news20090919lat

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

[Sports]
AL ROUNDUP
Mariners turn tables on Mariano Rivera and Yankees
Ichiro Suzuki's two-run homer with two out in the ninth gives Seattle a 3-2 victory over New York and its ace reliever.
September 19, 2009

at Seattle 3, New York 2: Ichiro Suzuki's two-out, two-run homer off Mariano Rivera in the ninth inning won it for the Mariners and Felix Hernandez, who pitched an eight-hitter. It was Rivera's second blown save in 42 chances.


[Nation]
In media blitz, Obama says vitriol isn't racism-based
He'll be all over the Sunday talk shows to promote his healthcare plans.
By Mark Silva
September 19, 2009

Reporting from Washington - Fear of "big changes" and of the growing role of government -- not racism -- are behind much of the criticism that the White House faces, President Obama said during a sweeping series of television interviews to air Sunday.

His media blitz is intended to promote his healthcare plans. But he confronts much more than that issue in the interviews, which will dominate Sunday morning's news shows.

Excerpts were broadcast Friday evening.

In an interview with CBS News, he dismissed skeptics who think higher taxes are inevitable to support his healthcare overhaul. He reiterated that he will not accept any proposal that imposes new taxes on people making less than $250,000 a year.

In a number of interviews, Obama also addressed the tone of a heated summer debate over healthcare, and President Carter's contention that racism underlies critics' Hitler comparisons and other harsh attacks on Obama.

Obama disagreed with Carter, saying that the invective instead reflected the kind of turmoil that is common "when presidents are trying to bring about big changes."

"Are there people out there who don't like me because of race? I'm sure there are," Obama told CNN's John King. "That's not the overriding issue here."

Obama told NBC News’ David Gregory, "Look, I said during the campaign, 'Are there some people who still think through the prism of race when it comes to evaluating me or my candidacy?' Absolutely. Sometimes they vote against me for that reason, sometimes they vote for me for that reason."

He took a longer view of his critics' motivations: "It's an argument that's gone on for the history of this republic, and that is, What's the right role of government? . . . This is not a new argument, and it always invokes passions."

Obama's interviews will air Sunday morning on ABC News' "This Week," CBS News' "Face the Nation," NBC News' "Meet the Press" and CNN's "State of the Union," as well as on the Spanish-language Univision network.

The president also addressed subjects including U.S. troop deployments in Afghanistan and the government's handling of the swine flu.

On CNN, Obama also talked about the criticisms various presidents have encountered. "I think there are people who are anti-government," he said. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was called a communist for his New Deal initiatives, Obama said, and some of the things said about President Reagan "were pretty vicious as well."

Obama was asked by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos if it frustrates him when his own supporters "see racism when you don't think it exists."

"I think that race is such a volatile issue in this society, always has been, that it becomes hard for people to separate out race being a sort of part of the backdrop of American society, versus race being a predominant factor in any given debate," Obama said.

In an interview with CBS News' Bob Schieffer, Obama addressed the harsh tone of the healthcare debate.

"I think that what's driving passions right now is that healthcare has become a proxy for a broader set of issues about how much government should be involved in our economy," Obama told Schieffer. "We can be civil here, we can address [each other] acknowledging that we are all Americans, we are all patriots. . . .

"What's different today is that the 24-hour news cycle" promotes controversy, Obama said. "They focus on the most extreme arguments on both sides. . . . The easiest way to get 15 minutes of fame is to be rude to somebody."

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

[Baseball]
Mariners 3, Yankees 2
Suzuki Beats Rivera With 2 Outs in the Ninth
By TYLER KEPNER
Published: September 19, 2009

SEATTLE — A humbling night for Ichiro Suzuki took a sudden and devastating turn for the Yankees’ Mariano Rivera with two outs in the ninth inning at Safeco Field on Friday.

After two called strikeouts in the ninth, Rivera allowed a double to the right-center-field gap by the pinch-hitter Mike Sweeney. That brought up Suzuki, the major league hits leader, who had singled three times off A. J. Burnett but was twice picked off first base.

Rivera said he wanted his first pitch to be “inside, but deep inside,” off the plate. It did not cut deep enough, and Suzuki lifted it over the fence in right field for a 3-2 Seattle Mariners victory. It was the first game-ending homer for Suzuki since he played for the Orix Blue Wave in Japan.

“Mike Sweeney created an opportunity for us, and I just went with the flow he created,” Suzuki said through an interpreter. “It was an at-bat where I went with my emotions.”

Suzuki became the fifth player to hit a game-ending homer off Rivera, following Bill Selby, Bill Mueller, Vernon Wells and Marco Scutaro. Rivera had converted his last 36 save opportunities, the longest streak of his career. But Sweeney and Suzuki ruined it.

“Two pitches cost the game,” Rivera said. “Beautiful game. To do that is unacceptable.”

Seattle starter Felix Hernandez pitched a complete game, and Rivera’s stumble allowed him to bolster his case for the American League Cy Young Award. Hernandez is 16-5 with a 2.45 earned run average; his main competition is Kansas City’s Zack Greinke, who is 14-8 with a 2.14 E.R.A.

Rivera has a case, too, though snapping his saves streak hurts. He had allowed just one earned run in his last 33 appearances before Suzuki struck.

“It just shows he is human,” Manager Joe Girardi said. “When it happens, you’re somewhat surprised. But nobody’s going to be perfect.”

The blown save wasted seven strong innings from Burnett, who had a 6.14 E.R.A. in his previous nine starts. Seven times in those games, he allowed at least three runs in an inning.

This time, Burnett allowed just one run on seven hits, escaping major damage in the third, when the first four hitters reached base. Burnett said he studied video from last season, making sure to turn properly in his delivery and stay tall over the rubber.

More important, though, was a mental adjustment he made. Burnett said repeatedly after the game that he kept his focus throughout his start.

“I think all of it’s mental,” he said. “We’ve been throwing baseballs for a long time now. You should have an idea of where your mechanics are and how to fix them. It’s just a matter of having the right tools upstairs.”

In the third, Suzuki smacked his second single, but Burnett picked him off. It was a costly blunder, because the next batter, Franklin Gutierrez, doubled to center.

Jose Lopez scored Gutierrez with a single, tying the game, 1-1, and bringing the pitching coach Dave Eiland to the mound. Burnett walked Ken Griffey Jr. for the second time, moving Lopez into scoring position.

But from there, Burnett got the outs he needed. Adrian Beltre popped out to Mark Teixeira in foul ground, and Bill Hall flied to center.

“Focus, that’s the bottom line,” Burnett said. “Not letting things bother me, just worrying about the next pitch. Instead of worrying about what might happen, just taking it upon myself to get out of jams.”

Burnett was in little trouble thereafter. Hall doubled to the wall in left-center in the sixth inning, but Burnett kept him there by striking out Jack Hannahan and Rob Johnson, who had no chance at a 95 mile-an-hour fastball with late movement.

In the seventh, Suzuki singled with one out, and Burnett caught him leaning toward second in his lead. He fired a pickoff throw a bit high, but Teixeira slapped the tag in time and pumped his fist in excitement. Mariners Manager Don Wakamatsu argued with the first base umpire, Mike Reilly, and the fans booed.

“Just guessed right,” Burnett said. “Just tried to mix up my holds and the timing of my holds.”

