news20090916gdn1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Copenhagen change summit 2009]
US planning to weaken Copenhagen climate deal, Europe warns
Exclusive: Key differences between the US and Europe could undermine a new worldwide treaty on global warming to replace Kyoto, sources say
David Adam, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 September 2009 17.54 BST Article history

Europe has clashed with the US Obama administration over climate change in a potentially damaging split that comes ahead of crucial political negotiations on a new global deal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

The Guardian understands that key differences have emerged between the US and Europe over the structure of a new worldwide treaty on global warming. Sources on the European side say the US approach could undermine the new treaty and weaken the world's ability to cut carbon emissions.

The treaty will be negotiated in December at a UN meeting in Copenhagen and is widely billed as the last chance to save the planet from a temperature rise of 2C or higher, which the EU considers dangerous.

Copenhagen climate deal: 'The world has been set a deadline' Link to this audio "If we end up with a weaker framework with less stringent compliance, then that is not so good for the chances of hitting 2C," a source close to the EU negotiating team said.

News of the split comes amid mounting concern that the Copenhagen talks will not make the necessary progress.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN general secretary, told the Guardian last night that negotiations had stalled and need to "get moving".

Ahead of an unprecedented UN climate change summit of almost 100 heads of government in New York next week, Moon said the leaders held in their hands "the future of this entire humanity".

He said: "We are deeply concerned that the negotiation is not making much headway [and] it is absolutely and crucially important for the leaders to demonstrate their political will and leadership."

The dispute between the US and Europe is over the way national carbon reduction targets would be counted. Europe has been pushing to retain structures and systems set up under the Kyoto protocol, the existing global treaty on climate change. US negotiators have told European counterparts that the Obama administration intends to sweep away almost all of the Kyoto architecture and replace it with a system of its own design.

The issue is highly sensitive and European officials are reluctant to be seen to openly criticise the Obama administration, which they acknowledge has engaged with climate change in a way that President Bush refused to. But they fear the US move could sink efforts to agree a robust new treaty in Copenhagen.

The US distanced itself from Kyoto under President Bush because it made no demands on China, and the treaty remains political poison in Washington. European negotiators knew the US would be reluctant to embrace Kyoto, but they hoped they would be able to use it as a foundation for a new agreement.

If Kyoto is scrapped, it could take several years to negotiate a replacement framework, the source added, a delay that could strike a terminal blow at efforts to prevent dangerous climate change. "In Europe we want to build on Kyoto, but the US proposal would in effect kill it off. If we have to start from scratch then it all takes time. It could be 2015 or 2016 before something is in place, who knows."

According to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), world emissions need to peak by 2015 to give any chance of avoiding a 2C rise.

Europe is unlikely to stand up to the US, the source added. "I am not sure that the EU actually has the guts for a showdown and that may be exactly the problem." The US plan is likely to anger many in the developing world, who are keen to retain Kyoto because of the obligations it makes on rich countries.

Under Kyoto, greenhouse gas reductions are subject to an international system that regulates the calculation of emissions, the purchase of carbon credits and contribution of sectors such as forestry. The US is pushing instead for each country to set its own rules and to decide unilaterally how to meet its target.

The US is yet to offer full details on how its scheme might work, though a draft "implementing agreement" submitted to the UN by the Obama team in May contained a key clause that emissions reductions would be subject to "conformity with domestic law".

Legal experts say the phrase is designed to protect the US from being forced to implement international action it does not agree with. Farhana Yamin, an environmental lawyer with the Institute of Development Studies, who worked on Kyoto, said: "It seems a bit backwards. The danger is that the domestic tail starts to wag the international dog."

The move reflects a "prehistoric" level of debate on climate change in the wider US, according to another high-ranking European official, and anxiety in the Obama administration about its ability to get a new global treaty ratified in the US Senate, where it would require a two-thirds majority vote. The US has not ratified a major international environment treaty since 1992 and President Clinton never submitted the Kyoto protocol for approval, after a unaminous Senate vote indicated it would be rejected on economic grounds.

The US proposal for unilateral rule-setting "is all about getting something through the Senate," the source said. "But I don't have the feeling that the US has thought through what it means for the Copenhagen agreement."

The move could open loopholes for countries to meet targets without genuine carbon cuts, they said. Europe is not concerned that the US would exploit such loopholes, but it fears that other countries might.

The US State Department, which handles climate change, would not comment.

Stuart Eizenstat, who negotiated Kyoto for the US, said: "There has been a sea change in US attitudes [on climate] and the new president is deeply committed on this issue. But the EU needs to understand the limitations in the US. The reality is that is it impossible for my successor to negotiate something in Copenhagen beyond that which Congress will give the administration in domestic cap-and-trade legislation."

Nigel Purvis, who also worked on the US Kyoto team, said: "It's not welcome news in Europe but the Kyoto architecture shouldn't have any presumed status. Many decisions were taken when the United States was not at the negotiating table. Importing the Kyoto architecture into a new agreement would leave it vulnerable to charges of repackaging."

He denied the US move would weaken the agreement. "It is important for the US to negotiate an agreement it can join, because another agreement that did not involve the United States would set back efforts to protect the climate. Is it weaker to have a system that applies to more countries? I would argue not."

news20090916gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Climate change]
Oxfam: 4.5 million children at risk of aid 'raids' to pay for climate change
People already go hungry, take children out of school or sell livestock because of climate-related problems, says agency
Press Association
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 September 2009 11.28 BST Article history

At least 4.5 million children could die and tens of millions more could miss out on schooling if rich countries "raid" existing aid funding to pay for measures to help poor nations cope with climate change, Oxfam warned today.

The aid agency believes $50bn a year (£30bn) is needed to help developing countries cope with the impacts of global warming including droughts, floods, storms and rising sea levels.

And it says the money must be provided in addition to the 0.7% of GDP developed nations have pledged as aid to improve the lives of people in some of the world's poorest countries – or efforts to tackle poverty will stall.

A report by Oxfam warns that diverting $50bn from existing aid pledges to fund climate measures would lead to the death of 4.5 million children, while 75 million fewer youngsters would be likely to go to school and 8.6 million fewer people would have access to HIV/Aids treatment.

It could prove a major setback to efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals which aim to end hunger and poverty and boost education, health, gender equality and environmental sustainability by 2015, the report warns.

Oxfam said it was already seeing people going without food, pulling their children out of school or selling livestock to pay for debts caused by failing crops and other climate-related problems.

