news20090928gdn1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Climate change]
Met Office warns of catastrophic global warming in our lifetimes
> Study says 4C rise in temperature could happen by 2060
> Increase could threaten water supply of half world population
David Adam, environment correspondent
The Guardian, Monday 28 September 2009 Article history

Unchecked global warming could bring a severe temperature rise of 4C within many people's lifetimes, according to a new report for the British government that significantly raises the stakes over climate change.

The study, prepared for the Department of Energy and Climate Change by scientists at the Met Office, challenges the assumption that severe warming will be a threat only for future generations, and warns that a catastrophic 4C rise in temperature could happen by 2060 without strong action on emissions.

Officials from 190 countries gather today in Bangkok to continue negotiations on a new deal to tackle global warming, which they aim to secure at United Nations talks in December in Copenhagen.

"We've always talked about these very severe impacts only affecting future generations, but people alive today could live to see a 4C rise," said Richard Betts, the head of climate impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre, who will announce the findings today at a conference at Oxford University. "People will say it's an extreme scenario, and it is an extreme scenario, but it's also a plausible scenario."

According to scientists, a 4C rise over pre-industrial levels could threaten the water supply of half the world's population, wipe out up to half of animal and plant species, and swamp low coasts.

A 4C average would mask more severe local impacts: the Arctic and western and southern Africa could experience warming up to 10C, the Met Office report warns.

The study updates the findings of the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which said the world would probably warm by 4C by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. The IPCC also listed a more severe scenario, with emissions and temperatures rising further because of more intensive fossil fuel burning, but this was not considered realistic. "That scenario was downplayed because we were more conservative a few years ago. But the way we are going, the most severe scenario is looking more plausible," Betts said.

A report last week from the UN Environment Programme said emissions since 2000 have risen faster than even this IPCC worst-case scenario. "In the 1990s, these scenarios all assumed political will or other phenomena would have brought about the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by this point. In fact, CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel burning and industrial processes have been accelerating."

The Met Office scientists used new versions of the computer models used to set the IPCC predictions, updated to include so-called carbon feedbacks or tipping points, which occur when warmer temperatures release more carbon, such as from soils.

When they ran the models for the most extreme IPCC scenario, they found that a 4C rise could come by 2060 or 2070, depending on the feedbacks. Betts said: "It's important to stress it's not a doomsday scenario, we do have time to stop it happening if we cut greenhouse gas emissions soon." Soaring emissions must peak and start to fall sharply within the next decade to head off a 2C rise, he said. To avoid the 4C scenario, that peak must come by the 2030s.

A poll of 200 climate experts for the Guardian earlier this year found that most of them expected a temperature rise of 3C-4C by the end of the century.

The implications of a 4C rise on agriculture, water supplies and wildlife will be discussed at the Oxford conference, which organisers have billed as the first to properly consider such a dramatic scenario.

Mark New, a climate expert at Oxford who has organised the conference, said: "If we get a weak agreement at Copenhagen then there is not just a slight chance of a 4C rise, there is a really big chance. It's only in the last five years that scientists have started to realise that 4C is becoming increasingly likely and something we need to look at seriously." Limiting global warming to 2C could only be achieved with new technology to suck greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. "I think the policy makers know that. I think there is an implicit understanding that they are negotiating not about 2C but 3C or 5C."


[News > World news > Philippines]
Philippines storm death toll rises
At least 140 people have been killed and scores are missing after tropical storm brings worst flooding for four decades
Matthew Weaver and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 September 2009 13.11 BST Article history

The Philippines called today for international help as it sought to deal with the aftermath of a tropical storm that triggered the deadliest flooding in the country for 40 years.

At least 140 people were confirmed dead and another 32 were missing after the weekend flooding in and around the capital, Manila. Officials fear further bad weather could compound the situation.

Gilbert Teodoro, the defence secretary, said help from foreign governments would augment relief work already started by army troops, police and civilian volunteers.

He said welfare agencies had begun to provide food, medicine and other help to more than 115,000 people in government-run emergency shelters.

It is feared the death toll could increase significantly as rescue workers come to terms with the scale of the disaster, which happened when tropical storm Ketsana tore through the northern Philppines on Saturday. Teodoro estimated that 435,000 people had been displaced by the storm.