Phil Hughes followed Burnett with a 1-2-3 eighth inning, and Rivera struck out his first two hitters in the ninth, bringing his career strikeout total to 1,000. But there would not be another on Friday, and there would be no victory for Burnett.

“He pitched outstanding,” Rivera said. “He pitched beautiful. The whole game was beautiful until the end.”

INSIDE PITCH

Andy Pettitte, who missed his last start with shoulder stiffness, threw in the bullpen Friday and will start against the Angels on Monday. “I’ll be satisfied Monday when I get through that start,” Pettitte said. “But it was good to get through my normal, long bullpen session and not have any problems, that’s for sure.” ... The Yankees promoted first baseman Juan Miranda, with the right-hander Ian Kennedy expected to follow soon. Kennedy pitched for Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in the International League playoffs, his first action since an arm aneurysm shut him down in May. ... Dave Robertson played catch before batting practice and said his elbow felt strong. Robertson, who last pitched Sept. 5, will play catch again before throwing off a mound. The Yankees expect him to return before the end of the regular season. ... Reliever Brian Bruney switched to No. 99 from No. 38. He said there was no special reason for the switch. “Why not?” Bruney said.

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

[Europe]
Russia’s Reaction on Missile Plan Leaves Iran Issue Hanging
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY and PETER BAKER
Published: September 18, 2009

MOSCOW — President Obama’s decision to cancel an antimissile defense system in Eastern Europe earned a strong welcome from Russian leaders on Friday. Now, the question is whether Russia will do more to help prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, who had repeatedly assailed the antimissile system as a grave danger to Russia’s security, called Mr. Obama’s decision “correct and brave.” President Dmitri A. Medvedev hinted that Russia would respond favorably to the decision to replace former President George W. Bush’s plan with a missile shield seen as less threatening to Moscow.

Still, neither leader offered any immediate indication that Russia would make specific concessions, especially on Iran, which has become a major stumbling block in relations between the countries. If Russia does not toughen its opposition to Iran’s nuclear program, analysts say, Mr. Obama may be vulnerable to criticism that he yielded to Russian complaints on the antimissile plan but received little in return.

“I hope our administration really thought this through and this was not about appeasing Russia, because I don’t think that justifies the decision,” said Riki Ellison, chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, a nonpartisan group that receives financing from defense contractors as well as private individuals who support missile defense.

The White House described the missile defense announcement as a response to changing Iranian capabilities, not as giving in to Russia, and said there was no quid pro quo. But the Obama administration needs support from Russia, which has veto power in the United Nations Security Council, in order to increase sanctions on Iran. American and European officials argue that Iran has carried out significant advances in recent months in developing a nuclear weapon.

Russia and China so far have resisted taking strong diplomatic steps or imposing tougher sanctions against Iran. Mr. Obama’s decision to remove one of the main irritants in relations between Washington and Moscow seems intended, in part, to alter that diplomatic equation and help increase the chances of addressing the impasse over Iran without resorting to military force.

But Mr. Obama was already facing a backlash on Friday from Congressional Republicans and politicians in Poland and the Czech Republic, nations that have looked to the United States for protection against what they perceive as Russian aggression.

Mr. Obama’s decision on Thursday cancels an antimissile plan proposed by the Bush administration. Mr. Obama replaced the Bush system, which would have been based in Poland and the Czech Republic, with a reconfigured system designed to knock down short- and medium-range missiles instead of intercontinental ones.

The Bush administration had said the system was intended to deter countries like Iran, but the Kremlin had long insisted that it was in fact aimed at Russia.

Mr. Medvedev on Friday maintained that Russia did not feel obligated to respond to the United States as part of some deal. But he added: “There always is a score in politics. And if our partners hear some of our concerns, we will, of course, be more attentive to theirs.”

Mr. Medvedev and Mr. Obama are to meet at the United Nations in New York next week.

Russian officials did indicate that they would withdraw a proposal to base short-range missiles on Russia’s western border, in Kaliningrad, though American officials had not seemed very worried about that Russian plan.

What else Russia might do to respond was a topic of speculation in both Washington and Moscow on Friday. One issue was whether the Kremlin, after more closely examining the new Obama antimissile plan, would voice new protests about it.

Mr. Obama ordered the development of a system that would deploy smaller SM-3 missile interceptors in 2011, at first on ships, later on land in Europe. They are aimed mostly at short- and medium-range Iranian missiles. At least as currently designed, they are not capable of destroying Russia’s intercontinental missiles, though they are expected to be eventually upgraded, Obama administration officials said.

The Obama plan calls for dozens and eventually possibly even hundreds of the smaller interceptors, not just the 10 larger ones included in Mr. Bush’s plan.

Pavel Y. Felgenhauer, a military analyst who writes a column for Novaya Gazeta, an opposition newspaper in Moscow, said he doubted that the Kremlin would be able to complain about the new plan. Mr. Felgenhauer emphasized that the Kremlin had opposed the Bush system because it believed, on the advice of the Russian military, that the system was intended not to bring down Iranian missiles, but to give the United States the potential to make a crippling first strike against Russia.

Also on Friday, in another sign of a warming in relations, NATO called for new cooperation with Moscow, including possibly on antimissile systems.

In his first major foreign policy speech, which was coordinated with the White House, NATO’s new secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, proposed a “genuine new beginning of our relationship with Russia” and said the West and Russia had a shared interest in opposing proliferation of missile technology.

Some Obama supporters in Washington said the remarks by Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev did not necessarily help Mr. Obama.

“Critics will inevitably make hay of the positive comments,” said Mark Medish, a former Russia expert in the Clinton White House and now a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Much as in the Soviet days, Moscow’s praise can be seen as a political kiss of death for Western counterparts. But the criticism misses the point that Mr. Obama has made a hardheaded calculation based on U.S. national security interests and strategic priorities.”

The Obama administration continued to use Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, a Republican first appointed by Mr. Bush, to explain the new plan and deflect criticism. Mr. Gates met with the Czech defense minister, Martin Bartak, in Washington on Friday and offered more reassurances that the United States was not abandoning Eastern Europe.

Even so, some analysts in Washington contended that Mr. Obama had sacrificed the Bush system in order to reach a broader arrangement with Russia that was by no means assured.

Mr. Ellison, the missile defense advocate, said that if the mobile SM-3 interceptors that the Obama administration planned to deploy instead of the Bush system were genuinely effective, “the Russians should be much more concerned about having hundreds of interceptors in this system that could potentially shoot down missiles in and around Europe.”

The fact that Russia is not, he said, “validates to me that the SM-3 system won’t be at that level for long-range ballistic missiles.”

Clifford J. Levy reported from Moscow, and Peter Baker from Washington. Stephen Castle contributed reporting from Brussels.

news20090919wp1

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

[MLB]
Suzuki Gives Seattle Stunning Win
Mariners 3, Yankees 2
By TIM BOOTH
The Associated Press
Saturday, September 19, 2009; 1:24 AM

SEATTLE -- Ichiro Suzuki hit a two-out, two-run homer off New York closer Mariano Rivera and the Seattle Mariners stunned the Yankees 3-2 on Friday night.