According to the aid agency, just three countries including the UK are in favour of additional funding for climate measures – and the issue could prove to be a deal breaker in the upcoming crunch talks aimed at agreeing global emissions cuts in Copenhagen in December.

A failure by developed countries to address the problems surrounding adaptation funding has led to distrust between the two sides and could undermine efforts to secure a deal to cut emissions.

Oxfam is also concerned that a Conservative government in the UK would divert existing aid provisions to pay for measures such as flood prevention and the introduction of drought-resistant crops.

Barbara Stocking, chief executive of Oxfam Great Britain, said: "Forcing poor countries to choose between life-saving drugs for the sick, schooling for their children or the means to protect themselves against climate change is an unfair burden that will only exacerbate poverty.

"Stealing money from tomorrow's schools and hospitals to help poor people adapt to climate change is neither a moral or effective way of rich countries paying their climate debt.

"Funds must be increased, not diverted," she said.

Oxfam wants to see a carbon market in which rich countries have to buy allowances to cover national emissions under a new global deal to slash greenhouse gases, with the money going towards paying for adaptation measures.

The scheme, similar to one which has been proposed by the Norwegian government in advance of Copenhagen, would avoid the "familiar problem" of developed countries failing to meet aid promises, the Oxfam report's co-author Robert Bailey suggested.

A spokeswoman for the Department for International Development (DfID) said: "Climate finance will be one of the most important and most challenging issues to be addressed over the coming years and that is why the UK are leading the way by offering new investment in addition to our existing aid commitments.

"In June the UK became the first country to publicly address the issue with the proposal for an annual $100bn global fund, to help developing countries both prepare for the impacts of climate change and build for a low-carbon future."

The shadow international development secretary, Andrew Mitchell, said: "We must tackle both the causes and the consequences of global climate change.

"As well as setting the framework for carbon markets, international agreements will be key to establishing additional support for adaptation.

"We believe that Britain must work towards an ambitious global deal at Copenhagen that will limit emissions and see substantial financial resources made available for adaptation."


[Environment > Electric, hybrid and low-emission cars]
UK cars rank behind other European countries on efforts to reduce emissions
CO2 emissions from cars in Portugal, Italy and Spain all below Britain's average, according to survey
Adam Vaughan
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 September 2009 14.54 BST Article history

The UK is lagging behind other European countries on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars, campaigners warned this week.

Britain ranks 16th out of 25 EU member states in a league table of average CO2 emissions from cars, with emissions higher than those in Portugal, Italy and Spain. The survey by campaigners Transport and Environment, which shows Denmark and France are cutting average CO2 levels faster than the UK, comes as several new low-carbon cars were launched at the Frankfurt Motor Show today.

The findings reveal the best-performing car makers have made cuts of up to five times those by the worst manufacturers. BMW and Mazda were two of the fastest-improving firms for CO2 emissions from cars sold in Europe in 2008, with BMW the only company to achieve double-digit (10.2%) cuts in average emissions on 2007 levels. Campaigners said the reason it was now 9th out of 14 car makers on average CO2 levels was because it had introduced efficiency features to all its range, rather than limited to specific models, as Toyota has done with cars such as the hybrid Prius.

PSA Peugeot-Citroen came bottom of the table for improvement, largely because it has made significant progress on efficiency in previous years and is already ranked second best on average emissions behind Fiat.

Major automotive manufacturers are being forced by EU legislation to improve the efficiency of their vehicles — by 2015, all new cars in the EU will be required, on average across European fleets, to emit less than 130g/km CO2. The UK's new cars have average CO2 emissions of 158g/km compared with the best performer, Portugal, on 138g/km. The European Environment Agency estimates cars are responsible for 14% of the EU's CO2 emissions.

Jos Dings, director of transport and environment, said: "The new EU law is already having an impact. If the overall drop in average CO2 emissions was purely related to the financial crisis, fuel prices or changing consumer behaviour, we would have expected to see every company reducing much more equally. But what is actually happening is that carmakers are seeing how far they have to cut and changing their fleets accordingly."

Tony Bosworth, Friends of the Earth's senior transport campaigner, called on the UK government to tax less efficient cars. "These new figures show that some carmakers who were dragging their feet towards cutting emissions have raised their game. But the UK is well down the EU league table of emissions from new cars. The government must do more to encourage drivers to buy smarter cars that use less fuel by increasing the tax on gas guzzlers," Bosworth said.

As part of the push to a new generation of lower and zero emission cars, several new electric and hybrid cars were unveiled by European car-makers at the Frankfurt Motor Show today. BMW's new hybrid X6 has been criticised over its green claims because it emits 231 grams of CO2 per kilometre - far higher than many conventional cars. VW presented a three-seater electric concept car, called the E-Up, capable of 0-62mph in 11.3 seconds, a top speed of 84mph and a range of "over 80 miles" in between charges - more than the UK's G-Wiz L-Ion but less than Norway's TH!NK City. Other new concept cars on show included Renault's electric saloon, the Fluence Zero, a hybrid RCZ by Peugeot and Audi's e-Tron, a high-performance electric sports car.

news20090916gdn3

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[World news > Japan]
Yukio Hatoyama named as Japanese prime minister
Democratic Party of Japan leader says 'the battle begins now'
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 September 2009 09.39 BST Article history

Japan today completed the most radical political shift in its postwar history when MPs approved Yukio Hatoyama as only the country's second prime minister from outside the Liberal Democratic party [LDP] for more than half a century.

Hatoyama, wearing his now-familiar lucky striped tie, bowed after securing 327 votes in the 480-seat lower house of parliament. Moments later he named a cabinet that must quickly deal with Japan's worst recession since the war, record unemployment and disquiet in Washington over the future of the bilateral alliance.

"I have mixed feelings of excitement about changing history and the very heavy responsibility of making history," Hatoyama told reporters before the parliamentary vote. "The battle begins now."

His centre-left Democratic Party of Japan [DPJ] swept to power after trouncing the LDP in last month's general election, securing 308 seats while reducing its main opponent to 119 seats.

Today marks only the second time since 1955 that a Japanese administration has not been led by the LDP, whose cabinet resigned en masse this morning. Its outgoing leader, Taro Aso, said: "I did my best for the sake of Japan, in a very short one-year period."

Analysts said Hatoyama would be given little time to implement his ambitious spending programme, and make good on promises to end waste and take on the elite bureaucrats who have dictated economic policy since the end of the war.

Questions are already being raised about the party's pledges to pour money into social security as Japan battles a ballooning public debt that is heading towards 200% of gross domestic product.

