2011, respectively, according to Billy Ray Brown, spokesman for the U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division. "The three goals are fuel security, something that is renewable, and that we can produce and provide for ourselves to reduce our reliance on foreign sources of oil. It [also] has to be cost-effective. Then, obviously, the environmental benefits that could potentially derive from that."

The first green plane? An F/A-18 Super Hornet, or "green" Hornet, which is tentatively scheduled to take to the skies with a blend of conventional and bio-based jet fuel in tests next summer. The first biofueled ship has yet to be selected, Brown says.

As it stands, the Navy uses at least seven different types of petroleum-based fuel and burns nearly 35 million barrels per year. The challenge will be finding biofuels that can work in the many different types of aircraft, ships, engines, boilers and turbines employed by the fighting force. "We're at the very beginning. It's going to be seven, 10, 15 years" before this is in widespread use, Brown says. "We have to be very meticulous in what we're doing."

Particularly, the Navy is trying to be meticulous about the sources of its alternative fuels, mandating those that do not compete with food, like ethanol from corn does. Algae, although used in the nutraceutical industry, is not considered a food crop and camelina can be used as a rotation crop with wheat. "What we're doing is giving [the farmer] an economic alternative to having the ground sit fallow," says Scott Johnson, president and general manager of Sustainable Oils, the camelina biofuel supplier.

Sustainable Oils, which also breeds the camelina seeds it then contracts with the farmer to grow, planted about 8,000 acres this year, the bulk in Montana, which should yield roughly 400,000 gallons of the unrefined oil, Johnson says. That camelina oil was then trucked to a pilot refinery run by UOP, LLC, in Bayport, Tex., which turned it into the jet biofuel or other petroleum-based product required. The first jet biofuel will be delivered on September 15 and a UOP-sponsored assessment shows that camelina jet biofuel reduces carbon emissions by 80 percent compared with conventional kerosene.

The U.S. government will pay $2.7 million for the 40,000 gallons of jet biofuel from camelina, or $67.50 per gallon, although that price includes some research and development, DESC cautions. "The Navy is asking for quantities that are not commercial quantities," Johnson explains. "So the process involved is a batch process and some of the costs that are involved are very expensive to set up."

The company also sells the meal left over after crushing the camelina oil seeds as a U.S. Food and Drug Administration–approved feed for broiler chickens. "We expect to grow close to 50,000 acres in Montana next year," Johnson says, as well as add more approved uses of the leftover meal.

The algae-derived fuel for use in ships will be grown by Solazyme, a San Francisco–based start-up that grows its algae on sugar in the dark. The company leases fermenters, such as those used by the pharmaceutical industry to produce insulin, along with other existing industrial infrastructure to create batches of its product, although it declined to specify where it would produce this particular bio-oil. Nor will it reveal its refining partner.

If Solazyme succeeds, it will be the first biofuel company to actually produce algal oil from its own algae and deliver it. Sapphire Energy, a competitor, had supplied jet biofuel to the first commercial flight powered in part by the tiny aquatic plants but had purchased the bio-oil from Cyanotech Corp., which grows algae for the nutritional market.

The U.S. government will pay $8.5 million for the contracted 20,055 gallons of algal fuel from Solazyme, the bulk of which must be supplied within a year. That would be nearly $424 per gallon but "applying price per gallon to that contract would not be a very fair assessment," says DESC's Binder, because of the much greater research and development investment needed to make algae-based fuel a reality.

Ultimately, the Navy is looking for as many fuels as possible, ranging from nuclear to biofuels—even seawater, which could be transformed into jet fuel by energy-intensive chemistry. And the Navy is not alone. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has spent $35 million to sponsor research into oil from algae and the Air Force is also looking for cleaner ways to fly and fight. Additional biofuel contracts pending with DESC should be awarded by mid-September. That's for "up to 400,000 gallons of renewable jet fuel" for the Air Force, says DESC's Frank Pane, director of energy plans and programs. This "is a start of our ability to support [the U.S. military] as they look at alternative fuels or renewables for their future energy needs."

news20090916sn

[SN Today] from [ScienceNews]

[SN Today]
Rock solid planet
First compelling evidence found for a terrestrial planet beyond the solar system
By Ron Cowen
Web edition : 8:57 am

{ROCK YOUR WORLD
This artist's impression depicts the extrasolar planet COROT-7b. The newly measured mass and radius of the planet provide the first solid evidence for a rocky planet beyond the solar system.
ESO}

There may be no place like home, but a recently discovered planet beyond the solar system has some awfully familiar traits. Astronomers report that new measurements provide the first solid evidence for a rocky extrasolar planet and the orb has a composition similar to that of Earth’s interior.


The planet, about 500 light-years from Earth, closely orbits its parent star and is much too hot to support life, about 2,000˚ Celsius on its sunny side. However, the diameter and newly determined mass of the body, dubbed COROT-7b when it was found in February, indicate that the planet has a bulk composition highly similar to Earth’s. For example, the planet likely has a silicate mantle and an iron core, Didier Queloz of the Geneva Observatory in Sauverny, Switzerland, and his colleagues report in an upcoming Astronomy & Astrophysics.

“This is truly the first rocky world beyond the solar system, and we know there’s more to come,” comments theorist Sara Seager of MIT. “This is a day we've been waiting for, for a long time.” The new find, along with about a dozen other known heavyweight versions of Earth, may help astronomers understand how terrestrial planets form around other stars and how common they are. Although planet hunters ultimately hope to find Earthlike planets in life-friendly orbits, for now scientists are happy to settle for discovering even uninhabitable analogs of Earth.

In February, Queloz’s team announced it had found the planet — the smallest extrasolar planet yet known, with a diameter of about 1.8 times the diameter of Earth. The scientists were able to pin down the size of the planet because the orb periodically passes in front of its parent star as seen from Earth, blocking a tiny amount of starlight. These passages, or transits, were recorded by the COROT satellite (SN: 2/28/09, p. 9).

But at that time, the scientists had only a rough estimate of the mass of the planet, ranging between five and 11 times the mass of Earth. Since then, the team has more accurately measured the tug of the tiny planet on its parent star using the HARPS spectrograph in La Silla, Chile. The team now finds that the planet has a mass about five times that of Earth.

The new mass measurement, in combination with the diameter, reveals that the planet has an average density of about 5.6 grams per cubic centimeter, almost identical to that of Earth.

“This mostly likely means that it has to be a rocky planet,” comments Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C. “This is a big deal.”

Because the planet’s star is both faint and variable, astronomers cannot use the starlight to determine if the planet has an atmosphere or to infer the composition of the planet’s surface, Seager says. But other systems, with brighter, steadier stars, should allow more detailed studies of this type of planet, known as a superEarth.

With the recently launched Kepler satellite joining COROT in hunting for small, transiting planets, “it’s only a matter of time before we have a large number of them,” Seager says.

news20090915sn

[SN Today] from [ScienceNews]

[SN Today]
As climate shifts, birds follow
Most bird species in California’s Sierra Nevadas have altered their ranges during the last century in response to changes in temperature and rainfall
By Sid Perkins
Web edition : Monday, September 14th, 2009 T

On the moveThe mountain bluebird (left) and Bullock’s oriole (right) are two of the dozens of bird species whose breeding ranges in California’s Sierra Nevadas have shifted over the past century due to climate change.M. TingleyClimate has become warmer and wetter in parts of the Sierra Nevada mountains over the past century, and the vast majority of the birds there have shifted their range accordingly, a new study suggests.