Pinch-hitter Mike Sweeney kept the ninth inning alive with a two-out double to deep right-center field. Suzuki then jumped on the first pitch from Rivera for his 10th homer of the season and second straight day with a game-winning hit. Suzuki had the winning hit in the 14th inning of Seattle's 4-3 win over Chicago. It was Suzuki's third career hit off the Yankees' closer. It was Rivera's second blown save of the season, having allowed a two-run homer to Boston's Jason Bay on April 24.

Suzuki's homer made a winner out of Seattle ace Felix Hernandez, who pitched a seven-hitter.

Suzuki's homer was a stunning turn after Rivera (3-3) overpowered Jack Hannahan and Mike Carp, striking out the pair to open the ninth for his 999th and 1,000th career strikeouts. Sweeney then sliced Rivera's pitch over the head of right-fielder Nick Swisher to keep the inning alive before Suzuki's game-winner.

After being chased into center field by his teammates after Thursday's game-winning hit, Suzuki slowly trotted to the plate and was mobbed by them.

It was only the second time since June that Rivera has given up a run.

The night became a surprise victory for Hernandez (16-5), who bolstered his resume in the AL Cy Young award race by beating the best team in the American League. Hernandez tossed his second complete game of the season, throwing just 104 pitches and lowering his ERA in September to a minuscule 0.58.

Rivera's blown save also overshadowed a solid outing by Yankees' starter A.J. Burnett. The Yankees needed to see Burnett regain some of the command he had earlier in the season when he built a 10-4 record over his first 20 starts, and not the wildly inconsistent performances of the last six weeks where Burnett was 1-5 with an ERA of 6.14.
Burnett gave up seven hits and struck out six, raising his season total to 173. He also walked three and hit a batter.

Burnett was also helped by a pair of key pick off moves to get Suzuki. Suzuki led off the third with a single, but was immediately nabbed at first when he slipped trying to dive back to the bag. That out was magnified as Franklin Gutierrez followed with a double that likely would have scored Suzuki. Gutierrez later scored on Jose Lopez's single, his career-high 90th RBI of the season.

Then in the seventh, Suzuki reached on an infield single with one out, but was picked off again. Replays appeared to show Suzuki sliding his hand back on the bag before Mark Teixeira got the tag applied. Seattle manager Don Wakamatsu came out and gave one of his most animated arguments of the year with first base umpire Mike Reilly.

New York only got to Hernandez twice, capitalizing on the few times the Mariners' young ace missing high in the strike zone.

Johnny Damon had two doubles and a single in his first three at-bats, and scored the go ahead run in the sixth. After lining a double past the diving attempt of Hannahan, Damon advanced to third on a passed ball and scored on Teixeira's fly ball to deep left field.

Damon's double in the first also moved Derek Jeter to third, and Jeter later scored on Alex Rodriguez's line drive to center, beating Gutierrez's throw to the plate.

NOTES: Wakamatsu said before the game that the Mariners may consider throwing Hernandez on four days rest in the season finale on Oct. 4 vs. Texas. ... Yankees LHP Andy Pettitte threw a full bullpen session and expects to start Monday night against the AL West leading Angels. Pettitte was scratched from his last start with fatigue in his pitching shoulder.

news20090919wp2

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

[World > Middle East]
Israel Finds Strength in Its Missile Defenses
Advanced System Could Alter Strategic Decisions in Region
By Howard Schneider
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 19, 2009

ASHKELON, Israel -- As it pushes for international action against Iran's nuclear program, Israel is steadily assembling one of the world's most advanced missile defense systems, a multi-layered collection of weapons meant to guard against a variety of threats, including the shorter-range Grads used to strike Israeli towns like this one and intercontinental rockets.

The effort, partly financed by the United States and incorporating advanced American radar and other technology, has been progressing quietly for two decades. But Israeli defense and other analysts say it has now reached a level of maturity that could begin changing the nature of strategic decisions in the region. Centered on the Arrow 2 antimissile system, which has been deployed, the project is being extended to include a longer-range Arrow 3, the David's Sling interceptor designed to hit lower- and slower-flying cruise missiles, and the Iron Dome system intended to destroy Grads, Katyushas, Qassams and other shorter-range projectiles fired from the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon.

With the Arrow system in operation and the Iron Dome due for deployment next year, Israel "has something to stabilize the situation: the knowledge that an attack will fail," said Uzi Rubin, a private defense consultant who ran Israel's missile shield program in the 1990s. Iran, he said, now cannot be assured of a successful first strike against Israel, while groups such as Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon may find one of their favored tactics undermined.

Advances in Iran's rocket technology, coupled with its nuclear program, are chief concerns of the United States and Europe, as well as of Israel and other Middle Eastern countries. Alongside diplomatic efforts to persuade Iran to curb its nuclear research, missile defense programs have been designed with that country in mind.

The Obama administration decided this week to scrap a Bush-era plan to deploy a longer-range-missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland, and said it would move toward a more intermediate system that better matches its assessment of Iran's capabilities.

In Israel, the issue is considered a top foreign policy priority. There have been varying Israeli assessments about Iran's progress toward a nuclear weapon: The head of the Mossad intelligence agency told a parliament committee over the summer that Iran may be five years away from acquiring an atom bomb, but the head of military intelligence has said it could happen by the end of this year.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, sees Iran's program as an imminent danger. It "is something that threatens Israel and threatens the region and threatens the peace of the world," he said during a recent visit to Germany. "There is not much time."

A recent unannounced trip by Netanyahu to Russia was thought by some Israeli analysts to be linked to the broad set of issues regarding Iran, including Russia's possible sale of advanced antiaircraft missiles to Tehran and the likelihood that Israel will strike Iran's nuclear facilities if the United States and Europe cannot find another solution.

But the steady growth of Israel's missile defenses sheds a different light on the country's military doctrine and sense of vulnerability.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said this week that he did not consider Iran's nuclear program an "existential issue" because "Israel is strong." Part of that strength lies in its nuclear capabilities -- never acknowledged but widely presumed to exist -- and part in the assumption that the United States would stand behind Israel if it came under attack. But it also rests in the calculation that enough of the country's air bases and other military facilities would survive a first strike to retaliate effectively.

The sort of deterrence -- guaranteed retaliation -- that the United States and then-Soviet Union once achieved by deploying nuclear warheads in submarines and keeping bombers aloft is what Israel is striving for through its antimissile systems.

Iran "is radical, but radical does not mean irrational," Rubin, the defense consultant, said. "They want to change the world, not commit suicide."

Israel's program had its origins in the 1980s and grew out of concern about Syria's suspected acquisition of chemical weapons. It took on added urgency in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when nearly 40 Iraqi Scud missiles hit the Tel Aviv area.

The Arrow was deployed in 2000, and Israel and the United States have since conducted a joint, biennial missile defense exercise, called Juniper Cobra, to work on integrating the weapons, radars and other systems of the two countries. Israel, for example, has the advanced U.S. X-Band radar stationed in the Negev desert. Israeli defense industry officials say the country also has almost real-time access to some U.S. satellite data, an important part of its early-warning system.

The next joint exercise is scheduled for October.

As concern shifted to the threat of long-range missiles from Iran -- the countries are about 700 miles apart at the closest point, well within the known range of Iranian missiles -- it also focused on the shorter-range weapons that Hezbollah and Hamas have turned on Israel in the past few years.