Its manifesto commitments include a higher minimum wage, the abolition of motorway tolls and petrol surcharges, the introduction of child benefit and a promise not to raise sales tax for at least four years.

"The DPJ has got to come up with an agreed list of priorities quickly, because its manifesto is just a long laundry list," said Koichi Nakano, a professor at Sophia University in Tokyo. "And it had better not just be how they will govern differently, but actual policies. They can expect something of a honeymoon for a year, but not longer than that."

Doubts also surround the abilities of Hatoyama's inexperienced ministers. Katsuya Okada, a former DPJ leader, is to become foreign minister, while Hirohisa Fujii was named finance minister. Okada has never held a cabinet post, although Fujii served as finance minister in a coalition government that kept the LDP out of power for 11 months in 1993-94.

Despite his overwhelming victory, Hatoyama has offered two cabinet posts to minor opposition parties to secure majorities in both houses of parliament, an arrangement that should end the deadlock that has stalled legislation over the past two years.

The most contentious outside appointment is that of Shizuka Kamei, who left the LDP in 2006 in protest at Junichiro Koizumi's plans to privatise the post office, the world's biggest bank by deposits with $1.8tn in customer savings.

Kamei, a former police agency official and outspoken critic of recent market reforms, indicated that as financial services minister he would review post office privatisation and confront "unbridled" US capitalism.

"I will fundamentally repair the situation into which the people and the country have fallen because of Koizumi's politics, and revise postal privatisation as a top priority," he said.

Hatoyama's recent calls for "a balance between government regulation and the market" have set off alarm bells in the financial sector.

The president of the Tokyo stock exchange, Atsushi Saito, warned the incoming government against "excessive and irrational regulation" that could "kill the market".

"They have studied in depth already but the real business could be a bit different," Saito told Bloomberg television yesterday. "We hope the new government can be very flexible and very rational."

Hatoyama will also attempt to reassure Washington that his campaign pledge to end Tokyo's "subservience" to US foreign policy will not significantly alter the status of US troops based in Japan.

Although some in his party have called for an overhaul of the security relationship, most analysts expect little will change once he is in office. In recent weeks Hatoyama, who is to meet Barack Obama at the UN general assembly next week, has said the alliance will remain the "cornerstone of Japanese diplomatic policy".

news20090916sa1

[Environment] from [scientificamerican.com]

[News > Environment]
September 15, 2009
iSniff: Pocket-Size Pollution Sensors Promise Big Improvement in Monitoring Personal Environment
Scientists are employing improved monitors in efforts to pinpoint air pollutants that cause childhood disease
By Lynne Peeples

Once large enough to be mistaken for terrorist bombs, portable air pollution monitors are now being shrunk into smaller and smaller wearable devices that can be easily dispatched for environmental detective work: Is black carbon soot emitted by school buses contributing not just to warming global temperatures, but raising childhood asthma rates, too? These new pocket-size sensors could provide more practical and powerful detection of such potential public health risks.

Environmental health scientists have grown increasingly interested in personal air pollution tracking in recent years. They realize that bringing monitoring down from the rooftops—where devices have breathed cities' concoctions of exhaled pollutants for many years—can help to identify the variability in exposures among people as well as during an individual's day-to-day activities.

Average particulate matter concentrations across regions, for example, rarely reveal the specific air particles people breathe in any given location. "The problem is, not many people live on rooftops. Most people live in floors as you go down, and walk about on city streets, and get around by cars, subways or buses," says Steven Chillrud, an environmental geochemist at Columbia University's Lamont–Doherty Environment Observatory. "So, if you really want to know what people are exposed to, you need to monitor them."

This is especially true of children. "They get exposed to stranger dust in half an hour of playing than you or I would get in an entire month," says James Cowin of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., recollecting his childhood days chasing after trucks spouting clouds of DDT.

Takin' it to the streets
This fall, dozens of nine- and 10-year-olds will be set loose on the streets and in the schools of New York City with new monitors co-developed by Chillrud, Cowin and their respective teams. Each device features technologies designed to pinpoint not only what children are exposed to, but when, where and for how long.

Chillrud is one of eight grantees currently refining personal airborne pollution sensors as part of the National Institute of Environmental Health Service's (NIEHS) Genes and Environment Initiative—a project aimed at gaining an improved understanding of how genetic factors and environmental exposures influence human disease. "As we were developing the initiative," says David Balshaw of the NIEHS, "we came to the conclusion that we needed to develop the capacity to monitor individual exposures."

The gold standard for such devices had traditionally been monitors housed in burdensome backpacks, weighing as much as three kilograms, or about as much as a newborn baby. "This limited us to enthusiastic teenagers, or concerned adults," Chillrud notes. "You couldn't really do young kids." And even with the most eager, compliance was always an issue: Would study subjects consistently lug them around or would they grow tired and leave them sitting at home or in a locker?

Before long, however, terrorism took over as the sensor's primary obstacle. "My timing was perfect: the Madrid bombing had happened while we were developing the monitor," Chillrud says. "No one seemed phased much. But when the London bombings happened, and it became apparent that our pack was the same size, the police said, 'No way. You need to shrink it to the size of Walkman, or else you are putting your subjects at risk of being shot.'"

Shrinking the sensor
So, that's just what he did with help from Cowin, who leads the hardware and software development side of the project. "The sampler is not cell phone–size yet (the 1991 models, notwithstanding) but it is pretty compact," Cowin notes, adding how much quieter it is compared with the early, humming models.

The work in progress—currently 15 centimeters long, less than 7.5 centimeters wide and weighing about as much as a Walkman—is undergoing validation to ensure that filters only 0.2 centimeter in diameter can really do equivalent work to the old 3.7-centimeter-wide models. The prototype houses six of these pollution nets: three for the collection of black carbon and three for single particles, both prevalent in urban air and suspected hazards for children's health.

Each pair of filters is then designated for one of three key locations frequented by children: home, school and outdoors (or commuting). And the smart sampler automatically knows where it is at all times. If the kid is at home, a Bluetooth beacon informs the sensor and it switches valves accordingly. When the sensor loses the signal, it then must decide between the other two locations. An inputted schedule helps it determine when to switch to school mode. (This is overridden if, for example, a kid is home sick and the Bluetooth signal from there is picked up.) During all other times, a subject's location is determined using global positioning system technology (GPS). "Someday, when GPS gets even better, we can do all the switching based on it," Chillrud predicts. And, as other technologies continue to improve, further shrinking of the sensor is planned, along with real-time black carbon and particulate matter monitoring.