He told a press conference the official death toll excluded a reported 95 deaths in Antipolo City, east of Manila, and in Marikina City and Quezon City, two of the northern municipalities of metropolitan Manila.

Ketsana brought more than a month's worth of rain in 12 hours, swamping towns, sparking landslides and leaving neighbourhoods in Manila under water.

Amateur video footage showed cars swirling like driftwood in the floodwater. Stranded passengers waited to be rescued on the roof of one vehicle.

The government declared a "state of calamity" in metropolitan Manila and 25 storm-hit provinces, allowing officials to use emergency funds for relief and rescue.

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the president, today opened up the presidential palace as an emergency centre for victims.

She said the storm and flooding were "an extreme event" that "strained our response capabilities to the limit but ultimately did not break us".

Joselito Mendoza, the governor of Bulacan province, north of the capital, said: "People drowned in their own houses."

Ronald Manlangit, a 30-year-old resident of the Manila suburb of Marikina, said: "We're back to zero. Suddenly, all of our belongings were floating. If the water rose farther, all of us in the neighbourhood would have been killed."

Footage taken from a military helicopter yesterday showed survivors marooned on top of half-submerged buses and roofs in suburban Manila.

Some were clinging to power lines while others plodded through waist-high waters.

news20090928gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Climate change]
Fate of US climate bill casts shadow over Bangkok talks
Evidence of 'clear movement' on domestic front would lend weight to UN climate talks in Bangkok, says US chief negotiator
Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 September 2009 11.41 BST Article history

The fate of US carbon emission cap and trade legislation weighed heavily on delegates at United Nations climate talks which started today in Bangkok, with the Americans saying delays in passing the bill could deter commitments from other nations.

Negotiations on a new UN climate pact have been hindered by a general unwillingness to commit to firm emissions targets, and a refusal by developing countries to sign a deal until the west guarantees tens of billions of dollars in financial assistance – something the richer nations have so far refused to do.

"The more specific we can be, the easier it is to press others to be equally specific," said Jonathan Pershing, the chief US negotiator at the talks. "We have a lot of things we want from countries ... The less we can put on the table, the harder it is to achieve that outcome."

The two-week conference in the Thai capital is drawing some 1,500 delegates from 180 countries to boil down a 200-page draft agreement to something more manageable, in the hope of finalising a new international climate pact this year.

In June, the US House of Representatives passed its first bill to cap carbon emissions. The Senate, currently embroiled in debates over healthcare, is expected to take up the legislation as early as this week.

However, Pershing said he doubted that there's enough time to pass an emissions bill in Congress before December's crucial climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, which aim to reach a deal to replace the outgoing Kyoto protocol, due to expire in 2012.

He said it wouldn't prevent a global deal as long as "we have clear movement, clear intent and a signal from the Senate that is it is moving" towards passing the legislation.

UN climate chief Yvo de Boer warned that the US should not repeat what happened with the 1997 Kyoto agreement – when it signed on to the deal, only to have Congress reject it a few years later over concerns that it would hurt the economy and fail to require China and India to curb their emissions.

President Barack Obama and the Chinese president, Hu Jintao – whose countries are the world's two biggest emitters, each accounting for about 20% of greenhouse gas pollution – vowed tough measures to combat climate change at UN talks in New York last week.

Hu said China would generate 15% of its energy from renewable sources within a decade, and for the first time pledged to reduce the rate by which its carbon emissions rise. He did not provide specific targets.

There will be one more meeting in Spain in November before negotiators head to Copenhagen. De Boer said progress was slower than it should be, but remained confident a deal would be reached in Copenhagen.

David Victor, a political scientist who has written about climate negotiations since 1990, said it is unlikely a comprehensive treaty can be finalised this year.

"The world economic recession has made most governments acutely aware of policies that could affect economic growth," he said. "And the range of issues on the table in Copenhagen is so large and complex and the time available to sort them out is very short."


[Environment > Endangered species]
US to review endangered status of humpback whalesThe population of humpback whales has been growing steadily, prompting a review of its status in the US – but not everyone wants it delisted
Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 September 2009 11.26 BST Article history

The US government is considering taking the humpback whale off the endangered species list in response to data showing the population of the massive marine mammal has been steadily growing in recent decades.

Known for their acrobatic leaps from the sea and complex singing patterns, humpback whales were nearly hunted to extinction for their oil and meat by industrial-sized whaling ships well through the middle of the 20th century. But the species has been bouncing back since an international ban on their commercial whaling in 1966.