The rockets fired by Hezbollah at northern Israel during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war led Israeli officials to accelerate work on a short-range-missile defense system, as did recent Grad strikes against Ashkelon, a Mediterranean city of about 120,000 people and the site of major electricity, desalinization and other facilities.

As it stands, "we have no defenses, no shelters, no public buildings being protected," said Alan Marcus, the city's director of strategic planning and architect of a plan developed to cope with the about 80 missile strikes since 2006.

"What do we do? Close the beach and tell people there might be a missile attack?" Marcus said.

Beginning next year, Israeli officials say, the Iron Dome system should provide some relief. The mobile launchers initially will be placed around towns and facilities near the Gaza Strip, but they ultimately may be deployed in locations nationwide.

The system has sparked some controversy. It has not, for example, proved effective against mortar shells and could leave the towns closest to the border areas vulnerable, including chief targets such as Sderot. Critics have pushed for other systems, including a chemical-laser one that Israel was jointly developing with the United States, or the rapid-fire Phalanx guns that can be used to protect key facilities such as power plants.

There is also concern that militant groups could try to overwhelm the system by firing large barrages of comparatively cheap, homemade Qassams -- perhaps not expecting to do damage so much as forcing Israel to spend tens of thousands of dollars a shot to knock them down.

But Israeli officials say systems such as Iron Dome are crucial to the country's military planning -- in terms of preventing damage and diminishing the need to retaliate.

Although many of the rockets fired by Hamas and Hezbollah land on empty land, "one of these times one of the Qassams will hit a bus, and then the government will have to make a decision" about how to react, said Shlomo Dror, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces. "There is a bigger issue here than how much it costs. It is going to give us some answers."

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[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[News > Politics > Defence policy]
Aircraft carriers may not be built, says navy head
Richard Norton-Taylor
guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 September 2009 22.18 BST Article history

The head of the navy today conceded that the decision to build two large aircraft carriers could be overturned. Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope said that although contracts had been signed to build HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, next year's defence review could cause those plans to change. He was speaking on board HMS Illustrious in the presence of the weapons procurement minister, Lady Taylor, who said plans to build a second carrier are "still active".

George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, appeared to cast doubt on the Conservatives' commitment to build the carriers, saying he did not know what the "break clauses" were in the contracts.

Greenpeace predicted that the new carriers would cost £5bn to build, compared with the latest official estimate of £3.9bn. It said operating the carriers, equipping them with F35 strike aircraft, and deploying ships to protect the carriers at sea, could bring the total bill for the project to more than £33bn.Stanhope said the navy was bracing itself for cuts under the defence review. "Alongside the other two services we will have to make some difficult decisions," he said, adding that a balance needed to be struck between the number of ships and submarines the nation could afford and the range of capabilities they offered. "Once capabilities are lost, they can't be plucked from a hat," he added.

One compromise is to cut the number of F35 aircraft. Some navy chiefs believe there are cheaper options and that cheaper carriers could be built as platforms for helicopters and unmanned drones. They also point to the need for fast ships to cope with the growth in piracy.


[News > UK news > E coli]
E coli fears lead to closure of fourth farm
Sarah Boseley
guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 September 2009 21.51 BST Article history

A fourth children's petting farm was closed tonight as health experts investigated a potential link with three people who have been infected with E coli.

World of Country Life farm, in Exmouth, Devon, was shut on the advice of East Devon District Council and the Health Protection Agency (HPA). The agency said it was "acting on information that potentially linked the farm with three individuals with confirmed E coli O157 infection". The farm has closed voluntarily while the local authority, the HPA and its partners conduct an investigation.

Earlier, White Post farm in Nottinghamshire shut its gates on HPA advice after a second case was confirmed of a particular strain of E coli 0157. The HPA said that it was conducting a full epidemiological investigation.

The closure follows an outbreak in Surrey that affected 49 people and resulted in some children suffering kidney failure.

The HPA has announced an external inquiry into the outbreak at Godstone farm in Surrey, which will examine not only the source of the infection, but also the agency's handling of the crisis. This week the HPA's chief executive, Justin McCracken, apologised to parents after acknowledging that two early cases reported to the agency appeared to have been overlooked. Had staff acted promptly, fewer children would have become ill.

Among the children who became seriously ill are two-year-old twin boys who suffered kidney failure. All the children are now recovering.

Horton Park children's farm in Epsom, the sister farm to Godstone, closed voluntarily because of "unsatisfactory" hygiene arrangements, even though no E coli cases had been reported., because of "unsatisfactory" hygiene arrangements.

"The hygiene arrangements were found to be unsatisfactory and the HPA advised the local authority that the farm should be closed immediately while these defects were rectified," said a spokesperson for the agency.

A spokeswoman for Horton Park said the decision to close the farm was made because of the perceived "slight risk" of more children contracting E coli.

E coli is found in human and animal intestines. It is most often caused by food contamination, or by person-to-person spread. Only about one in 50 cases is caused by petting animals on a farm.

The HPA said it was aware of two other cases of E.coli linked to White Post farm, although they were different strains of the bug. "Where there are different strains of E. coli involved, as there are in this case, there is uncertainty about whether there is a shared source of infection," the agency said in a statement. "The HPA has advised closure of the farm on a precautionary basis to protect the public health while the investigation continues."

The total number of cases now linked to Godstone Farm stood yesterday at 49, the HPA said. The number has been rising because of the long incubation period of the infection.


[Environment > 10:10 > climate change campain]
Lib Dem party calls on its local councils to join 10:10 campaign
A motion calling on all Liberal Democrat councils to cut emissions 10% by 2010 will be put before the party's annual conference next week
Felicity Carus
guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 September 2009 17.15 BST Article history

The Liberal Democrat leadership plans to mandate all its local councils to cut their carbon emissions by 10% in 2010.

A motion proposing the carbon reductions will be put before the party's annual conference in Bournemouth next week and, if passed, will be the first formal policy commitment by any political party in response to the 10:10 climate change campaign. Nationwide the Lib-Dems control 26 local authorities and hold 4,083 council seats.

The 10:10 campaign – which is supported by the Guardian – is an initiative launched this month to encourage people, businesses and organisations to reduce their carbon footprint by 10% by the end of next year. Nearly 18,000 people have joined the 10:10 campaign, including Gordon Brown and the cabinet as well as the Tory front bench and the Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg. Over 700 businesses are also on board including Royal Mail and Tottenham Hotspur.

"The 10:10 campaign shows what can be achieved if the political will is there. Cutting emissions by 10% within 2010 is ambitious but realistic," said Simon Hughes, the Lib Dem spokesman for energy and climate change.

The motion, which will be voted on by the conference on Tuesday, will also call on all party members to sign up personally including elected representatives in Westminster, Cardiff, Holyrood and Brussels. Hughes has already called on the speaker of the house, John Bercow, to sign parliament up to the campaign but the motion will go a stage further by calling on the government to make a national commitment to cut UK emissions by 10%.

If the motion is passed next week, 10:10's organisers hope that Labour and the Tories will follow suit at their party conferences this autumn. The campaign manager, Daniel Vockins, said: "This lays down the gauntlet for the other political parties, and is a much higher target than local councils are currently committed to and hopefully lays the groundwork for deeper cuts ... This is exactly the kind of ambition we need to see from all political parties now."