Over many generations, some plant and animal species can adapt to a slowly changing climate. When climate changes suddenly and dramatically, however, creatures generally shift their range, moving to new areas that offer suitable conditions, says Morgan Tingley, an ecologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Most previous studies have focused on species’ responses only to temperature changes. But the new study by Tingley and his colleagues — reported online and in an upcoming Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — shows that birds respond to changes in precipitation as well.

The researchers tallied all the species of perching birds present during breeding season at 82 sites along four transects, which stretch from low foothill elevations up to Sierra peaks topping out at more than 3,600 meters (12,000 feet). Then, they compared the results of their field studies, conducted from 2003 through 2008, with results of similar surveys at the same sites conducted from 1911 through 1929. In the intervening decades, the average temperature at the sites has risen by about 0.8 degrees Celsius and average annual precipitation has risen almost 6 millimeters, says Tingley.

In general, each species was present only in a rather narrow band of elevation — a sign that the creatures were adapted to a specific range of environmental conditions. Of the 53 species that were common at several sites both in the early 1900s and today, 90 percent had moved to a new breeding range during that time, says Tingley.

While most of those species had shifted to follow only one environmental factor — either increased temperature or increased rainfall — about 16 percent had shifted their range according to both. Birds that breed at low elevations tended to follow the rainfall, moving to wetter areas, while those that breed at higher mountain elevations tended to shift their ranges to follow the temperature most suitable for them, the researchers note. “That segregation in behavior surprised us,” says Tingley. The researchers speculate that this pattern may occur because some species, particularly those in lowland areas, are more constrained by food availability than they are by temperature.

“This is a landmark paper,” says A. Townsend Peterson, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. “It’s easy to note range changes for one species, but it’s quite different when most of the species are responding,” he says.

The five bird species that didn’t show any shift in range between surveys, such as Anna’s hummingbird and the western scrub jay, are species that have adapted to thrive around humans. Those species may be staying near areas where gardens and birdfeeders are common. The few species that shifted their breeding ranges in counterintuitive ways may be responding to other factors, such as extremes in temperature rather than averages, says Tingley.

Techniques used in the new analysis, as well as the findings, may help conservationists better estimate how species will respond to future climate change, Tingley says.

But because species didn’t respond to the climate changes in a consistent way, such ecological planning will be a challenge, says Peterson. “If everything moved in the same way, planning for conservation would be easy,” he notes.

news20090915nn1

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 14 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/461325a
News
Ghosts still present in the medical machine
Unattributed authors remain an issue for journals.
By Nicola Jones

VANCOUVER

A paper’s authors are not always apparent from the author list.FOTOPIC/MONSOON/PHOTOLIBRARY/CORBISThe medical literature continues to be haunted by ghostwriting — a practice that, in its most extreme form, involves pharmaceutical companies designing and paying for studies or reviews, then seeking a guest author to be credited while the company goes unacknowledged. The problem persists, said experts last week, despite recent drug-company policy changes and efforts by journals to cut down on the practice (see 'Spectre of industry bias').

A new survey attempting to quantify the phenomenon looked at more than 600 authors who had published papers in six major medical journals in 2008. Of them, 7.8% indicated there was a 'ghost' lurking behind the paper — someone who contributed significantly, perhaps as a writer or statistician, but who wasn't credited as an author or elsewhere. In a similar 1996 survey, the percentage that identified ghosts was 11%. "It is still a problem," says Josef Wislar, a research analyst for the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in Chicago, Illinois, who presented the work in Vancouver, Canada, at the 10–12 September Sixth International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication.

Recent media reports have described how pharmaceutical giant Merck sponsored work about its painkiller Vioxx (rofecoxib), and Wyeth did the same for its hormone-replacement therapy Prempro, without being fully acknowledged in some resulting papers. And GlaxoSmithKline ran a programme in which employees approached doctors to help them write up their experiences with the depression medicine Paxil (paroxetine). Three published case studies resulted, none acknowledging the assistant writer, says company spokesman Kevin Colgin.

These high-profile cases involve papers published largely in the late 1990s or early 2000s, and Merck, Wyeth and GlaxoSmithKline have all since changed their policies to strengthen rules on disclosure. Yet medical-journal editors say the issue continues.

"We receive several manuscripts a month that are suspicious," says William Tierney, co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of General Internal Medicine in Indianapolis, Indiana. These include, for example, favourable reviews for new drugs apparently penned by authors who had not previously published on that topic.

Whether such ghostwriting has an adverse effect is hard to pin down. The aim of sponsoring and writing papers is simply to "broaden knowledge about the latest science", says Wyeth spokesman Doug Petkus. But Drummond Rennie, deputy editor at JAMA, says that ghostwritten papers tend to have more positive conclusions and can be used to market off-label uses of drugs.

Journal editors can fight the practice by having strict rules on disclosure and by publishing the specific contributions of each author, says Jenny White, a research analyst at the University of California, San Francisco. In work presented at the Vancouver meeting, White found that among journals targeted by a ghostwriting campaign by Parke-Davis — a subsidiary of Pfizer — for Neurontin (gabapentin), used to relieve neuropathic pain, the journals that published the work were less likely to have strong rules about authorship and disclosure than those that did not. Still, only 4 of 26 journals she studied explicitly mention ghostwriting in their policies today.

The World Association for Medical Editors recommends that journal editors "publish a notice that a manuscript has been ghost written, along with the names of the responsible companies and the submitting author", alert the academic institution involved and provide the media with details if contacted about the case.

Many journal editors do this. "We name and shame constantly," says Rennie. But, says Christine Laine, editor of the Annals of Internal Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the only way to stop the ghostwriting is if "respected names in academia" stop being "willing to put their names on papers they have not been fully involved in, or without proper acknowledgements".

"I work regularly with scientists employed by drug companies, and to a person they are honest, ethical and interested in the truth," says Tierney. "These ghostwriting misadventures are the product of the drug companies' marketing offices, and they are maddening."


[naturenews]
Published online 14 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.914
News
Sneak test shows positive-paper bias
Reviewers keener to give thumbs up to papers with positive results
By Nicola Jones

VANCOUVER

{Reviewers were more critical of no-difference papers than positive papers.
GETTYT}

he bias towards positive results in journal publications has been confirmed through a cunning experiment.

Seth Leopold of the University of Washington, Seattle, composed two versions of a fake paper comparing the relative benefits of two antibiotic treatments. They were identical except for one critical difference: one paper found that one treatment was better than the other, while the other found no difference between the two. Reviewers were far more likely to recommend the positive result for publication, Leopold and his colleagues found. Worse, reviewers graded the identical 'methods' section as better in the positive paper, and were more likely to find sneakily hidden errors in the 'no-difference' paper, presumably because they were feeling more negative and critical about the latter work.

"That's a major problem for evidence-based medicine," says Leopold, who presented the work on 11 September at the Sixth International Congress of Peer Review and Biomedical Publication in Vancouver, British Columbia. Such a bias can skew the medical literature towards good reviews of drugs, affecting consensus statements on recommended treatments. "We should be more critical of positive studies," he says.