"Humpbacks by and large are an example of a species that in most places seems to be doing very well, despite our earlier efforts to exterminate them," said Phillip Clapham, a senior whale biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The US government is required by law to review the endangered species status of an animal or plant if it receives "significant new information". The National Marine Fisheries Service, a NOAA agency, received results last year from an extensive study showing that the north Pacific humpback population has been growing 4-7% a year in recent decades.

Public comment is being accepted until 13 October on the upcoming review, which is expected to take less than a year. It is the first review for humpbacks since 1999.

A panel of scientists will then study the data and report on their analysis in late spring or early summer. It is unclear what the decision on delisting the humpback will be.

Some environmental groups are already opposing the possibility of a delisting.

Miyoko Sakashita, the ocean programs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that ongoing climate change and ocean acidification are emerging threats that may hurt humpback whales.

"Ocean conditions are changing so rapidly right now that it would probably be hasty to delist the humpbacks," Sakashita said.

Ralph Reeves, who chairs the cetacean specialist group at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), said the US should remove humpbacks from the list if populations have sufficiently recovered.

He said conservationists must "be prepared and willing to embrace success" if they're to maintain what he called a "meaningful" endangered species program.

"The whole process, the credibility of it, depends on telling people that things are really bad when they're really bad and telling people that they aren't so bad when they aren't so bad," Reeves said.

There are an estimated 18,000-20,000 humpbacks in the north Pacific, up from just 1,400 in the mid-1960s. A survey in the early 1990s of humpbacks in the north Atlantic showed the population at 10,600. The results of a follow-up to that study, expected by the end of the year, are likely to show this population has grown, too.

The global humpback population is estimated to be about 60,000, according to the Swiss-based Conservation of Nature union.


[Environment > Wildlife]
BBC puts wildlife footage online
Clips from 30 series made available on BBC website with introduction by David Attenborough
Adam Gabbatt
guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 September 2009 14.08 BST Article history

Chimpanzees ambushing and eating colobus monkeys, great white sharks leaping clean out of the ocean to catch their prey and the first footage of an entire snow leopard hunt are just some of the wonders of nature made available by the BBC as it opens up its vast archive of wildlife footage online today.

Over 500 video clips have been made available to view on the BBC's website, along with audio and an introduction from Sir David Attenborough.

Users can search all creatures great and small and watch clips, complete with voiceover, to find out more about their favourite creatures.

The video footage has been taken from 30 BBC series, and will gradually be added to. To launch the site Attenborough has selected some of his favourite clips, including a group of chimpanzees cracking nuts and footage of killer whales beaching themselves to catch sealions.

"It has always been my hope that, through film-making, I can bring the wonder of the natural world into people's sitting rooms," he said. "The web has totally changed how we can link information, connect people and reach new audiences in an on-demand world.

"Wildlife programmes have always proved hugely popular and the appetite for discovery has led the BBC to bring these two worlds together."

As well as serving as an education in wildlife, for viewers who grew up watching the BBC's wildlife programmes the videos offer a trip down memory lane ‑ from Attenborough's encounter with mountain gorillas to his "optical probing" of an ant bivouac.

The BBC has also added audio from its archive, where appropriate, with many of the videos of mammals being accompanied by audio clips ‑ some three minutes long ‑ of calls and grunts.

George Entwistle, controller of knowledge, said viewers would now have an all-year round "natural history experience. The BBC has a vast collection of world-class natural history content which we are now making available to viewers online," he said. "Through Wildlife Finder, we are able to offer viewers a year-round on-demand natural history experience."

news20090928nn

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 27 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.953
News
Physicists shrink X-ray source
Laser accelerator almost fits on a tabletop.
By Geoff Brumfiel

A team of physicists has built a small, powerful X-ray source — a prototype of the sort of machine they hope could replace much larger facilities.

The technology has the potential to revolutionize everything from microbiology to materials science by giving scientists easier access to high-quality images of the things they are studying.

Researchers use X-rays to probe all manner of things — from comet dust to fossilized animals trapped in amber. But making high-quality images requires much brighter and better controlled sources than those available in most institutions. So at the moment, most scientists use large particle accelerators known as synchrotrons, which work by accelerating electrons around a ring. As the electrons bend along the circular path, they naturally emit high-quality X-ray radiation.