Some Lib Dem led councils have already signed up to 10:10 including Camden, Cambridge, Eastleigh, Islington, Oldham, Richmond and Southwark. Sheffield and Bristol are also considering signing up. Alexis Rowel, a Camden councillor said the campaign is gaining real momentum among councils. "There is a big, inspiring effect going on here and also a grassroots push from residents. In the four years that I have been councillor, there has been nothing more significant than getting councils to sign up to 10:10."

Around 25 out of 434 UK councils have already signed up, but as well as cutting their own emissions as organisations, the Hughes conference motion also targets businesses, organisations and residents within local authorities. "Effective action on climate change is also about individuals and communities," he said.

What you can do

1. Help 10:10 reach its 20,000th sign-up by pledging your own cut at 1010uk.org. If you've signed up already, persuade a friend or relative (better still, lots of them) to join.

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news20090919gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[World news > Trafigura and the Probo Koala]
Trafigura offers £1,000 each to toxic dumping victimsIvory Coast claimants would share £30m payout equally, with no extra for worst affected and nothing for relatives of the dead
David Leigh
guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 September 2009 16.47 BST Article history

The 30,000 victims of a toxic waste disaster in Ivory Coast are being offered £1,000 each in compensation, a representative of the survivors said today.

Sources in Abidjan, the country's main city, said about 20,000 of the victims of the toxic dumping had so far been told of the offer by the oil trading firm Trafigura and virtually all had accepted. But one quoted by Reuters said he would have preferred a graduated offer according to the severity of alleged injuries.

The payout offer would amount to about £30m in total, which represents slightly more than 10% of Trafigura's declared annual profits. It represents less than the £100m cheque Trafigura wrote in 2007 to the country's government to pay for a clean-up and to make some payments to the families of 16 people who had died.

That previous payment, which the company made without any admission of liability, led to the release of the company president, Claude Dauphin, from an Ivorian jail and the scrapping of criminal prosecutions there.

The confidential negotiations are likely to include a further payment for the costs of the British law firm Leigh Day, which took on the case on a no-win, no-fee basis and is thought to have risked more than £10m. Leigh Day's original claim for the victims was for another £100m, which would have given them just over £3,000 each.

Trafigura did not comment on the reported size of the deal or on suggestions the amounts were too low. The victims' lawyer, Martyn Day, who is in Abidjan consulting his clients, also declined to comment.

Marvin Outtarra, described as the president of the Union of Victims of Toxic Waste, told Reuters: "This compensation to be shared equally among all the victims doesn't work for me. Trafigura has given no compensation to the families of the deceased and the amount of compensation of 750,000 CFA francs does not vary based on the severity of the injuries." London-based Trafigura declared profits of $440m (£270m) last year on turnover of more than $70bn. Its traders are reported to receive annual bonuses of up to $1m.

The existence of negotiations to pay out Trafigura victims was announced this week as the company faced publication of damning internal emails in the Guardian, on the BBC and in the Netherlands and Norway. They revealed Trafigura knew that its waste from processing contaminated fuel was highly toxic and banned in Europe. Company traders referred to it as "shit".

Trafigura arranged for it to be dumped cheaply in Ivory Coast in 2006. Thousands of inhabitants of Abidjan subsequently besieged hospitals, saying they were choking, vomiting and had skin eruptions. A UN report this week found there was "strong prima facie evidence" Trafigura's waste was to blame.

news20090919nn1

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 18 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.931
News
Water on the Moon?
Separate lunar missions indicate evidence of ice and hydrated minerals.
By Eric Hand

A decade ago Faith Vilas, director of the Multiple Mirror Telescope in Arizona, developed a sideline obsession with the Moon. Perusing archived data from the Galileo mission to Jupiter, she saw something odd in the pictures taken of the Moon. When she filtered the pictures for certain infrared wavelengths, a telling signal popped out at a few spots near the Moon's south pole. The signal, at least in asteroids, is associated with phyllosilicates, which are minerals that need two things to form: heat and water. Was this a clue pointing to all the water ice that many think hides within the Moon's polar craters?

She thought so, and submitted an abstract to the 1999 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. But for years she couldn't get the idea published. "It kept getting roundly slapped down," she says.

Now, she's being vindicated. Results soon to be published from two other spacecraft will show detailed spectra confirming that, indeed, the polar regions of the moon are chock full of water-altered minerals.

That's not all. Early results from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), launched on 18 June, are offering a wide array of watery signals. Increasingly, lunar scientists are confident that the decades-long debate is over. The Moon, in fact, has water in all sorts of places: not just locked up in minerals, but scattered throughout the broken-up surface, and, potentially, in blocks or sheets of ice at depth.

{“We are on the verge of a renaissance in our thinking about the poles of the Moon, including how water ice gets there.”
Anthony Colaprete
Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite}

"We are on the verge of a renaissance in our thinking about the poles of the Moon, including how water ice gets there," says Anthony Colaprete, principal investigator for the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), which on 9 October will slam into a polar crater with the intention of ploughing up a plume of water ice for many telescopic eyes to see. "Our simplistic ideas were just that: simplistic."

The new evidence has scientists scratching their heads, not only to explain the origin and movements of the water, but also at how a tantalizing signal first seen a decade ago could have been left for so long. "No one really took [Vilas' work] seriously," says one lunar scientist with knowledge of the new studies, which are to be published in Science. "It wasn't until word got out that people suspected and went and looked."

Hydrogen excess

The initial LRO results, released Thursday, confirm what was long suspected as a way for ice to stay trapped on the Moon for billions of years. A thermal mapping instrument showed that permanently shadowed regions within deep polar craters are as cold as 35o Kelvin (–238o Celsius). Project scientist Richard Vondrak says they are the coldest spots in the Solar System — even colder than the surface of Pluto.

But the surprise comes from a different instrument on LRO, which counts slow-moving neutrons as a way of measuring hydrogen abundance in the top metre or so of the surface. This hydrogen is often interpreted as a proxy for water ice, although it could also be molecular hydrogen or hydrogen trapped in other molecules. Like the earlier Lunar Prospector mission, the LRO instrument has already found a significant excess of hydrogen at the poles. But with added resolution, it is seeing surprising variability within the polar regions. Some of the craters appear enriched in hydrogen. Others are not. Stranger still, some areas outside the crater walls — which were thought to get too hot for water to linger — show an excess of hydrogen. Vondrak says this shows that the water could have arrived more recently, or that it can persist if buried as impacts till the lunar soil.

The radar instrument on LRO, which probes for chunks or blocks of ice, rather than the more diffuse signal of the neutron detector, is showing similar variability, says Stewart Nozette, principal investigator for the radar instrument. At the south pole, he is seeing strong ice-like signals in the floors of a few deep craters. But unfortunately, he says, there is no strong signal for Cabeus A, the crater that NASA announced on 9 September as the crash site for LCROSS.

Colaprete is worried about the weak radar signal at Cabeus A, and in light of the new data has delayed a final LCROSS manoeuvre. He will make a final decision on Monday or Tuesday in advance of a 26 September deadline for altering the spacecraft's trajectory. The main Cabeus crater is the current best alternative to Cabeus A, he says.