Although the handheld device is easier to wear than a backpack, it is not problem-free. "As all these samplers get smaller and smaller, compliance becomes a big issue," Chillrud explains. "Before the question was, 'Do you want to carry a big backpack?' Now, it is, 'Do you carry it the right way?'" Measurements could be significantly off if the device is hooked to a belt, put in a purse or backpack, or even covered up by a winter coat. "There are lots of places they can go that we don't want them to be," Chillrud says. But with the help of motion sensors and a specially designed vest, they hope to keep them in the right place.

Sensing new policy
If all goes well in the project's validation stage, the sensors will soon be dispatched in the field with 30 asthmatic and 30 nonsufferers, a subset of several hundred kids that have been studied by researchers since they were in the womb—when their pregnant mothers wore the original backpack monitors. These kids will also be keeping symptom diaries and undergoing clinical assessments; the filters recording their exposures will be analyzed in the lab.

If a physical effect is seen, the researchers can go back and track exposures. Together with the airborne offenders that get caught by the filter, tracked locations can also lend valuable clues: "Were they walking along a busy street? If so, it's likely automobile traffic," NIEHS's Balshaw says. "Were they in the house—in the kitchen? Then it could be cooking grease."

If researchers could correlate one to one what people are exposed to and their health effects, Cowin suggests, "then we could better understand the risks and add that into the equation of what we need to do about it. In setting policy, there are some things we have control over. But you need to balance your possible actions against what you really see."

The same goes for an individual's decisions. Whereas it is unethical to strap people down and expose them to air pollution in a lab, Cowin points out that subjects will essentially do it to themselves: "They'll stand behind a bus for 20 minutes chatting." With a smart sensor, he adds, we could decipher what triggered an asthma attack: "Were they standing behind a bus or Uncle Henry's smoking cigarette?" An answer may very well help defuse a serious health problem in the subject's future.

news20090916sa2

[Environment] from [scientificamerican.com]

[Greenwire > Society & P0licy > Climatology]
September 15, 2009
EPA Unveils New Emissions Standards for Cars
The new rules will boost fuel efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions
By Josh Voorhees

The Obama administration today released details of its national suite of auto standards that would mandate increased fuel economy and impose the first-ever greenhouse gas standard on the nation's cars and trucks.

The proposals are a joint effort by U.S. EPA and the Transportation Department and would go into effect with model year 2012. The standards would push corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, standards to a fleetwide average of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, four years ahead of the schedule Congress laid out in a 2007 energy law. The carbon dioxide limit under the plan -- which will apply to passenger cars, light-duty trucks and medium-duty passenger vehicles -- would reach an average of 250 grams per mile per vehicle in 2016.

"This marks a significant advance in our effort to protect health and the environment," said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, who was joined by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood at the White House to release the details. The White House said the proposal will prevent 950 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions during the four-year rule.

The rules provide automakers with flexibility to meet the new standards during the initial model years of the rule, Jackson said.

Today's announcement fills in the details of Obama's May decision to blend the legal authority the Supreme Court granted EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in its 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA decision with DOT's right to regulate fuel economy under the CAFE program, while still preserving California's right to regulate air pollution under the Clean Air Act.

"This is truly a green-letter day for President Obama's administration," LaHood said. "The increases in fuel economy and the reductions in greenhouse gases we are proposing today would bring about a new era in automotive history. These proposed standards would help consumers save money at the gas pump, help the environment and decrease our dependence on oil -- all while ensuring that consumers still have a full range of vehicle choices."

DOT's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the agency tasked with writing CAFE rules, and EPA will need to finalize the efficiency rules by March 31, 2010, to meet the statutory requirement that CAFE standards be completed 18 months before the next model year begins. Model years begin Oct. 1.

The text of the proposals is expected to be available on the Web sites of EPA and DOT later this afternoon.

President Obama, speaking today at a General Motors Co. assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio, said the national standards would help automakers rebound by removing the uncertainty that had surrounded state attempts to impose their own set of auto emissions standards.

"This action will give auto companies some long-overdue clarity, stability and predictability," Obama said, according to prepared remarks provided by the White House. "In the past, an agreement like this would have been impossible -- but this time was different. Unlikely allies came together -- automakers, the UAW, environmental advocates, Democrats and Republicans, California and more than a dozen other states -- all of them pledging to set aside the quarrels of the past for the sake of the future."

Obama initially announced his decision to merge new CAFE rulemaking with California's efforts to impose its own emissions standards in May. At the time, he was joined at the White House by top executives from 10 major automakers, including the heads of GM and Chrysler LLC. The government now controls ownership stakes in both companies.

The following month, EPA granted California the waiver it needed under the Clean Air Act to enforce its own standards, in a move that was considered mostly moot given the national standards. Now that California has been granted the waiver, other states will be allowed to enforce the same tailpipe standard. Thirteen other states and the District of Columbia have already moved to adopt the California's standards, and a handful of others have indicated they may follow.

The auto industry had long challenged California's attempt to regulate tailpipe emissions, arguing that it would create a "regulatory patchwork" that would depress overall sales and put some dealers at a competitive disadvantage. Carmakers and dealers argued that because consumers buy vehicles in different quantities in different states, automakers' fleetwide greenhouse gas averages would vary by state, forcing manufacturers to manipulate the amount of each model they make available in each state.

The litigation was unsuccessful in federal courts, and the industry agreed to drop its legal challenges as part of the compromise that led to the new federal auto standards. But last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Automobile Dealers Association filed suit in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to review the decision.

The vehicle emissions rules can go into effect only after EPA has finalized its proposed "endangerment finding," released in April, that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health and welfare. Today's announcement does not finalize that finding, according to a senior EPA official. That decision is expected by next spring but could come much sooner as the Senate dives deeper into legislation that caps emissions.

Road to Copenhagen

The transportation announcement adds another pillar to an Obama administration climate portfolio already under the international microscope. Obama officials are trying to compile a domestic record of accomplishments as they head into U.N. climate negotiations with more than 180 other countries where U.S. leadership is seen as critical to writing a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

State Department climate envoy Todd Stern told reporters last week that he hoped to have a final cap-and-trade law in place by the December talks in Copenhagen. But short of that, Stern said the United States would still be in a good negotiation position based on the existing legislative and regulatory landscape. "If legislation is moving on a good track that isn't passed yet, there will undoubtedly be ways to try and accommodate that," he said.