Synchrotrons are large, costly and usually in high-demand by scientists, so Matthias Fuchs of the Max-Planck-Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, and his colleagues have been working on another way to generate electrons.

Rather than using conventional magnets to guide and accelerate electrons, the team used a powerful laser beam and a small cell of hydrogen gas. They shot a brief, 37-femtosecond (10-15 seconds) pulse into the cell to blow the electrons off the hydrogen atom's nuclei. But electrical attraction causes the electrons to snap back towards the positive ions, so for a brief period after the pulse the electrons vibrate back and forth around the hydrogen atom's positive core, producing a wave. As they do so, a few electrons break loose and ride the crest of the electron wave. "Just like a surfer, the electrons can surf down these waves," Fuchs says.

The electrons then sail through a series of magnetic lenses, which feed them into a second series of magnets that cause them to wiggle back and forth — releasing low-energy 18-nanometre wavelength X-rays as they go.

Short pulse

Because the electric fields between the hydrogen ions and their electrons are so large, the electrons pick up speed much more rapidly than they would in a conventional accelerator. That means a machine the size of a building can be shrunk to the size of a tabletop. Well, almost. Fuchs says that including the laser, the accelerator takes up two fairly large tables. "We came up with the phrase 'banquet tabletop'," he says. The team's research has been published by Nature Physics¹.

Nevertheless, "it is exciting", says Tom Katsouleas, dean of engineering at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Other groups had already shown lower-power radiation from similar systems, so it wasn't surprising, he adds. "I don't think anybody really doubted it could be done." "But they've actually shown that the beam quality can be fairly high," he says.

Because relatively few electrons are accelerated, the pulses are bright but short, so the 'tabletop' accelerator is unlikely to replace conventional synchrotrons any time soon. Still, Katsouleas says, there is no reason, in principle, why they could not be made into a workable X-ray source for use in universities.

References
1. Fuchs, M. et al. Nature Phys. advance online publication doi:10.1038/NPHYS1404 (2009).


[naturenews]
Published online 27 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.954
News
Sex chromosomes linked to evolution of new species
Questions over conflict of the sexes remain.
By Natasha Gilbert

Experiments in stickleback fish have shown for the first time that the evolution of new sex chromosomes is the driving force behind the formation of a new vertebrate species.

Up until now, most evidence has shown that new species arise because they have adapted to new environments. But a study to be published by Nature¹ found that the emergence of new sex chromosomes caused a population of threespine stickleback fish in the Japan Sea, to diverge from its Pacific Ocean–dwelling ancestor (Gasterosteus aculeatus) — creating a new species.

Jun Kitano, an evolutionary biologist at Tohoku University in Japan, and his team discovered that the Japan Sea stickleback fish had different sex chromosomes compared to their ancestors. The ancestral Y sex chromosome (which makes males) had fused with a non–sex chromosome to create a new sex chromosome in the Japan Sea stickleback fish.

The team also observed that the Japan Sea males exhibited more aggressive mating behaviours than their ancestral populations. Females from the ancestral population avoid mating with the Japan Sea fish due to their more aggressive behaviour. And in lab tests, the male progeny of the two populations were sterile.

The study found that the gene responsible for the aggressive mating behaviour of the Japan sea males was on the new Y chromosome. The new mating behaviours linked to the new sex chromosome stop the two populations from mating, making the Japan Sea population a new species.

"There is a gene on the new sex chromosome that causes differences in mating behaviour in the male stickleback. This behaviour leads to evolution of a new species of stickleback," says Catherine Peichel, a molecular biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, and a member of the research team that published the study.

Battle of the sexes

Ole Seehausen, a fish ecologist and evolutionist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology in Dübendorf, says the study is "remarkable". "This is the first study that has shown a direct link between the evolution of sex chromosomes in vertebrates and the evolution of a new species," he says.

Peichel says that not much is known about what drives the evolution of new sex chromosomes. Scientists have hypothesized that conflict between the sexes could be behind this. If species carry genes that could be advantageous to males but detrimental to females, then natural selection will favour that these genes be located in the part of the genome that appears in males but not in females.

"A good place for them to be is right next to the gene that causes sex determination," says Peichel.

However the study has not yet answered whether conflict between the sexes drives the evolution of new sex chromosomes. "They do not prove that there is sexual conflict over the trait they study — that is that it is good for males but not females," Seehausen says.