Deep impact

If the LCROSS impact spews up ice, it will eliminate the last vestiges of doubt about water on the Moon. It could also start a new hunt: to find a record of impact events, such as water-rich comet strikes, that put the ice there in the first place. These, if they were ever dated, Vondrak says, could offer similar value to ice cores in Antarctica — a way to understand an ancient bombardment history that has been erased on Earth but could live on in the craters of the Moon (see 'The hole at the bottom of the Moon').

With the detection of water ice will come debate over the mechanisms that put it there. There are two popular theories. One suggests comets from the ancient heavy bombardment that peaked 3.9 billion years ago. These impacts would have buried large doses of water deep under the surface. But others think that a more continuous, shallow system of water deposition could be happening — one water source in this system could be micrometeorites, which impact frequently and carry small amounts of water.

Another source could be the solar wind, which sends a steady stream of protons into the surface, where they can combine with oxygen in the lunar soil to make water. Most of that water quickly erodes into space, but some of it can travel, via random molecular walks, to the polar traps, where it can persist. The variability in the hydrogen and radar signals between craters suggests the sporadic impacts of comets long ago, but the signals outside the crater walls could suggest a more continuous shallow emplacement. Vondrak says both theories could be partially right. "It's not either-or," he says.

Meanwhile, lunar scientists are eagerly awaiting data from two groups investigating the hydrated minerals in polar areas outside the permanently shadowed craters (the only place where instruments that depend on reflected light can see). Observations made during the extended mission of the Deep Impact probe, and from the Moon Mineralogy Mapper, an instrument aboard India's recently ended Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, will be published in Science, and will show more detailed spectroscopic evidence for the types of watery minerals that Vilas saw in the Galileo pictures so long ago.

Vilas herself finally published her result last year in a Japanese journal¹. "I'm annoyed that it was ignored some years ago," she says, "but I'm really thrilled that it's being proven the case."

References
1. Vilas, F. et al. Earth Planets Space 60, 67– 74 (2008).

news20090919nn2

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 18 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.930
News
Arctic sea ice levels third-lowest on record
No sign that long-term trend is reversing, scientists caution.
By Quirin Schiermeier

Arctic sea ice has declined slightly less dramatically this year than in the past couple of years. But the seasonal minimum, reached this week, is still the third-lowest on record since satellite radar measurements began in 1979, reinforcing a marked 30-year downward trend in summertime ice extent.

Scientists with the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder announced yesterday that the 5.1 million square kilometres sea-ice extent observed on 12 September is the lowest point of the year. With Arctic autumn days getting cooler, and sunlight rapidly fading after the equinox next week, sea ice will now enter its six-month growth cycle again.

"We've turned the corner," says Mark Serreze, a sea-ice expert with the NSIDC.

Dwindling summertime sea-ice extent is a prime indicator of climate change at high northern latitudes, which in the past decades have warmed faster than most other parts of the planet. As ice reflects back some of the sunlight that reaches the surface, reduced ice cover further accelerates the warming trend.

But this year's minimum is almost one million square kilometres — around twice the size of Spain — above that for 2007, when the minimum sea-ice extent dropped to its lowest ever, at 4.1 million square kilometres. In 2008, the second-lowest year on record, the minimum sea-ice extent clocked in at 4.52 million square kilometres.

Downward spiral

The modest recovery this year, says Serreze, was probably thanks to a shift in late-summer weather patterns. The typical combination of a high-pressure system over the Beaufort Sea and low pressure over eastern Siberia, which carries a lot of warm air across the Siberian Sea and pushes the ice edge towards the pole, broke down in August, preserving the remaining ice pack.

But there is no indication that 2009 marks the beginning of a trend reversal, scientists stress. This year's minimum was in fact low enough to reinforce the long-term negative trend, says Bill Chapman, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The 2009 minimum is 1.28 million square kilometres below the 1979–2008 average summer minimum, and 1.61 million square kilometres below the 1979–2000 average minimum.

"There's no reason to think that the downward trajectory will abate," Chapman says. "This was a pretty normal season. Rather quiet weather actually, with not much blowing around of ice. And yet we have seen this whole lot of melting, and Arctic ship routes opening up for several weeks."

Since 2004, when satellite-based observations of ice thickness first became available, laser-altimetry measurements have indicated a substantial drop in the overall volume of multi-year sea ice. If the melt season starts out with thin ice in spring it takes less energy to melt large patches of ice during summer than if the ice pack had been solidly thick at the onset.

"Favourable atmospheric patterns just add to the melting," says Serreze. "Twenty years ago they would not nearly have had the same effect. The much thicker ice then could have easily taken some punishment from wind and sun."

Ice retreat

Climate models disagree as to when the Arctic Ocean might be ice-free in summer, but some scientists think it might happen as early as 2030. Apart from possibly harmful effects on Arctic species that have adapted to the annual cycle of ice growth and melt, open-ocean conditions during summer months will have considerable implications for disputes over military operations, sea routes and mineral and oil exploration.

"We're entering a new epoch of sea-ice melt in the Arctic Ocean due to climate change," says Peter Wadhams, an oceanographer at the University of Cambridge, UK, who is conducting research in the Fram Strait off Greenland aboard the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise. "In five years' time most of the sea ice could be gone in summer with just an 'Alamo of ice' remaining north of Ellesmere Island."

Puzzlingly, the trend in Antarctica is in stark contrast to what is going on in the Arctic. Having reached its largest seasonal extension, Antarctic sea-ice extent is some 400,000 square kilometres higher than the 1979-2000 average winter maximum. Scientists think that ozone depletion and increased evaporation and snowfall in the Southern Ocean might explain the abundance of ice around Antarctica.

news20090919nn3

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 18 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.928
News
Fungus genome boosts fight to save North American forests
DNA sequence could advance efforts to control pine beetle infestations.
By Elie Dolgin

The pine beetle is at the centre of a sustained sequencing effort.Ron Long, Simon Fraser University, Bugwood.orgCanadian researchers have decoded the DNA of the tree-killing fungus found in the mouths of mountain pine beetles, the destructive bugs that wipe out entire North American forests. Further genome sequencing of the beetle and pine tree species should help forest managers design better pest-control tactics, the authors say.

"It's really getting to a systems-level understanding of the mountain pine beetle epidemic," says study co-author Jörg Bohlmann, a chemical ecologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, who is leading the Can$11.9m (US$11.1m) multi-species genome initiative. "What really happens in nature is not confined to one species, but is happening at the intersection when one species interacts with another."

Mountain pine beetles (Dendroctonus ponderosae) have eaten their way through vast swathes of western North American pine forests, including around 15 million hectares in British Columbia alone. As the burrowing beetles tunnel under the bark to feed and lay eggs, they release spores of the blue-stain fungus (Grosmannia clavigera), which stops the production of a protective toxic resin released by the tree and allows the beetles to continue to infest.

Dynamic decoding

Bohlmann and his colleagues assembled the fungus's 32.5-million-base-pair genome, which is around a hundredth the size of the human genome, using a combination of next-generation and traditional sequencing technologies — the first time that a complex eukaryotic organism has been sequenced from scratch using such a hybrid approach and then published in a peer-reviewed journal. The genome was reported online this month in the journal Genome Biology1.