Wanting to believe

Previous studies have hinted at a 'positive outcome bias', just from the sheer number of papers that get published with positive versus 'no-difference' results. But it wasn't clear if there were some other aspects about 'no-difference' papers, such as methodological problems or a lack of impact, that might make editors turn up their noses. Leopold's study is the first experiment to attempt to pin this down.

"It just goes to show that peer review is done by biased, subjective people," says Liz Wager, managing director of the Sideview consultancy in Princes Risborough, UK, and chair of the UK-based Committee on Publication Ethics. "Everyone wants the new stuff to work — they want to believe."

{“It just goes to show that peer review is done by biased, subjective people.”
Liz Wager
Committee on Publication Ethics}

The two imaginary studies were of very high quality, conforming to all good standards of research, involving multiple study centres and oodles of good data. "It's easy to make such a study if you don't have to actually do it," Leopold jokes. They compared two strategies of antibiotic treatment for surgery patients — a single dose of drugs before surgery compared with a starter dose plus a 24-hour follow up of drugs. The relative benefit of these strategies is under debate by clinicians, so both a positive and a negative result should have equal impact on patient care — both should have been equally interesting.

But when more than 100 reviewers at the American edition of Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS) were given one of the papers to assess, 98% of reviewers recommended the positive-result paper for publication, while only 71% recommended the nearly identical 'no-difference' paper. Strikingly, these reviewers also gave the entirely identical methods section a full point advantage (on a scale of one to ten) in the positive paper. "There's no good explanation for that," says Leopold. "That's dirty pool."

Error catchers

Five intentional small errors were sneaked into the papers, such as having slightly different numbers in a table compared with the text. Reviewers at the JBJS caught only an average of 0.3 errors per reviewer in the positive paper, but perked up their critical faculties to catch 0.7 errors per reviewer in the 'no difference' paper.

Another 100 reviewers at the journal Clinical Orthopedics and Related Research were similarly affected in their judgement, but not to a statistically significant degree. This might partly be because these reviewers guessed they were part of an experiment, Leopold says — this journal tells reviewers that they are number 'x' reviewer on a paper, and once that number goes past '5' or so it starts to look very suspicious.

Some have hypothesized that positive-result bias might come from researchers deciding not to bother submitting 'no-difference' results. This study shows that peer reviewers are probably playing a role too, says Leopold. "We have reason to suspect this is true across all specialties," he says.

news20090915nn2

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 14 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.914
News
Sneak test shows positive-paper bias
Reviewers keener to give thumbs up to papers with positive results
By Nicola Jones

VANCOUVER

{Reviewers were more critical of no-difference papers than positive papers.
GETTYT}

he bias towards positive results in journal publications has been confirmed through a cunning experiment.

Seth Leopold of the University of Washington, Seattle, composed two versions of a fake paper comparing the relative benefits of two antibiotic treatments. They were identical except for one critical difference: one paper found that one treatment was better than the other, while the other found no difference between the two. Reviewers were far more likely to recommend the positive result for publication, Leopold and his colleagues found. Worse, reviewers graded the identical 'methods' section as better in the positive paper, and were more likely to find sneakily hidden errors in the 'no-difference' paper, presumably because they were feeling more negative and critical about the latter work.

"That's a major problem for evidence-based medicine," says Leopold, who presented the work on 11 September at the Sixth International Congress of Peer Review and Biomedical Publication in Vancouver, British Columbia. Such a bias can skew the medical literature towards good reviews of drugs, affecting consensus statements on recommended treatments. "We should be more critical of positive studies," he says.

Wanting to believe

Previous studies have hinted at a 'positive outcome bias', just from the sheer number of papers that get published with positive versus 'no-difference' results. But it wasn't clear if there were some other aspects about 'no-difference' papers, such as methodological problems or a lack of impact, that might make editors turn up their noses. Leopold's study is the first experiment to attempt to pin this down.

"It just goes to show that peer review is done by biased, subjective people," says Liz Wager, managing director of the Sideview consultancy in Princes Risborough, UK, and chair of the UK-based Committee on Publication Ethics. "Everyone wants the new stuff to work — they want to believe."

{“It just goes to show that peer review is done by biased, subjective people.”
Liz Wager
Committee on Publication Ethics}

The two imaginary studies were of very high quality, conforming to all good standards of research, involving multiple study centres and oodles of good data. "It's easy to make such a study if you don't have to actually do it," Leopold jokes. They compared two strategies of antibiotic treatment for surgery patients — a single dose of drugs before surgery compared with a starter dose plus a 24-hour follow up of drugs. The relative benefit of these strategies is under debate by clinicians, so both a positive and a negative result should have equal impact on patient care — both should have been equally interesting.

But when more than 100 reviewers at the American edition of Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS) were given one of the papers to assess, 98% of reviewers recommended the positive-result paper for publication, while only 71% recommended the nearly identical 'no-difference' paper. Strikingly, these reviewers also gave the entirely identical methods section a full point advantage (on a scale of one to ten) in the positive paper. "There's no good explanation for that," says Leopold. "That's dirty pool."

Error catchers

Five intentional small errors were sneaked into the papers, such as having slightly different numbers in a table compared with the text. Reviewers at the JBJS caught only an average of 0.3 errors per reviewer in the positive paper, but perked up their critical faculties to catch 0.7 errors per reviewer in the 'no difference' paper.

Another 100 reviewers at the journal Clinical Orthopedics and Related Research were similarly affected in their judgement, but not to a statistically significant degree. This might partly be because these reviewers guessed they were part of an experiment, Leopold says — this journal tells reviewers that they are number 'x' reviewer on a paper, and once that number goes past '5' or so it starts to look very suspicious.

Some have hypothesized that positive-result bias might come from researchers deciding not to bother submitting 'no-difference' results. This study shows that peer reviewers are probably playing a role too, says Leopold. "We have reason to suspect this is true across all specialties," he says.

news20090915abc

[Top Headlines] from [abcNEWS]

[Politics]
Bill Clinton to Back Gavin Newsom for California Governor Over 1992 Rival Jerry Brown
Former President's Endorsement Called 'Potential Game-Changer'
By TEDDY DAVIS
Sept. 15, 2009

Former President Bill Clinton is backing San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom for California governor over state Attorney Gen. Jerry Brown, potentially upending next year's Democratic race to succeed Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"This is huge. It's a potential game-changer," said Ben Tulchin, a California-based pollster who is unaligned in the 2010 governor's race.

Clinton's decision to appear on Oct. 5 alongside one of his wife's top backers in her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination comes at a critical time for the San Franciso mayor: Although Newsom has built a substantial Facebook and Twitter following among younger voters, Brown, a former two-term governor, has raised more than twice as much money as he has.

Clinton's trip to California next month is expected to include an event in predominantly Latino East Los Angeles as well as a high-dollar fundraiser.

While the endorsement of a former president is big news in any state, the former chairman of the California Democratic Party thinks it could be especially significant in California, a state where Clinton has had a strong following ever since he beat Brown in the state's 1992 presidential primary.

"There has never been a former president who has endorsed a candidate in a primary for statewide office in California," said Art Torres, a former state lawmaker who headed the California Democratic Party from 1995 until earlier this year but is neutral in the current race.

"In 1992, Bill Clinton beat Jerry Brown in California by 7 points. He then beat Bush by 13 points in the general," Torres said. "And then in last year's presidential campaign, Hillary [Clinton] beat Obama by 9 points including a 67-to-32 margin among Latinos."