References
1. Kitano, J. et al. Nature doi:10.1038/nature08441 (2009).

news20090928bbc1

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

[Middle East]
Page last updated at 13:27 GMT, Monday, 28 September 2009 14:27 UK
Iran tests longest range missiles
Iran has successfully test-fired some of the longest range missiles in its arsenal, state media say.

The Revolutionary Guards tested the Shahab-3 and Sajjil rockets, which are believed to have ranges of up to 2,000km (1,240 miles), reports said.

The missiles' range could potentially permit them to reach Israel and US bases in the Gulf, analysts say.

The tests come amid heightened tension with the big international powers over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Last week, Iran disclosed it was building a second uranium enrichment plant, despite UN demands that it cease its enrichment activities.

{{ANALYSIS}
Jon Leyne, BBC Tehran correspondent
These missile tests are being carried out as part of Iran's sacred defence week, so they were probably planned some time ago.
Nevertheless the West is likely to see this as a gesture of defiance just days after the latest revelation about Iran's nuclear programme. Iran may not mind too much about that interpretation.
Both the Shahab-3 and the Sajjil are capable of reaching much of the Middle East including Israel.
They make up what is probably Iran's strongest deterrent against any possible attack by Israel or the West.}}

Iran is due to hold crucial talks with the five UN Security Council members plus Germany on Thursday on a wide range of security issues, including its nuclear programme.

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said the missile tests were merely part of an annual military drill, known as Sacred Defence Week, to commemorate its war with Iraq in the 1980s.

It was not a reaction to the nuclear crisis, he added.

"Many countries have these [displays] and it has nothing to do with Iran's peaceful nuclear technology," he told a news conference.

France called on Tehran to immediately stop "these deeply destabilising activities".

In a statement, the foreign ministry urged Iran to co-operate "by responding without delay to the demands of the international community to reach a negotiated settlement on the nuclear question".

But Russia appealed for restraint, saying the world should not "succumb to emotions" in dealing with Iran.

"The main thing is to launch productive negotiations [with Iran]," a foreign ministry source told Interfax news agency.

Gesture of defiance

"An improved version of Shahab-3 and the two-stage Sajjil, powered by solid fuel, were fired," the Guards' air force commander Hossein Salami was quoted as saying by the state-owned Arabic language TV channel al-Alam.

Footage of the test-firing of the Shahab-3 in desert terrain was broadcast by another state-owned channel, Press TV.

The Shahab-3 (Meteor-3) is classed as a medium range ballistic missile but is the longest-range rocket Iran has successfully tested in public.

Iran says the missile, which it first tested in July 2008, can fly some 2,000km, although Western defence experts have put the strike range at 1,300km (807 miles).

The surface-to-surface Sajjil is a new, two-stage missile using solid fuel, which is considered to give a more accurate delivery than liquid fuel rockets.

It has been tested by Iran twice, in November 2008 and May 2009.

The BBC's Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne says Iran's enemies might be most worried by the test-firing of the Sajjil missile.

It is more advanced, and multiple stage rockets offer the potential for longer ranges, he says.

The Shahab-3 and Sajjil rockets are currently believed to be capable of reaching not only Israel and US bases in the Gulf, but also parts of Europe.

On Sunday, the medium-range Shahab-1 and 2 missiles with a range of 300 to 700km (186 to 434 miles) were tested.

The short-range Tondar-69 and Fateh-110 type, with a range of up to 170km (100 miles), were also tested.

Although the tests are likely to have been planned in advance, Iran will not be unhappy if they are seen as a gesture of defiance by the West, our correspondent adds.

Telecoms move

Iran is under increasing pressure to co-operate fully over its nuclear ambitions - particularly since the revelation of a previously undisclosed uranium enrichment plant.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has insisted that the plant, near the holy city of Qom, does not breach UN regulations and says it is open for inspection by UN experts.

But leaders of the US, Britain and France accuse Tehran of keeping the plant secret in breach of UN rules.

They have raised the prospect of new, tougher sanctions against Iran if Thursday's meeting with the so-called P5+1 (US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany) yields little progress.

In a separate development, Iranian state media report that a consortium linked to the Revolutionary Guards has bought a majority share in the state telecommunications company.

The Revolutionary Guards led the government response to the street protests that followed the disputed re-election of President Ahmadinejad - himself a former guard - in June.