"They've done a very careful analysis of what factors contribute to the different types of quality you can get" with next-generation sequencing, says Steve Rounsley, a genome researcher at the University of Arizona in Tucson, who was not involved in the study.

{“It's really going to push science in a big way.”
Brian Aukema
Canadian Forestry Service}

For the other two species — the beetle and the tree — the researchers are concentrating mainly on expressed gene sequences, fragments of the complete DNA sequence, rather than the genomes in their entirety. They've already amassed one of the largest insect libraries of gene transcripts for the bark beetle from more than a dozen beetle life stages and body parts. The lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) and jack pine (Pinus banksiana) are still at a much earlier stage of sequencing.

The goal, says Dezene Huber, a chemical ecologist at the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, Canada, is to predict the dynamics between the organisms under various climatic conditions. "We should be able to look at particular genes and say which population of trees is interacting with which population of fungus and which population of beetles," he says.

"It's really going to push science in a big way," says Brian Aukema of the Canadian Forestry Service in Prince George, who plans to incorporate the genomic data into landscape ecological models. "Once you have that information, you can hopefully feed that into models and understand where these beetle populations might be the most susceptible to treatments, intervention strategies and mitigation."

Fungal blues

Multi-species genomic interactions have been studied for some human diseases, including malaria, and a few symbiotic ecological relationships such as leaf-cutter ants and their microbial partners, but the approach has never before been applied on this scale for an outbreaking forest nuisance.

Already, the University of British Columbia researchers, led by mycologist Colette Breuil, have taken the fungus genome, pinpointed the gene responsible for staining the pine wood blue and created a knockout strain that does not produce any pigment. The blue staining reduces the commercial value of affected timber, but it is not clear what role the colouring plays in driving infestation. The researchers are now testing this strain to tease that apart.

But the full utility of the fungus genome might only be realized after other related species are also sequenced, says Diana Six, who studies the interaction between bark beetles and fungi at the University of Montana in Missoula. Comparing the blue-stain fungus with free-living or pathogenic fungi will shed light on how the beneficial fungus helps the beetles thrive, she says. "You need more than one [genome] to do that."

Using genomics to stop the bark beetles is a "bit of a long shot, for sure", admits Chris Keeling, a research associate in Bohlmann's lab. But it might offer the best strategy for containing the forest pests, which have already started to jump host species from lodgepole pine, which is found only west of the Rockies, to jack pine, which stretches east across the entire continent. "We might be able to tweak the system to reduce the beetle populations or prevent them from spreading further east," Keeling says.

References
1. DiGuistini, S. et al. Genome Biol. 10, R94 (2009) available online at http://genomebiology.com/2009/10/9/R94.

news20090919bbc

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

[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 12:15 GMT, Saturday, 19 September 2009 13:15 UK
Thailand rocked by rival protests
Thousands of troops were deployed in Thailand as rival political groups held separate protests, one of which turned violent.

Crowds of demonstrators turned out in Bangkok to mark the third anniversary of the coup which ousted controversial Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Far away on the border, an anti-Thaksin group clashed with police as it tried to enter a disputed border temple.

Several people were injured and one man was shot in the neck, an official said.

Security forces and local villagers had set up roadblocks to try to prevent the group entering the 11th century Preah Vihear site, the scene of deadly shootings between Cambodian and Thai troops in recent months.

Election call

In Bangkok, thousands of troops and police were ordered onto the streets ahead of the protest by Mr Thaksin's red-shirted supporters.

Mr Thaksin himself is in overseas exile, after being convicted in absentia of corruption.

He won elections in 2001 and 2005, swept to office by a wave of support from rural voters whose concerns he worked to address. After he was ousted, his allies won the first post-coup elections in 2007.

But protests - including a blockade of Bangkok's two international airports - by those who opposed him, the yellow-shirted People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), forced that government from office, allowing the party they backed to form a coalition.

The red camp want fresh elections and a pardon for Mr Thaksin. Their last rally, in April, ended in violence, with several buses burned and dozens of people injured.

By early evening, several thousand demonstrators had joined the protests, police said.

"This will be a peaceful protest and will end by midnight if the government does not use violence," Red Shirt leader Jatuporn Promphan said.

Temple tensions

The yellow camp, meanwhile, battled riot police and local villagers near Preah Vihear, the temple complex at the heart of a border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia.

An international court awarded the temple area to Cambodia in 1962, but disputes over land surrounding it have never been resolved.

The PAD says the government must eject Cambodian troops from what they perceive as Thai territory.

About 4,000 PAD supporters had joined the protest, reports said, and had broken through barricades to reach the foot of the temple.

Both Thailand and Cambodia deployed troops there last year after the temple was awarded Unesco World Heritage status, raising nationalist sentiment on either side.

Since then there have been several deadly exchanges of fire across the border.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 02:17 GMT, Saturday, 19 September 2009 03:17 UK
Earthquake strikes off Bali coast
An earthquake off the Indonesian holiday island of Bali has sent people running from their homes in panic.

At least seven people have been injured - some were hurt jumping from buildings while others had been hit by falling debris, an official said.

The quake - measuring 5.8 according to the US Geological Survey - struck at dawn 75km (45 miles) south of Denpasar.

No tsunami warning was issued and there were few reports of serious material damage, local officials said.

{ I heard a loud growling, then the entire house shook... the water in the swimming pool was making waves
Bhagawati Morriss,
Denpasar, Indonesia}

"I was frightened because it was strong," Dutch tourist Ernst Raynaldo was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

"I ran out immediately as I saw many others rushing into the swimming pool," the closest open space.

"When the quake happened I was in a market and some people started shouting and running out of the market building, leaving their belongings behind," Putu Suartana, a resident in Singaraja in Bali, was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.

The roof of a shopping centre in Denpasar collapsed.

Two weeks ago, an earthquake on the main Indonesian island of Java left at least 50 dead.

In December 2004, an earthquake off the coast of Sumatra in Indonesia triggered a tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people around Asia.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, one of the most active areas for earthquakes and volcanic activity in the world.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 07:36 GMT, Saturday, 19 September 2009 08:36 UK
Indonesia militant confirmed dead
DNA tests have proven beyond doubt that Indonesia's most-wanted Islamist militant Noordin Mohamed Top is dead, police say.

The man wanted for a series of deadly attacks across the archipelago was among four killed in a raid on Thursday near Solo city in central Java.

After the raid, police had immediately identified Malaysian-born Noordin using fingerprint records.

On Saturday they said "the DNA also matches 100%".

National police spokesman Nanan Soekarna told a news conference:

"There is no doubt that he's Noordin M Top."

It is not the first time Indonesian officials have claimed Noordin is dead.

In another raid in central Java in August police had initially thought they had killed the militant, only to have forensic tests prove them wrong days later.

{ NOORDIN MOHAMED TOP
> Born in Malaysia, fled to Indonesia after 9/11
> Wanted over bombings on Bali in 2005 and other attacks
> Said to have split from Jemaah Islamiah and set up new group
> Main accomplice Azahari Husin killed by police in 2005
> Escaped police raid in 2006 and continues to evade capture}

Police said they are planning to send Noordin's body back to Malaysia as soon as possible and it would not be necessary for his family to come to Indonesia.

Noordin, 41, is believed to have been a key financier of the regional Jemaah Islamiah terror group before setting up his own more hardline splinter faction.