Newsom Hoping Clinton Will Garner Latino Votes
In addition to helping with fundraising and Latinos, the Newsom campaign is hoping that Clinton's endorsement can help the San Francisco mayor make inroads in Southern California.

When Clinton ran against Brown in 1992, the future president carried 43 of the state's 58 counties, including Los Angeles County.

"California is still Clinton country in many ways," said state Sen. Alex Padilla, the chairman of Newsom's campaign. "We are proud supporters of Barack Obama, but we have not forgotten what the Clintons did for California."

Newsom buttressed his ties to Bill Clinton last year when he spoke about environmental policy at the Clinton Global Initiative's annual conference.

The door to a Clinton endorsement in a competitive primary was opened earlier this year when Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced that he would not be a candidate for governor.

At the time of the Villaraigosa announcement, pundits were unsure which Democratic candidate would benefit.

The Clinton endorsement is a sign that Villaraigosa's exit might ultimately prove to be more helpful to Newsom than to Brown, since the former president would not have been able to endorse the San Francisco mayor if Villaraigosa, another top backer of his wife's presidential campaign, were also in the race.

Brown was neutral in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary.

"Jerry Brown is still very much the candidate to beat and has run a great campaign to date," said former Clinton adviser Chris Lehane. "But in the world of endorsements, this is certainly one of the real 'gets' that can translate into something. The Clinton name is still golden in the Golden State."

If the Brown campaign portrays the Clinton endorsement as lingering sour grapes over the 1992 campaign, Lehane said he thinks it could backfire.

"Bill Clinton is one of the most popular Democrats in California," Lehane said. "The last thing in the world you would want to do is inject some conflict into this endorsement, because it would just get it out there in a bigger way."

Former President on a 'Payback Tour'?
"When you're dealing with one of the most popular people in the party, the more that people hear about him endorsing your opponent, the less good it is," he said.

While California has never in recent memory seen a former president intervene in a competitive statewide primary, Bill Clinton has already done it in two other 2010 races including Rep. Kendrick Meek's, D-Fla., Florida Senate race and Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher's Ohio Senate race.

Given the efforts that Clinton is making on behalf of several of his wife's backers around the country, the Brown camp may try to dismiss Clinton's endorsement as simply the latest obligatory stop on the former president's "payback tour."

Tulchin said, however, that the Clinton endorsement cannot be dismissed so easily.

"Clinton could have easily taken a pass," Tulchin said. "The fact that he is coming out now is a bold move."

The key going forward, according to Tulchin, is just how big of an investment Clinton makes in this race.

"For Gavin to benefit from this fully, he needs significant help raising money," Tulchin said. "If Clinton can help Gavin raise money, then Clinton gives Gavin the resources he needs to sell his story


[Money]
The Coming Flood of Government Jobs
With Unemployment at 9.7 Percent, at Least Somebody is Hiring
By SUSAN ADAMS
Forbes.com
September 15, 2009

As the job news grows ever darker -- according to the Labor Department unemployment has now hit a 26-year high of 9.7% -- a ray of light is shining from one unexpected quarter: the federal government.
A golden age of work for the government is just now dawning, according to a report released last week by the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, a group in Washington that promotes government employment. There are several reasons: cyclical turnover; fresh demand in areas such as homeland security and veterans affairs, driven by the post-9/11 terrorist threat and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and the financial crisis, with the stimulus spending it has spurred.

In Pictures: The Coming Flood Of Government Jobs

By the fall of 2012, the Partnership estimates, the federal government will have hired 273,000 new workers for jobs the group calls "mission critical." In other words, those are all positions that are considered crucial and will definitely be filled. That's a 41% increase over the three previous fiscal years. The jobs will be scattered around the world, from Washington to Portland, Ore., and even to such far-flung places as Japan.

To compile its report, the Partnership approached 35 of the biggest federal agencies, each with 1,000 or more employees, and asked them for hiring projections. After crunching the data, the group determined the 10 categories of jobs that will have the greatest job growth.

Topping the list: Medical and public health. The Partnership projects that 54,000 positions will have to be filled in this area over the next three years. They include work for doctors, nurses, pharmacists, medical technicians and occupational therapists. Because of the many U.S. soldiers returning from foreign wars, the Department of Veterans Affairs will be the most active employer, hiring 25,000 nurses and 8,500 doctors by 2012. One example of a medical job open now: chief of orthopedics in the Portland, Ore., office of the Veterans Health Administration, a post that pays up to $275,000 a year. (All the specific jobs mentioned in this article and in the accompanying slideshow can be found at the government's official jobs Web site, www.usajobs.gov.)

No. 2: Security and protection. The Partnership expects 52,000 jobs to open up in this area by 2012. They will include airport screeners and police and corrections officers. The Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department will be the two biggest employers in this realm. Sample job: security specialist for the Army's Installation Management Command in Japan. That post pays up to $118,800.

In third place, a field that's closely related to security and protection: compliance and enforcement, with 31,280 jobs, including criminal investigators, border patrol agents and immigration enforcers. Again, the Department of Homeland Security tops the list of employers, with a projected 23,000 new hires needed by 2012. Sample job: Criminal research specialist, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security, in Washington, D.C. That job pays up to $113,000.

Despite all this hiring, the Partnership says the government is not increasing in size. By the end of 2012, the group reports, the government, in terms of civilian Executive Branch employment, will be smaller than it was in 1967.

news20090915bcc1

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

[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 09:47 GMT, Tuesday, 15 September 2009 10:47 UK
China watched for leadership sign
China's Communist Party has opened a key annual meeting which might indicate leadership succession plans.

{Vice President Xi Jinping is seen as a probably successor to Hu Jinta}

The four-day session is widely expected to promote Vice President Xi Jinping to the powerful military commission.

This would make him a clear front-runner to succeed Hu Jintao as party leader in 2012, and president in 2013.

Analysts say the party will also use the meeting to promote unity ahead of next month's celebrations to mark the 60-year anniversary of Communist rule.

A regulation requiring party cadres to reveal their family wealth and assets is reportedly up for discussion.

Closed talks

The Central Committee full session, or plenum, will meet behind closed doors until Friday.

According to state news agency Xinhua, the 204-member committee will discuss a draft document on "party building" which covers everything from the battle against corruption to recruitment for the 75 million-member party.

It is hard to predict the inner workings of China's top leadership, but analysts are primarily watching this meeting for signs that Xi Jinping will cement his status by gaining a seat at the powerful military commission.

Mr Xi became the heir apparent when he was appointed to the Politburo Standing Committee two years ago, and is widely seen to have done well in his position of vice-president since then.

President Hu was elected to the military commission in 1999, paving the way for his rise to the presidency less than four years later, and Mr Xi is expected to follow the same trajectory.

The military commission is in charge of the 2.3 million-strong People's Liberation Army.

The son of a communist revolutionary hero, 56-year-old Mr Xi is married to a well-known singer.

He has served in the past as the top party official in the eastern provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang, and more recently as Shanghai's top leader.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 06:16 GMT, Tuesday, 15 September 2009 07:16 UK
China allays US trade war fears
China has said it does not think its trade disputes with the US will hurt ties between the two countries, playing down the threat of a trade war.

{The White House faced pressure to impose tyre tariffs from unions}

The US imposed tariffs on Chinese tyre imports on Friday. China then requested talks, under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, over the issue.

"We don't want to see anything bad happen to bilateral relations," the Chinese commerce ministry said.