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) said today's announcement would also help send a message to the international community, while still assuring Americans that Obama is viewing environmental decisions through an economic lens.

"The administration, moving forward today through its executive administrative capacity, is a very important component of sending a message to people that we're going to do this across the economy in ways that make sense," Kerry said. "I welcome it. It's long overdue."

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.

news20090916nn1

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 15 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.922
News
Obama proposes greenhouse-gas standards for vehicles
US move is the first national regulation on carbon emissions.
By Jeff Tollefson

The Obama administration released new automobile standards on Tuesday, proposing regulations that would curb greenhouse-gas emissions and ratchet up fuel-efficiency standards beginning in 2012.

Released jointly by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Transportation, the regulations would effectively increase fuel efficiency standards by nearly 40 percent, to more than 35.5 miles per gallon (about 15 kilometres per litre) in 2016. Greenhouse-gas emissions for an automobile company's entire fleet would be limited to an average of 250 grams of carbon dioxide per mile, which is nearly 30 percent less than the current average.

EPA administrator Lisa Jackson said the move marks a "significant advance in our work to protect health in the environment and move our nation into the sustainable, energy-efficient economy of the future". She said the new rules would not only reduce emissions and save oil but also result in consumer savings of roughly $3,000 over the lifetime of a vehicle produced in 2016.

The proposal would create a single national standard that is consistent with earlier regulations that were proposed by the state of California but blocked by the administration of former president George W. Bush. Obama reversed that decision this June.

Going national
Administration officials announced the broad outlines of the deal with automakers in May, at a time when the industry was seeking government aid to stay afloat. Both General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC ended up filing for bankruptcy, leaving Ford Motor Co. as the only major US automaker standing.

Speaking at a General Motors Co. plant in Lordstown, Ohio, on Tuesday, President Barack Obama asserted that the regulations will give companies "long-overdue clarity, stability and predictability" as they struggle to pull out of a financial tailspin. Michael Stanton, president of the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, called the new regulations "a welcome step" toward a single, national programme.

The regulations are rooted in a 2007 Supreme Court finding that the EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. The Bush administration analyzed the issue in its waning days but eventually elected to defer a final decision.

EPA administrator Lisa Jackson took the first step in April with an "endangerment finding" that would formally declare carbon dioxide a danger to public health and the environment. EPA has yet to finalize that ruling, which could be expanded to include broader greenhouse gas regulations for industrial sources such as power plants and heavy industry.

In its new proposal, the administration issued two separate but complementary standards. The fuel efficiency standards, issued under the Department of Transportation, are slightly less stringent and retain loopholes in the current regulatory system. In particular, manufacturers are allowed to simply pay fines if they fail to meet the standards and to take extra credit for reduced gasoline consumption by 'flex-fuel' vehicles, even though those vehicles seldom run on high-ethanol blends.

But by 2016, automakers will have to comply with the more stringent of the two, which effectively means that the greenhouse gas standards take over, says Jim Kliesch, a senior engineer in the Union of Concerned Scientists' clean vehicles programme in Washington DC. He credits the administration with eliminating both loopholes under the EPA regulations.

In addition to increasing overall fuel efficiency, automakers could improve their air-conditioning systems and opt for new chemical refrigerants that contribute less to global warming. Other improvements will focus on a host of technologies for improving engines and transmissions, many of which are available on various vehicles today.

"I think we are going to see more of these technologies on the showroom floors as a result of this policy," Kliesch says. "We ran some numbers and are estimating that this policy will save 1.3 million barrels per day of oil in 2020." This would represent a decrease of nearly 7 percent compared to current US consumption of roughly 19.5 million barrels per day.


[naturenews]
Published online 15 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.912
News
Israeli immigrant scientists protest threat to jobs
Budget cuts freeze researchers out of Israel's KAMEA programme.
By Haim Watzman

The future of an Israeli government programme that funds research positions for 500 immigrant scientists remains in jeopardy — even after the Israeli cabinet reversed a planned budget reduction that would have meant job loss for 200 of the researchers.

The KAMEA programme — a Hebrew acronym for 'Absorption of Immigrant Scientists' — was created in 1998 to take advantage of natural scientists and mathematicians arriving in Israel from the former Soviet Union. The programme, which costs about $40 million annually, funds the base salaries of the scientists as non-tenured academics. Sixty per cent of the money comes from Israel's Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, with the rest provided by universities and by the Council for Higher Education, the country's higher education accreditation and funding body.

Although past governments have committed to fund the scientists' salaries until they reach pension age, the programme has often faced crises because the ministry's budget, like that of the other ministries, comes up for renewal every year.

"The problem has been that each year funding for the programme is cut, but is then restored as a part of the coalition agreement with the political party that represents the immigrants," says Zvi HaCohen of Ben-Gurion University, who is chairman of the coordinating council of Israel's university faculty associations.

Cuts in the 2009-2010 budget, approved by the Knesset in mid-July, were slated to eliminate 200 positions. But scientists in the programme and other academics protested against the cuts, demonstrating at the Knesset and signing a petition. The cabinet last week decided to restore funds for 2009 and to establish a ministerial committee to study the programme and find solutions for 2010 and beyond. In the meantime, entry into the programme has been frozen and scientists who reach the retirement age of 67 this year will not be replaced.

In limbo

The freeze creates a bottleneck for dozens of scientists who have come in more recently — mostly from the former Soviet Union, but also from Ethiopia and Argentina — according to Yaniv Cohen-Shabetay, coordinator of university budgeting at the Council for Higher Education. Those scientists are currently funded by other absorption programmes designed to help them get through their first few years, as they learn Hebrew and adjust to the country. The researchers and the senior scientists they work under have assumed that when funding from those programmes ends, the positions would be supported by KAMEA.

"This support has been extremely important for the universities," says Cohen-Shabetay. "The immigrants have helped provide a counterweight to Israel's brain drain in the sciences."

HaCohen notes that at his university between 10 and 12% of the positions in the natural sciences are provided by KAMEA.

His colleague Boris Krasnov arrived in Israel in 1990 at the age of 35, and has been in the programme since its inception. "I've got no tenure, despite my achievements and my position," says Krasnov, who is head of the Institute for Ecology and Environment at Ben-Gurion.

The immigration ministry holds that the the programme should remain in operation, says spokesman Yoash Ben-Itzhak. But the upcoming review, he says, will examine its cost-effectiveness and see whether reforms are needed.

HaCohen says that some of the reforms under consideration could be an earlier retirement age or a continued freeze on new entries. Ben-Itzhak denies that early retirement is on the table.