He is not thought to have been behind the 2002 bombings on Bali, but was allegedly involved in the blasts on the holiday island in 2005.

He was also blamed for a 2003 attack on the Marriott hotel in Jakarta that killed 12 people, and the 2004 Australian embassy bombing in the Indonesian capital.

A lull ended in July with twin suicide bomb attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta that killed nine people and injured scores of others.

On raids in Cilacap, central Java, in July, police said they found bomb-making material at an Islamic boarding school, and explosives buried in the garden of a house of Noordin's father-in-law.

Regional leaders have welcomed Noordin's death and said it could help undermine militant groups in South East Asia.

"This is a very significant result,"Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Friday.

"This man has been a mass murderer. He's been responsible for the murder of Australians," he added.

The Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong also congratulated Indonesia.

news20090919reut

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[News > U.S.]
Obama seeks to reassure G20 on financial reforms
Sat Sep 19, 2009 6:53am EDT
By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama vowed on Saturday to work with fellow G20 leaders next week to close gaps in financial regulations and insisted reckless schemes that yield "fat executive bonuses" could no longer be tolerated.

Five days before hosting a summit of the Group of 20 nations in Pittsburgh, Obama said steps taken since they last met in April in London had produced "real progress" toward breaking the back of the global economic crisis.

But Obama, in his weekly radio and Internet address, insisted that "stopping the bleeding isn't nearly enough."

"We know we still have a lot to do, in conjunction with nations around the world, to strengthen the rules governing financial markets and ensure that we never again find ourselves in the precarious situation we found ourselves in just one year ago," he said.

Financial market reform will be a central issue at the summit of leading developed and developing nations but progress in Congress on Obama's regulatory agenda has been slow.

Seeking to show other countries his administration is serious about tackling U.S. weaknesses and excesses blamed for setting off the global crisis, he said, "As the world's largest economy, we must lead, not just by word, but by example."

European G20 members have taken the lead in calling for some restraint on the "bonus culture" of banking, insisting it must be treated as a key item at Pittsburgh, and the issue seemed to be moving higher on the U.S. agenda as well.

Larry Summers, Obama's top economic adviser, said the way that pay for bankers is set must be recalibrated to ensure that the risky behavior that helped fuel the worst banking crisis since the Depression of the 1930s is not swiftly repeated.

'FAT EXECUTIVE BONUSES'

Weighing in on the compensation issue, Obama said, "We cannot allow the thirst for reckless schemes that produce quick profits and fat executive bonuses to override the security of our entire financial system and leave taxpayers on the hook for cleaning up the mess."

Federal Reserve sources said on Friday the U.S. central bank was near to proposing wide-ranging rules to apply to any banker able to take risks that could imperil an institution.

That would be a step forward for U.S. policymakers who have been reluctant to endorse anything like the caps or dollar limits on pay and bonuses sought by some European officials.

"At next week's G20 summit, we'll discuss some of the steps that are required to safeguard our global financial system and close gaps in regulation around the world," Obama said.

He renewed his call on Congress to approve his proposal for creating a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which he said would set clear rules on mortgages, credit cards and lending.

"Not surprisingly, lobbyists for big Wall Street banks are hard at work trying to stop reforms that would hold them accountable and they want to keep things just the way they are. But we cannot let politics as usual triumph so business as usual can reign," Obama said.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Peter Cooney)

[News > U.S.]
Fed eyes wide-ranging bank pay rules to fight risk
Sat Sep 19, 2009 4:18am EDT
By Alister Bull

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve plans new rules on bank pay to curb the type of excessive risk-taking that sparked the global financial crisis and triggered international demands for action.

Public outrage at the stratospheric compensation of some bankers has boiled up to the level of the Group of 20 nations, whose leaders meet next week in Pittsburgh.

The United States, under pressure to act on pay at the G20 from France and Germany, has already said it aims to curb the culture of excessive risk-taking at the root of the crisis.

A Fed source said on Friday that guidelines would be proposed in the next few weeks and would apply to any employee able to take risks that could imperil an institution, not just the executives who have been the main target of popular ire.

The rules will be aimed at all firms the Fed regulates and be enforceable under its existing powers, said the source, who requested anonymity. The Fed oversees more than 5,000 bank holding companies and over 800 smaller state-chartered banks.

Massive losses inflicted by risky subprime mortgage bets destroyed some of the oldest names in U.S. finance and intensified a recession that has cost millions of jobs, putting both the banks and the regulators under scrutiny.

The Financial Stability Board, which answers to the G20 and will issue guidelines at the September 24-25 summit, said on Tuesday that poorly capitalized banks should not be allowed to pay large bonuses.

MULTIPLE TRACKS

The Obama administration has already appointed a "pay czar" to oversee executive compensation at firms getting taxpayer aid, and has indicated it will take further steps.

"Properly designed compensation practices constitute an important measure in ensuring safety and soundness in our system," White House adviser Lawrence Summers said on Friday.

Industry officials said many financial firms had already reined in pay practices and warned a heavy-handed approach by the Fed could be harmful.

"What we're worried about is if they place undue restrictions on the sales people because that could weaken the company itself," said Scott Talbott, senior vice president for government affairs for the Financial Services Roundtable, the industry's lobbying group.

Some analysts said Washington was bowing to populist pressure. "I think that talking about curbing Wall Street pay is emotional and not rational," said Tom Sowanick, co-president and chief investment officer of Omnivest Group LLC.

The Fed's proposal would take a two-pronged approach. A top tier of the largest banks, numbering around 24, would get particularly close scrutiny, while all other lenders under the Fed's supervision would receive less-intensive treatment.

Larger firms would also be subject to a review that would compare their practices against rivals, and would be required to submit their pay policies to the Fed for its approval.

This would put the burden on the big firms to modify existing compensation practices, while leaving them with flexibility to customize compensation to best fit their needs.

Practices at smaller banks would be reviewed as part of existing regular bank exams, the Fed source said.

PLACING THE FOCUS ON THE LONG RUN

Goldman Sachs, which set aside $11.3 billion in the first half of the year toward employee bonuses but which has also spoken out against excessive pay at firms that lost money, said excessive risk-taking should not be rewarded.

"We think it entirely appropriate that people are rewarded for performance, but compensation should correlate directly with the performance of the firm," said Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag.

The Fed board has yet to vote on the proposal, but the timeline for the guidelines should advance in weeks, not months, the source said.

The proposed rules would then face a period of public comment before they could be made final. But the Fed plans to launch the review process for the large firms as soon as the proposal goes out, the source said.

The guidelines would not apply a one-size-fits-all prescription to cap pay at any specific level, the source added. Rather, the guiding principle would be to aim for a longer view of profits that squeezes out risk-taking that might lead just to short-term gains.

Officials are also discussing the possibility of "clawing back" compensation when it later becomes apparent excessive risks were taken.

It plans to outline ways to defer pay, for example by using restricted shares that take longer to vest, which would give bank management more time to judge if the revenues from a particular activity really lived up to expectations.

It will also point out the ability to weigh compensation according to the riskiness of the activity involved, as some already do to internally allocate capital.

(Additional reporting by Karey Wutkowski in Washington and Jennifer Ablan and Steve Eder in New York; Editing by James Dalgleish)