China has called America's move on tyres "protectionist".

Under WTO rules, Beijing and Washington will try to solve the dispute over the next 60 days through negotiations.

If that fails, China can ask for a WTO panel to make a ruling on tyre imports.

'Groundless'

"The US judgement about the disturbance is groundless," the Chinese commerce ministry said.

"During the Chinese-US negotiations, the US side never gave feedback on whether Chinese tyre products disturbed local markets," it added.

On Friday, under pressure from US unions, the White House announced duties of an additional 35% on Chinese-made tyres for one year, followed by tariffs of 30% and 25% in the following two years.

It said it was in order "to remedy a market disruption caused by a surge in tyre imports".

The tariffs come under so-called "safeguard" rules introduced when China joined the WTO, to prevent the possibility of China flooding the US market with its goods.

President Barack Obama is the first to use the safeguard rules.

Larry Summers, director of Mr Obama's National Economic Council, said Washington had tried to negotiate a solution with Beijing but those talks failed.

It would be an "abdication of responsibility" to not impose the duties, he said.

Tyres surge

The US imported about 46 million tyres from China last year, more than three times as many as in 2004. The Chinese share of the market went from less than 5% to 17% in that period.

On Sunday, China's state-run media quoted experts saying that 100,000 Chinese jobs could be lost as a result of the US tariffs.

Shares in US tyremakers gained on the announcement. Goodyear Tire closed 3% higher on Monday, and Cooper Tire & Rubber Co shares rose as much as 13%.

But Chinese tyremakers fell. Double Coin fell 10%, which is the daily limit to stock fluctuations.

Shanghai-listed Giti Tire said the US tariffs would have a "negative impact" on its business as tyre exports to the US accounted for about 25% of its revenues last year.

Separately, foreign direct investment in China rose at an annual rate of 7% to $7.5bn (£4.5bn) in August, after plunging over the previous two months, the commerce ministry said.

That compares with declines of 35.7% in July and 6.8% in June.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 04:06 GMT, Tuesday, 15 September 2009 05:06 UK
China and Macau to develop island
The authorities in Zhuhai, southern China, have announced a detailed blueprint of plans to develop Hengqin island.

The island, home to about 4,000 people, is very close to Macau.

The plans call for oil and gas terminals, entertainment centres and a branch of Macau's university to be accessed by tunnel.

Development planning for the complex cross-border project has been under way for the past decade.

Debate has been controversial due to the differing legal and political systems between China and Macau.

Macau is a former Portuguese colony which has now been granted autonomy under Chinese sovereignty.

Bold plans

The blueprint announced by the Zhuhai authorities includes a massive gas terminal and gas-engine generator projects and a huge ocean-themed entertainment centre.

Most controversially it will include a branch of the Macau University.

A Zhuhai official said students and staff would be able to access the university through a special tunnel without needing to go through immigration checkpoints.

"Because the new campus will be operated according to Macau laws... we expect to make it a self-contained area that is separated from other parts of the island," Niu Jing, deputy director of Hengqin's administrative committee, was quoted as saying by the South China Morning Post newspaper.

It remains unclear if Macau police would have access to the campus on Chinese territory.

Zhuhai authorities say they want to see the island generate 56 billion yuan ($8bn, £4.9bn) in annual GDP by 2020.

Currently the island of 106 square km is described as bleak, largely empty, generating just 128 million last year.

The population is expected to increase to 120,000 by 2015 and 280,000 by 2020.

One country?

The blueprint announcement follows the approval from China's central government in August for Hengqin to become the country's third strategic new zone, after Shanghai's Pudong district and Tianjin's Binhai area.

"It will be a pilot project for a new co-operation mode between Hong Kong and Macau under the 'one country, two systems' arrangement," Zhuhai mayor Zhong Shijian told reporters.

He said the island would also pilot co-operation projects with Macau in customs, financial and revenue systems and land management, and was looking for investment from the world's top corporations.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 09:23 GMT, Tuesday, 15 September 2009 10:23 UK
Japan Airlines to cut 6,800 jobs
Japan Airlines (JAL) plans to cut 6,800 jobs and pursue a tie-up with an international carrier.

{The airline expects a heavy loss for the year}

"The personnel reduction cannot wait," said JAL president Haruka Nishimatsu.

Media reports have said several US and European airlines are in the running to take a stake in the loss-making carrier.

Mr Nishimatsu said JAL, which lost more than one billion dollars in the April-June quarter, will have a deal in place by the middle of October.

The airline had already launched a programme of job cuts, plans for fuel-efficiency and a focus on business customers.

Reports this week have suggested that Delta Airlines and American Airlines are in talks to invest in JAL to expand into Asia via code-sharing agreements.

On Tuesday, another report said Air France-KLM joined those discussions. Each is discussing an investment of as much as $300m (£181m), the reports said.

Shares in JAL dropped 3.4%, after climbed nearly 8% on Monday.

news20090915bcc2

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

[Middle East]
Page last updated at 11:31 GMT, Tuesday, 15 September 2009 12:31 UK
Iraq shoe thrower 'was tortured'
The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at former US President George W Bush says he was tortured by senior government officials while in jail.

Shortly after his release from nine months in a Baghdad prison, Muntadar al-Zaidi demanded an apology - and said he would name the officials later.

Iraqi officials told the BBC his claims should be investigated.

His protest last December made him a hero for many Arabs, but some Iraqis still regard it as unforgivably rude.

He was convicted of assaulting a foreign leader and initially sentenced to three years in jail.

But he had the term reduced to 12 months on appeal and was released three months early for good behaviour.

'Insurgent revolutionary'

After his release on Tuesday he told journalists: "I am free again, but my homeland is still a prison."

Reuters news agency reported he was slurring his speech because of a missing tooth.

He went on to say he had suffered beatings, whippings, electric shocks and simulated drowning at the hands of officials and guards.

{ MUNTADAR AL-ZAIDI
Worked for Egypt-based broadcaster since 2005
Was kidnapped by gunmen while reporting in Baghdad in 2007
Detained by US troops for a night in 2008, his brother says, before they freed him and apologised}

"At the time that Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said on television that he could not sleep without being reassured on my fate... I was being tortured in the worst ways, beaten with electric cables and iron bars," he said.

He demanded an apology from Mr Maliki and said he would name the officials who tortured him in due course.

He also said he feared US intelligence services regarded him as an "insurgent revolutionary" and would "spare no effort" in a bid to kill him.

"I want to warn all my relatives and people close to me that these services will use all means to trap and try to kill and liquidate me either physically, socially or professionally," he said.

His allegations of abuse mirror claims made earlier by his family, who said he had been beaten, suffering a broken arm, broken ribs and internal bleeding.

The Iraqi military earlier denied the allegations, but following Zaidi's news conference Sami Al Askari, an adviser to Mr Maliki, said his torture claims should be investigated.

'Goodbye kiss'

Zaidi's family has been preparing to throw a party for him.

He has reportedly received offers of money, jobs and even marriage from across the Arab world.

His relatives also claim he was even offered a golden horse by the Emir of Qatar.

{I've seen a lot of weird things during my presidency, and this may rank up there as one of the weirdest
George W Bush}

When news of his release filtered through to his family's home in Baghdad, there was an eruption of celebration with women dancing and singing.

The shoe-throwing incident came during a joint news conference between Mr Bush and Mr Maliki.