Immigrant scientists now supported by KAMEA are unlikely to find tenure-track positions at Israel's universities, Cohen-Shabetay says. The universities have had their budgets cut, and many have imposed their own freezes on new hiring.

news20090916nn2

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 15 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.920
News: Q&A
Greenland project drills down to record depths
Researchers read our climate record from a mile-long core of ice.
By Naomi Lubick

The North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (NEEM) project kicked off in 2007 and seeks to describe the planet's past climate by analysing the gases and particulate matter trapped inside the region's ice cores. This year, the team bested records from previous expeditions to the Greenland ice sheet, drilling down through 1758 metres by the end of August — a world record for drilling in one 100-day summer season. But the drillers still have a way to go. Nature asked Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, an ice and climate specialist at Copenhagen University's Niels Boehr Institute who leads the project, how it is progressing.

How did you manage to drill further in one season than ever before?

I think we've been lucky. We were drilling with a new drill liquid that's an extract of coconut oil. We're very happy about it, because it's very difficult to find an environmentally correct and nonhazardous liquid to drill with.

But the liquid is slightly more viscous than the liquids we've used before. That meant we had to make quite a lot of changes to the deep drill (which is also new). The first time that we tried it, it was actually at the beginning of this season. It just worked from the first moment.

What have you learned so far?

We have measured several ice-core parameters in the field, including electrical conductivity and dielectric properties, and we have made an optical line scan of the ice core. So we know that we are down to the depth of 38,000 years, just after the Dansgaard-Oeschger event 8 [one of the abrupt climate fluctuations that occurred around this period]. We've been able to see the layer signals from the line scan, and from the electrical conductivity data, we've been following the big climate events during the glacial period.

How much longer before you can publish your results?

The project is planned to have two seasons more, and the depth [to bedrock] is 2545 m, so we have 800 m left to drill. So I wouldn't dare to say that we might be lucky again and maybe we'll reach the bedrock next year, but we actually have a chance for that!

What are you going to find that is going to be different than some of the other big ice core projects that you have also worked on?


A NEEM deep ice core just after being taken out of the drill.Tim BurtonWe expect to get older ice at the NEEM site. At the North Greenland Ice Core Project (NGRIP) site, the ice was melting at the bedrock due to high heat flow from the bedrock. And the oldest [ice at the NGRIP site] is believed to be 123,000 years old, and that's just in the middle of the previous warm interglacial, the Eemian, which lasted from 130,000 to 115,000 years ago.

At GRIP in Central Greenland, the ice was folded and disturbed at the bedrock, so we didn't get the Eemian record in chronological order. So the main aim is to get the warm interglacial, the Eemian, including both the onset and decline of the period. This is especially interesting, because during the Eemian, we can see from the other records that temperatures were about 5 degrees [Celsius] warmer over the ice sheet — and this is the temperature we are expecting during the next century over Greenland. So the investigations of this climate period, the change in atmospheric circulation, and the knowledge the ice cores contain about the shape [and size] of the ice sheet … are exactly what we need to understand the future climate.

In terms of any hitches or glitches, it sounds like things went really well this season, but what challenges might you face in future?

We have several challenges in front of us. When we look at the radio echo data, some of the internal layers undulate. So that's a risk that the older ice is disturbed [by faults or fractures in the ice]. However, the radar group led by engineer Prasad Gogineni from the University of Kansas, has made quite detailed radar measurements around the camp and they look very promising. We can see deep unbroken layers in the region where we are drilling. We have great confidence that we'll get what we are going after.

The funding from the 14 participating nations lasts until 2011. Now is the time to start working on it, but we should get to the bedrock before we start applying for funding for a bedrock drilling programme.


[naturenews]
Published online 15 September 2009 | 461, 326 (2009) | doi:10.1038/461326a
News: Q&A
Choon Fong Shih
The first president of Saudia Arabia's King Abdullah University of Science and Technology talks.
By Daniel Cressey

On 23 September, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia will open the new King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), an endeavour to build an internationally competitive university from scratch. Officials say they have recruited some 70 professors, mainly in chemistry, physics, mathematics and engineering; fewer than 10% of them, however, are women. KAUST has furnished laboratories with cutting-edge equipment, including a 222-teraflop Shaheen supercomputer from IBM. But questions remain over whether KAUST can become a true player on the international stage and whether academic freedom can flourish there. Nature spoke to Choon Fong Shih, its first president.

Why did you take the job?

King Abdullah's vision captured my imagination. The king spoke of KAUST as rekindling the Islamic spirit of learning and scientific inquiry, of inspiring a new age of scientific achievement for the region.

In fact, the king spoke of KAUST as the new House of Wisdom. The Islamic House of Wisdom was a centre of learning; it drew the very best minds from the known world to discover knowledge, to share knowledge and to apply knowledge.

Why did the king decide to invest so much in KAUST?

He sees KAUST as a catalyst to bring about a new age of scientific achievement. Western countries have invested in their universities for centuries. Today we see the fruits of that investment. The investment in higher education and in research is a recent investment for this part of the world, and I believe in time we will see the fruit and the benefit.

What are your key aims for the university?

I see KAUST as a new paradigm in academia, advancing the frontiers of science, harnessing science and technology to address some of the global challenges of our time. So that means discovery and the creation of results, and also applying those results to the problems that face humanity.

We want to stand with the leading research universities around the world. In a generation or so, we will stand among them.

How will you quantify success?

We hope in ten years that our publications per academic will be equal to those of the very best research universities. We are looking at the metrics, both qualitative and quantitative, to be comparable to the top research universities around the world. But, more than that, we will encourage partnerships with major corporations.

How has the world financial downturn affected KAUST? Do you still have a $10-billion endowment?

The endowment is in good hands; it is intact and we are doing well. Besides the endowment, we have other sources of revenue to support KAUST: we have sponsored research that brings in revenue from working with companies, we are sending proposals to government funding agencies and other funding agencies around the world, and we have benefactors who are contributing because KAUST has captured the imagination. We also have tuition income.

We see this as an opportunity. We work harder to recruit the best academics from regions affected by the economic downturn.

Will home-grown talent eventually form the bulk of the faculty?

KAUST recruits by global standards. We will not be taking our own students as faculty members because they graduated from KAUST. They will be subject to the same standards we apply to candidates around the world.

I believe that our PhD graduates will be very competitive for faculty positions at KAUST and around the world.