As he threw the shoes, Zaidi shouted: "This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog.

"This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."

In an interview afterwards, Mr Bush insisted he did not harbour any ill feeling about it.

"It was amusing - I've seen a lot of weird things during my presidency, and this may rank up there as one of the weirdest," he said.


[South Asia]
Page last updated at 09:12 GMT, Tuesday, 15 September 2009 10:12 UK
Afghan votes 'need 10% recount'
Ballots from 10% of polling stations in Afghanistan's presidential vote need to be recounted because of indications of fraud, a top election official says.
ECC officials have already invalidated ballots from three provinces
About 2,500 polling stations across the country were affected, Grant Kippen of the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) said.

His comments come amid reports of serious tensions within the UN mission over the issue of electoral fraud.

A substantive vote recount could force incumbent Hamid Karzai into a run-off.

With 95% of the vote counted, Mr Karzai had a 54% share, electoral officials said on Saturday.

But if fraud investigations cause this figure to drop below 50%, he and closest challenger Abdullah Abdullah, who has 28% of the vote, would have to go to a second-round vote.

UN 'divisions'

Afghanistan's second direct presidential election on 20 August was marred by widespread claims of vote-rigging and intimidation.

The ECC last week ordered Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission to identify stations reporting 100% turn-out or where one candidate received more than 95% of the vote in order for recounts to be carried out.

{ AFGHAN POLL FRAUD
15 Sep: ECC chief says 10% of votes need to be recounted
8 Sep: Poll complaints body orders some recounts nationwide
8 Sep: IEC says votes from 600 polling stations "quarantined"
3 Sep: Claims 30,000 fraudulent votes cast for Karzai in Kandahar
30 Aug: 2,000 fraud allegations are probed; 600 deemed serious
20 Aug: Election day and claims 80,000 ballots were filled out fraudulently for Karzai in Ghazni
18 Aug: Ballot cards sold openly and voter bribes offered}

"About 2,500 plus polling stations are affected by the order and all provinces are affected," ECC Chairman Grant Kippen told AFP news agency.

Last week the ECC invalidated ballots from dozens of polling stations in the three provinces of Paktika, Kandahar and Ghazni.

Correspondents say that investigations into possible fraud could take weeks, if not months.

No official announcement on who has won the election can be made until those investigations are complete.

Mr Kippen's remarks come amid reports of deep divisions among UN diplomats in Kabul over how to proceed in the wake of the election.

The Times reports that the head of the UN mission, Kai Eide, ordered US representative Peter Galbraith out of Afghanistan after the two reportedly disagreed over the extent to which vote recounts were necessary.

A wholesale recount as advocated by Mr Galbraith would be likely to ensure a second round run-off was held, the newspaper reported.

But Mr Eide feared such a run-off could be delayed until May, potentially leaving Afghanistan in political limbo, The Times said.

There has been no formal comment from the UN mission.


[Africa]
Page last updated at 10:53 GMT, Tuesday, 15 September 2009 11:53 UK
Al-Qaeda Somalia suspect 'killed'
US forces are "likely" to have killed a top al-Qaeda suspect during a military raid in Somalia, US officials say.

They flew helicopters into Somalia and attacked a car they say was carrying Kenyan-born Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan.

US agents have been hunting Nabhan for years over attacks on a hotel and an Israeli airliner in Kenya in 2002.

It is believed he fled to Somalia after the attacks and was working with the al-Shabab group, which the Americans see as al-Qaeda's proxy in Somalia.

The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan, in the capital Mogadishu, says the raid has raised concern among Somalis.

They fear such attacks by foreign forces may help to fuel the extremism they are designed to combat, our correspondent says.

The US last launched a major strike in Somalia in May 2008, killing al-Shabab's military leader and at least 10 others.

The raid led to protests by villagers and critics say it had little effect on al-Shabab's capabilities.

French connection?

Analysts say Nabhan is one of the most senior leaders of al-Qaeda's East Africa cell.

{ANALYSIS
Frank Gardner, BBC News
This latest US raid into Somalia, carried out by Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), would have had several aims.
Firstly, it would be about "settling scores" - killing or capturing a man the FBI believes was instrumental in al-Qaeda's attacks in East Africa.
A second aim would be to show al-Qaeda's senior operatives that there is no safe hiding place, even in a country whose militants effectively drove out US forces 15 years ago.
Thirdly, the raid's planners would be hoping to throw both al-Qaeda and al-Shabab off-balance, disrupting their plans. Although Nabhan's loss will be felt, reports of his death at US hands are almost certain to trigger revenge attacks in the region.}

US-based Somalia expert Andre le Sage told the BBC's Network Africa programme that his death, if confirmed, would severely hamper the network's ability to operate in the region.

But he said new leaders would probably emerge to take Nabhan's place.

Various media outlets have carried quotes from unnamed US officials confirming that the raid, on Monday afternoon, was carried out by US special forces targeting Nabhan.

BBC Defence correspondent Nick Childs says the raid seems to be something of a departure from recent US tactics in Somalia, which have tended to use long-range missile strikes and aircraft to try to get at militant suspects.

A Somali minister told the BBC he also believed Nabhan had been killed.

Earlier reports had quoted witnesses as saying the troops wore uniforms with French insignia and had flown from a ship bearing a French flag.

But the French military strongly denied their forces were involved.

'Helicopter strike'

Somali sources told the BBC that six helicopters were involved in the attack on two vehicles in the southern coastal town of Barawe, which is controlled by al-Shabab.

CONTINUED ON newsbbc3

news20090915bcc3

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

[Africa]
Page last updated at 10:53 GMT, Tuesday, 15 September 2009 11:53 UK
Al-Qaeda Somalia suspect 'killed'
US forces are "likely" to have killed a top al-Qaeda suspect during a military raid in Somalia, US officials say.

CONTINUED FROM newsbbc2

{ US ACTION IN SOMALIA
1992-1994 Sends troops in under UN humanitarian force, gets drawn into clan conflict
3-4 October 1993 Fights brutal battle in Mogadishu - 18 US troops and hundreds of Somalis killed, US helicopters shot down
25 March 1994 Pulls all troops out of Mogadishu
2006-2009 Reportedly supports invading Ethiopian troops fighting Islamists
January 2007 Carries out air strikes targeting al-Qaeda suspects
1 May 2008 Air strike kills al-Shabab military commander Aden Hashi Ayro
June 2009 US confirms it has sent weapons to Somali government}

A US official was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying special forces had flown by helicopter from a US Navy ship and fired on a vehicle that they believed was carrying Nabhan.

He added that the body believed to be Nabhan's had been taken into custody.

There have also been reports that another body was taken away by the US attackers.

Nabhan is suspected of bombing an Israeli-owned hotel in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa, and trying to shoot down an Israeli airliner in 2002.

The authorities in Kenya also regard him as a suspect in two attacks on US embassies in the region in 1998.

The US and France both have troops stationed in neighbouring Djibouti.

During 2007 and 2008 the US carried out air strikes against Somali Islamist groups it accused of links to al-Qaeda.

Monday's assault comes several weeks after a French security adviser held by militants in Mogadishu managed to get free. A colleague seized at the same time remains in captivity.

Somalia has not had a functioning central government since 1991.

Rival Islamist factions are battling forces loyal to the weak UN-backed government, which controls only small parts of the capital Mogadishu.