How do you encourage women to come to KAUST? Aren't they put off coming to Saudi Arabia because of the stiff restrictions on life outside the university?

We have many women on campus. This is a research environment. Our people here — men and women — enjoy the same opportunities, the same resources, as they would find in America, in Europe and in Asia.

What research areas are you tackling? Will you eventually work in politically difficult fields, such as nuclear research?

We have a very active programme in renewable energy. We have a programme to turn sea water into clean, potable water. We are doing plant biology so we can grow plants in arid conditions and green the desert land into arable land.

We are looking at some of the most pressing challenges of our time. There is no shortage of exciting problems. Our plate is full.

How long do you intend to stay at KAUST?

I spent 30 years in the East, I spent 30 years in North America, and with some luck I hope to spend 30 years at the confluence of East and West.

news20090916abc

[Top Headlines] from [abcNEWS]

[International]
Japan's New Leader Vows Economic, Diplomacy Shift
Japan's new prime minister names Cabinet and promises sweeping changes
By ERIC TALMADGE Associated Press Writer
TOKYO September 16, 2009 (AP)

Longtime opposition leader Yukio Hatoyama took office as prime minister on Wednesday, naming a new Cabinet and vowing to rebuild the economy and refocus Japan's place on the world stage with his largely untested party.

Hatoyama's victory over the conservatives, who have governed Japan almost nonstop since World War II, marks a major turning point for Japan, which is facing its worst postwar economic slowdown with unemployment at record highs and deflation intensifying.

But concerns run deep over whether the new government will be able to deliver.

Hatoyama has promised to cut government waste, rein in the national bureaucracy and restart the economy by putting a freeze on planned tax hikes, removing tolls on highways and focusing policies on consumers, not big business.

He also has pledged to improve Tokyo's often bumpy ties with its Asian neighbors and forge a foreign policy that is more independent from Washington.

"I am excited by the prospect of changing history," Hatoyama said. "The battle starts now."

The new prime minister — who is expected to make his diplomatic debut in New York next week at the United Nations — said he wanted to build a relationship of trust with President Barack Obama by exchanging views "frankly."

"Japan has been largely passive in our relationship, but I would like to be a more active partner," he said.

Parliament convened a special session Wednesday to formally select Hatoyama, whose Democrats won a landslide in parliamentary elections last month to take control of the body's powerful lower house, ousting Prime Minister Taro Aso's long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which is conservative and staunchly pro-U.S.

In the parliamentary vote to choose the prime minister, Hatoyama won 327 of the 480 votes in the lower house. He needed a simple majority of 241.

Quickly after his election, Hatoyama named Katsuya Okada as his foreign minister and Hirohisa Fujii as his finance minister. Though Okada has never held a Cabinet post, Fujii was finance minister under a coalition government in 1993-94, the only time in its 55-year history that the Liberal Democrats had previously been ousted from power

Fujii was also a former bureaucrat in the Ministry of Finance — suggesting that the new government won't be too confrontational with Japan's powerful ministries.

"It's good news that Hatoyama picked Fujii as finance minister," said Tsuneo Watanabe, a senior fellow at the Tokyo Foundation, a think tank. "He's experienced. Fujii knows macro-economic policy."

Hatoyama, who has a doctorate from Stanford University and is the grandson of a conservative prime minister, had a limited pool of seasoned politicians to choose from. His party, created a decade ago, has never held power, and nearly half of its members in the lower house will be serving in their first terms in parliament.

The inexperienced new government is bound to make some missteps, analysts said.

"This is a big change. But change often comes with uncertainty. Beginners usually have some troubles," Watanabe said.

Hatoyama and his party, a mix of defectors from the conservative party and social progressives, face huge tasks that they must deal with quickly.

Although it has recently shown some signs of improvement, Japan's economy remains deeply shaken by the global financial crisis and unemployment is at a record high of 5.7 percent. The rapid aging of its population also threatens to be a drag on public coffers as the number of taxpayers decreases and pension responsibilities swell.

"I want the people to feel that their pocketbook situation is improving, even a little, as soon as possible," Hatoyama told a news conference.

Voters expressed hope for change and an upturn in the economy.

"I think it is good that now we are trying something new to change the stagnation," said Osamu Yamamoto, a 49-year-old company employee.

Experts said they had doubts about how effective the new government will be.

"The country has never experienced a leadership change as clear as this," said Koichi Nakano, a political science professor at Sophia University in Tokyo. "Now they have to get down to work and achieve their campaign promises as quickly as possible. With upper house elections coming up within a year, they have to produce results, or they will lose voter support."

Hatoyama will also be tested quickly on the diplomatic front. He has said he wants to attend the General Assembly in the United Nations in New York next week and possibly meet with Obama.

Some members of Hatoyama's party have said they want to overhaul the U.S.-Japan security alliance under which 50,000 troops are deployed throughout Japan. That idea has met with strong opposition from Washington, although plans are already under way for 8,000 Marines to be relocated from the southern island of Okinawa to the U.S. territory of Guam.

Hatoyama said has no intention to back down on plans to push for a review of the U.S. military presence, but also said that he did not intend to push the issue right away.

"I would like to build a relationship of trust with President Obama. In order to deepen our trust, it would be most important for us to exchange views frankly," Hatoyama told the news conference. "That's the first step."

news20090916bbc

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

[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 11:31 GMT, Wednesday, 16 September 2009 12:31 UK
New PM cements Japan power shift
Japanese PM Yukio Hatoyama has promised economic revival and strong US ties, hours after taking office.
By no sign

{Yukio Hatoyama's victory ended a half-century of LDP dominance}

In a news conference, he vowed to deliver a "people-oriented society", quick economic improvements and frank but trusting ties with Washington.

Mr Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan won a huge poll victory last month, ending 50 years of almost unbroken Liberal Democratic Party rule.

His untested government now controls the world's second biggest economy.

The new cabinet are due to be sworn in by Emperor Akihito later in the day.

Former DPJ leader Katsuya Okada becomes foreign minister and Hirohisa Fujii, a veteran bureaucrat, takes over as finance minister.

{ ANALYSIS
Roland Buerk, BBC News, Tokyo
Yukio Hatoyama looks like many who have gone before him, the scion of a wealthy dynasty, the grandson of a former prime minister. But his DPJ has promised profound reform.
For decades the LDP, bureaucrats and big business held sway, steering the country from wartime defeat to economic might. But in recent years this brought stagnation, rising unemployment and increasing inequality.
Mr Hatoyama wants to build a more 'fraternal' society, with a social safety net including a generous child allowance. He wants to turn away from export-led growth and encourage domestic demand.
But there are deep concerns over whether the untested new government can deliver the new era they promise.}

Another former DPJ leader, Naoto Kan, will head a new National Strategy Bureau set up to oversee the bureaucracy. He also becomes deputy prime minister.

The defeated LDP, meanwhile, will hold an election later this month to choose its new leader, after former Prime Minister Taro Aso stepped down.

The DPJ has entered into a coalition deal with two smaller parties, the Social Democratic Party and the People's New Party, and controls both houses of parliament.

Its priorities include tackling a rapidly ageing society and an economy still struggling after a brutal recession.

"We would like to carry out policies that will stimulate households so the Japanese people can have hopes for the future," Mr Hatoyama said.

He has promised to increase social welfare spending, cut government waste and rein in the powerful bureaucracy.

''Now is the time to practise politics that are not controlled by bureaucrats,'' he said.

{ JAPAN'S NEW GOVERNMENT
The DPJ, which has never been in government before, is taking over the world's second biggest economy
New PM Yukio Hatoyama is a political blue-blood but largely unknown outside Japan
He is nicknamed the 'alien', and his wife claims to have travelled to Venus in a UFO
DPJ promises to increase spending on health and childcare, but without increasing taxes
Other pledges include climate cuts, better ties with Asia and a more "equal" alliance with the US}

On foreign policy, he said ties with the US were a priority.

But he said he wanted a relationship in which Japan "can act more proactively and tell them our opinions frankly", adding that his party's position on reviewing deals relating to the US troop presence had not changed.

The DPJ was elected as a wave of discontent with LDP rule swept across Japan.

Opinion polls have shown many people did not vote for the DPJ because of their policies - but because they wanted change.

Analysts say the electorate will be watching the DPJ closely in the next few weeks and months to see if it can deliver.

The BBC's Roland Buerk, in Tokyo, says that in defeating the LDP, Yukio Hatoyama has already achieved what many people thought for years was impossible.

But now the really difficult part - governing Japan - begins, our correspondent says.

news20090916cnn

[Top stories] from [CNN.com]

[Asia] September 16, 2009
Hatoyama elected as Japan's prime minister
Story Highlights
> Lower house elects Yukio Hatoyama as Japan's new prime minister
> Liberal Democratic Party Prime Minister Taro Aso resigns
> Last month, Japanese voters swept Aso's party from power
> Country suffering from after-effects of worst recession since World War II

CNN) -- Japan's parliament elected Yukio Hatoyama as the country's new prime minister on Wednesday in an historic shift of power.

The vote by the lower house of the parliament was virtually assured.

Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won a landslide election last month, and controls 308 of the lower chamber's 480 seats.

Earlier, defeated prime minister Taro Aso and his cabinet resigned.

Aso's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had governed the country for nearly half a century.

Handed a sweeping mandate for change, Hatoyama begins the formidable task of delivering on a laundry list of promises intended to lift the country after its worst recession since World War II.

Voters -- skeptical, pessimistic and impatient -- are unlikely to give the party, which has never held office, much time to make good.

Japan is witnessing historic highs in unemployment and experiencing ramifications like homelessness for the first time.

Hatoyama touted a Barack Obama-style message of change. He pledged to raise the minimum wage and discourage hiring through agencies or on temporary contracts.

Hatoyama's party has adopted a salvation plan based on "trickle up economics." It wants to put money in the hands of families, in hopes that they will spend it in Japan and stimulate the world's second-largest economy.

Though Japan officially rebounded from its recession in mid-August, Japanese households have yet to feel secure about a lasting economic recovery. In its election manifesto, the DPJ said it will pay about $3,000 per child to each family every year -- to encourage women to have babies and reverse the country's rapidly aging and shrinking population. It will also pay about $1,000 a month to each unemployed Japanese as he looks for a job.

But the question is, where will the money come from? Japan's budget deficit is enormous. Its national debt is almost two times its gross domestic product.

The DPJ says the money is there, tied up in the corruption and bureaucracy of decades-long LDP rule.

news20090916reut

[Top News] from [REUTERS}

[International]
New Japan PM pushes big changes
Wed Sep 16, 2009 7:08am EDT
By Isabel Reynolds and Yoko Kubota

TOKYO (Reuters) - New Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama took office Wednesday, launching an untested government pledged to radically change how the nation is run and make domestic demand, not exports, the engine of growth.

Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) trounced the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party in last month's election. He now faces pressure to make good quickly on promises to focus spending on consumers, cut waste and reduce bureaucrats' control over policy.

He must also try to ensure that a nascent recovery from Japan's worst recession since World War Two stays on track despite an already huge public debt.

Managing ties with close ally the United States while charting a more independent course will be a further priority.

"I want to create the kind of politics in which politicians take the lead without relying on bureaucrats," the 62-year-old Hatoyama, wearing his lucky gold, silver and blue striped tie and signature pocket handkerchief, told his first news conference.

"We might make mistakes as we do things by trial and error. We want the people to be tolerant...We would appreciate if the people nurture the new government with patience."

Hatoyama's cabinet, a balance of former Liberal Democrats, ex-socialists and younger conservatives, will have to hit the ground running.

"The DPJ has got to come up with an agreed list of priorities quickly, because its manifesto is just a long laundry list," said Koichi Nakano, a professor at Sophia University in Tokyo.

Hatoyama's choice of veteran lawmaker Hirohisa Fujii, 77, as finance minister has soothed some concerns about government spending and the debt burden, but the former finance mandarin moved currency markets even before he was sworn in.

The yen rose 0.9 percent to a new 7-month high against the dollar after he said a strong yen had merits for the economy and that recent currency moves were not rapid.

The choice of Shizuka Kamei, the outspoken head of a tiny coalition partner and an opponent of market-friendly reforms, as minister for banking and market regulation sent bank shares lower with comments on lending.

INDEPENDENT DIPLOMACY, BUDGET BATTLES

Hatoyama's vow to steer Japan on a more independent diplomatic course has sparked concerns about possible friction with top ally the United States ahead of his diplomatic debut there next week, where he will meet President Barack Obama.

The U.S.-educated Hatoyama is expected to reassure Obama over ties and perhaps postpone calls for renegotiation of agreements on U.S. troops stationed in Japan.

"The first step will be to build a trusting relationship with President Obama," Hatoyama said. "Japan has tended to have a passive role in its relationship with the United States. We want an active role. We want the kind of relationship where we can tell one other what we are thinking frankly."