Al-Shabab are said to have links to al-Qaeda, and to have been reinforced with foreign fighters.

news20090915cnn

[Top stories] from [CNN.com}

[Entertainment] September 15, 2009
Film heartthrob Patrick Swayze dies of cancer at 57
Story Highlights
>Patrick Swayze died Monday after battle with pancreatic cancer, publicist says
>Swayze's doctor revealed in March 2008 that Swayze had the disease
>Swayze broke through with his performance in 1987's "Dirty Dancing"
."Ghost" co-star Demi Moore: "Your light will forever shine in all of our lives"

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Patrick Swayze, whose hunky good looks and sympathetic performances in such films as "Dirty Dancing" and "Ghost" made him a romantic idol to millions, died Monday. He was 57.

{Patrick Swayze's doctor said in March 2008 that Swayze was suffering from pancreatic cancer.}

Swayze died of pancreatic cancer, his publicist, Annett Wolf, told CNN.

"Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of his illness for the last 20 months," Wolf said in a statement Monday.

Swayze's doctor, Dr. George Fisher, revealed in early March 2008 that Swayze was fighting the disease.

Most recently, Swayze starred in A&E network's "The Beast," which debuted in January. He agreed to take the starring role of an undercover FBI agent before his diagnosis. The network agreed to shoot an entire season of the show after Swayze responded well to cancer treatment.

In an interview with ABC's Barbara Walters in January, Swayze said his work on that show was exhausting, requiring 12-hour workdays in Chicago, Illinois, doing his own stunts. But he said the show's character "just felt right for my soul."

"If I leave this Earth, I want to leave this Earth just knowing I've tried to give something back and tried to do something worthwhile with myself," Swayze told Walters, when asked why he decided to do the show. "And that keeps me going, that gets me up in the morning. My work ... is my legacy."

"The Beast" was canceled in June because of Swayze's illness, after doctors told him the cancer had spread to his liver.

"We are saddened by the loss of one of our generation's greatest talents and a member of the A&E family," a statement from the network said. "Patrick's work on 'The Beast' was an inspiration to us all. He will be greatly missed and our thoughts are with his wife, Lisa, and his entire family during this difficult time."

Swayze was mostly known for a handful of supporting roles when he broke through with his performance as dance instructor Johnny Castle in 1987's "Dirty Dancing."

Co-star Jennifer Grey, who played his young lover, "Baby" Houseman, in the film, described Swayze as "gorgeous and strong."

"Patrick was a rare and beautiful combination of raw masculinity and amazing grace. ... He was a real cowboy with a tender heart. He was fearless and insisted on always doing his own stunts, so it was not surprising to me that the war he waged on his cancer was so courageous and dignified," Grey said in a statement.

"When I think of him, I think of being in his arms when we were kids, dancing, practicing the lift in the freezing lake, having a blast doing this tiny little movie we thought no one would ever see. My heart goes out to his wife and childhood sweetheart, Lisa Niemi, to his mom, Patsy, and to the rest of their family."

Three years later, he became an even bigger star with the movie "Ghost," in which he played investment banker Sam Wheat, who dies and learns to tap into his unspoken feelings for his partner, Molly Jensen, played by Demi Moore.

"Patrick you are loved by so many and your light will forever shine in all of our lives," Moore said in a statement.

"In the words of Sam to Molly. 'It's amazing Molly. The love inside, you take it with you.' I will miss you."

"Ghost" won Whoopi Goldberg an Oscar and helped make him People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1991.

"Patrick was a really good man, a funny man and one to whom I owe much that I can't ever repay," Goldberg said in a statement. "I believe in 'Ghost's message, so he'll always be near."

Swayze told Entertainment Weekly in 1990 that, "The movies that have had the most powerful effects on my life have been about romantic characters."

He expanded on the effort he put into love scenes for People in 1991.

"It's possibly the scariest thing I do," he said, "doing something so personal and giving people out there the opportunity to see if you're a good kisser or not."

Patrick Wayne Swayze was born on August 18, 1952, in Houston, Texas. His father was an engineering draftsman; his mother was a ballet dancer and later the director of the Houston Ballet Dance Company.

She led her son into the dancing world, which wasn't always easy for a Texas male. The young Swayze played football, practiced martial arts and was an accomplished diver and track star while growing up, though he was good enough at dance to earn a college scholarship.

After playing Prince Charming in an early 1970s version of "Disney on Ice," Swayze returned to Houston, where he met Lisa Niemi, a student of his mother's. The two married in 1975 and moved to New York to pursue their careers.

Swayze seemed set on a dance career: He studied with the prestigious Joffrey Ballet and joined another company, the Eliot Feld Ballet Company. But surgery for an old football injury ended his ballet career and he turned to acting, nabbing the lead role of Danny Zuko in the long-running Broadway production of "Grease" in 1978, about the time the movie starring John Travolta was hitting theaters. "Grease" earned Swayze some Hollywood attention, and he and Niemi moved West.

After a couple of bit parts, including one in a 1981 episode of "M*A*S*H," Swayze picked up the role of Darrel Curtis in Francis Ford Coppola's 1983 film "The Outsiders."

The movie included future stars Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe, Ralph Macchio, Emilio Estevez and Tom Cruise.

Swayze also was one of the leads in 1984's "Red Dawn," about teenagers defending their town from a Soviet attack on America.

"Not only did we lose a fine actor today, I lost my older 'Outsiders' brother," actor C. Thomas Howell, who starred with Swayze in "Red Dawn" and "Grandview, U.S.A."

But it was with "Dirty Dancing" that Swayze hit it big. The film about a girl's coming of age at a Catskills, New York, resort in the early '60s was intended for a limited release but became one of the decade's biggest sleeper hits and made Swayze and Grey household names.

The film gave birth to a catchphrase -- "Nobody puts Baby in a corner," spoken by Swayze's character to Grey's domineering father -- and led to a follow-up, 2004's "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights."

Swayze even sang a Top 10 hit, "She's Like the Wind," on the film's soundtrack.

Swayze, known as a down-to-earth, nice-guy actor, was determined not to follow a predictable career path. He followed "Dirty Dancing" with "Road House" (1989), in which he played a manager of a rough-and-tumble bar (the film was particularly popular on late-night cable).

He succeeded "Ghost" with "Point Break" (1991), about a group of thieves; "City of Joy" (1992), in which he played a doctor in a poverty-stricken Indian village; and "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar" (1995), in which he starred as a drag queen.

"I don't want to be Mr. Romantic Leading Man. I don't want to be the Dance Dude. I don't want to be the Action Guy. If I had to do any one of those all my life, it'd drive me crazy," he told Entertainment Weekly in a 1990 interview.

Swayze's career diminished in the late '90s. He broke both legs in 1997 while making the film "Letters From a Killer," and went into rehab for a drinking problem.

In 2000, he was flying in his twin-engine plane when it depressurized; Swayze landed in a housing development in Arizona. Though some witnesses said he appeared intoxicated, he was later revealed to have been suffering from hypoxia, related to the depressurization and his three-pack-a-day cigarette habit.

Swayze re-established his knack for picking sleepers with "Donnie Darko" (2001), a dark film about a troubled student that became a sensation on video. Swayze played a creepy motivational speaker and won raves.

Swayze's more recent work included a TV version of "King Solomon's Mines" and 2007's "Christmas in Wonderland."

Though he still made hearts flutter -- 22-year-old Scarlett Johansson, on receiving Harvard's Hasty Pudding Award in February 2007, said her dream date was "probably Patrick Swayze, my dream come true" -- Swayze wasn't too impressed with himself.

"Good-looking people turn me off," he once said. "Myself included."

Swayze is survived by his wife of more than 30 years, Lisa, and his mother, Patsy.

news20090915reut

[Top News] from [REUTERS}

[Green Business]
Solar mirror power firms cling to Spanish subsidy
Tue Sep 15, 2009 10:40am EDT
By Jonathan Gleave - Analysis

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain slashed subsidies for power from solar panels in 2008, after causing a bubble, and is almost bound to reduce support for bigger solar farms that use mirrors -- but this sector may have the clout to limit cuts.

A 2.6 gigawatt surge in solar panels connected to Spain's power grid last year made it second only to Germany in photovoltaic (PV) power generation.

This sharp growth then led to state cuts in tariffs and caps on qualifying plants that hit the worldwide PV industry, which had come to rely on the Spanish market.

Questions now surround prospects for the concentrated solar power (CSP) sector which, unlike PV panels that turn sunlight directly into electricity, uses mirrors to super-heat liquids to drive turbines.

"The caps and subsidy cuts for PV power in Spain came as a result of the development of a bubble in the sector, we cannot rule out the possibility of a bubble developing in CSP," Alex Toledo, Iberian energy team manager for BNP Paribas Fortis, said.

Spain slashed subsidies for PV generation and placed a 500 megawatt per year cap on the installations eligible for state aid in September 2008.

There are only 232 MW of CSP connected to Spain's grid, but 4.3 GW of plants at different stages of construction are waiting for the government to decide who gets included on a "renewables register" which will give them access to subsidies that pay about 27 eurocents per kilowatt/hour over wholesale power prices.

Although work has barely begun on many of these plants, there are enough nearing completion to make it likely that Spain will overshoot, by a long way, its target to have 500 MW of solar thermal capacity on stream by 2010.

Spain's 500 MW target was set in 2005 when power demand posted annual growth of over 4 percent. A fall of more than 5 percent in power demand in 2009 to date has reinforced views that Spain could face electricity oversupply.

Spain's economic crisis has not just affected power demand, the country's public deficit is expected to top 10 percent of GDP by year-end, which also supports a case for limiting state spending on expensive renewable technology.

CAP PROBABLE

"It is probable that in the future there will be a cap affecting solar thermal technology," said Luis Crespo, General Secretary for CSP lobby Protermosolar.

"In the long term, the subsidies for CSP will have to come down, but we are confident that our research will bring prices down too," Amando Sanchez Falcon Armando Sanchez Falcon, finance director of pioneering CSP company Abengoa said.

CSP is currently expensive even by renewable energy standards: 1 MW of generating capacity costs about 5 million euros ($7.31 million) to install, compared with about 4 million euros for PV and just 1.3 million euros for wind.

However, unlike wind and PV, CSP technology offers a potential for energy storage and economies of scale that few other renewables technologies can match.


[Green Business]
JPMorgan to buy EcoSecurities for $204 million
Mon Sep 14, 2009 1:22pm EDT
By Michael Szabo and Paul Sandle

LONDON (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co agreed to buy carbon offset aggregator EcoSecurities for 122.9 million pounds ($204 million) on Monday, trumping a bid from the firm's co-founder, to boost its carbon-credit trading business.

J.P.Morgan Ventures Energy Corp., a subsidiary of the bank, said its 100 pence-a-share bid, made through Carbon Acquisition Company, had the backing of shareholders representing 19.9 percent of the company.

It said EcoSecurities had successfully realized value from sourcing, developing and trading emission reductions, and it noted the firm had recorded its first period of profitability in the first half.

The offer represents a 120 percent premium to the group's share price before the start of the offer period on June 4.

"It looks like JPMorgan is backing the current management to take the business private," said Ken Rumph, an equity analyst at Nomura Code.

Ireland-based EcoSecurities Group Plc develops clean energy projects under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism, which allows companies to export cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to emerging countries like China and India, where such reductions are cheaper to make.

EcoSecurities shares were up 11.5 percent at 101.5 pence by 1411 GMT (10:11 a.m. EDT).

Carbon Acquisition Company said the acceptances included 13.6 million shares held by current and former directors and 9.9 million shares owned by Credit Suisse.

In the offer statement, Carbon Acquisition said the acceptances would remain binding in the event of a competing offer being made.

"It's a scorched earth, blocking tactic (and) it's a problem for Guanabara if these blocking minority figures are holding out," Rumph added.

EcoSecurities rebuffed on September 1 a revised 90 pence-a-share offer from Guanabara Holdings, set up by EcoSecurities co-founder and former president Pedro Moura Costa.

The board of Guanabara said Monday afternoon it noted Carbon Acquisition's offer and will make a further announcement following a review of its own position.

"It remains to be seen if Guanabara will improve its offer and bid something closer to our 'bare-bones' valuation of 114 pence per share," said Mirabaud's Agustin Hochschild.

In July, Guanabara reached a deal with then rival bidder EDF Trading, a unit of French utility EDF, offering it the option to purchase a portion of EcoSecurities' pre-2012 offset portfolio if Guanabara's bid was successful.

($1=.6027 Pound)


[Green Business]
World Bank urges rich states to act now on climate
Tue Sep 15, 2009 10:16am EDT
By Lesley Wroughton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world's rich nations must act immediately and forcefully to cut greenhouse gas emissions or the steeply rising cost of climate change will fall disproportionately on poor countries, the World Bank said on Tuesday.

In a major report on the threat of climate change, the World Bank said developing countries will bear 75 to 80 percent of the costs of damage caused by climate change and rich countries, which caused the emissions in the past, should pay for them to adapt to global warming.

It said tackling climate change in developing countries need not compromise poverty-fighting measures and economic growth, but stressed that funding and technical support from rich countries is essential.

The report comes ahead of a meeting in Copenhagen in December where countries hope to agree on a new global climate accord to combat man-made climate change.

"The countries of the world must act now, act together and act differently on climate change," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said.

"Developing countries are disproportionately affected by climate change -- a crisis that is not of their making and for which they are the least prepared. For that reason, an equitable deal in Copenhagen is vitally important," he added.

The report said developing countries countries could permanently lose as much as 4 to 5 percent of their gross domestic product if the earth's temperatures increase 2 degrees Celsius as opposed to minimal losses in rich countries.

ESCALATING COSTS

The report said mitigation measures to deal with the effects of climate change in developing countries could cost around $400 billion a year by 2030. Currently, mitigation finance averages around $8 billion a year.

In addition, annual investments for measures to ward off or adapt to climate change could spiral to around $75 billion from less than $1 billion a year currently available, the Bank said in its annual World Development Report.

The World Bank said the global financial crisis should not be used as an excuse to delay action to address climate change because the future climate crisis is likely to be more damaging to the world economy.

"The economic downturn may delay the business-as-usual growth in emissions by a few years, but it is unlikely to fundamentally change that path over the long term," it said.

The Bank said developing nations must also do their part and keep down the overall costs of climate change by adopting policies that reduce emission or emissions growth.

"Unless developing countries also start transforming their energy system as they grow, limiting warming to close to 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial levels will not be achievable," it said.

(Editing by James Dalgleish)