During the demonstrations, the authorities interrupted mobile phone networks, hindering the opposition movement.

The Revolutionary Guard was set up shortly after the revolution to defend the country's Islamic system.

It has since become a major military, political and economic force, with close ties to the leadership.


[Americas]
Page last updated at 15:15 GMT, Monday, 28 September 2009 16:15 UK
Troops raid Honduran media groups
Two Honduran media organisations that have been critical of the country's interim government have been closed.

Troops raided Radio Globo and Cholusat Sur TV hours after authorities issued a state of emergency suspending key civil liberties for 45 days.

The measures followed a call by ousted president Manuel Zelaya for his supporters to stage a protest exactly three months since he was deposed.

Mr Zelaya is holed up in the Brazilian embassy in the capital Tegucigalpa.

The raid on Radio Globo early on Monday was the second on the station since Mr Zelaya was ousted in June.

"Troops assaulted the radio (station)... and took it off the air," said Radio Globo director David Romero.

The interim government's decree - broadcast on national television - allows unauthorised public meetings to be banned and news media to be temporarily closed down.

'Final offensive'

Earlier, Mr Zelaya had urged his supporters to converge on Tegucigalpa on Monday in what he called a "final offensive".

Hundreds of soldiers and riot police have been surrounding the embassy for the past week since Mr Zelaya made a surprise return to the country.

On Sunday, the interim government warned Brazil that its diplomatic credentials would be revoked in 10 days if it doesn't grant Mr Zelaya asylum or hand him over.

He was forced from office at gunpoint after announcing plans to hold a non-binding public consultation on whether people supported moves to change the constitution.

His opponents said the move was unconstitutional and was aimed at removing the current one-term limit on serving as president, so paving the way for Mr Zelaya's possible re-election. He has denied this.

A presidential election is planned for November.

news20090928bbc2

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

[Americas]
Page last updated at 14:08 GMT, Monday, 28 September 2009 15:08 UK
Obama to woo IOC over Chicago bid
US President Barack Obama will travel to Copenhagen to support the bid by the city of Chicago to host the 2016 Olympic Games, the White House says.

He will join his wife, Michelle, and other administration members at the International Olympic Committee meeting in the Danish capital on Thursday.

Chicago faces opposition from Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo in the vote.

Brazilian, Spanish and Japanese leaders are also expected to lobby IOC delegates at the meeting.

{{ANALYSIS}
Gordon Farquhar, BBC Sport
These bids are now being run like election campaigns, by hard-nosed political strategists working out tactics for grabbing the second or even third preference votes that will be crucial to the chances of any of the bidders.
Strict IOC rules dictate the boundaries of what is permitted, and transgressing them could be fatal.
Expenses-paid trips to bid cities for voting members - with freebies ranging from the odd case of wine to dental work to scholarships for offspring - were banned after the Salt Lake City "votes for gifts" scandal.
It is all strictly above board now.
However, one of the unexpected consequences of the ban on members' visits seems to be that if you cannot go to the city, the city now comes to you, with half the nation's politicians, sports stars and famous alumni in tow.}}

Correspondents say the impact of star personalities on Olympic bids was demonstrated when lobbying by former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2005 helped London win the 2012 Games, and Russian President Vladimir Putin led Sochi's bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics in 2007.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva expressed hope on Monday that he would "return from Copenhagen with a victory".

"This is a fight," he said in his weekly radio programme. "And if we don't win, we'll have to prepare for another one."

'Inspiration'

Mr Obama, who was senator for Illinois and lived in Chicago before his election to the White House, will be the first sitting US president to take on such a direct role in an Olympic bid.

He will be joined on Friday by Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who are both from Illinois.

"President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama symbolise the hope, opportunity and inspiration that make Chicago great, and we are honoured to have two of our city's most accomplished residents leading our delegation in Copenhagen," Chicago Mayor Richard M Daley said on Monday.

"Who better to share with members of the International Olympic Committee the commitment and enthusiasm Chicago has for the Olympic and Paralympic Movement," he added.

Mr Obama had reportedly told IOC chief Jacques Rogge last week that the pressure of his push for healthcare reform would prevent him from attending the meeting.

The race to host the 2016 Olympics has been described as one of the closest in history.

But correspondents say Chicago, with President Obama's overt support, could be considered a slight favourite.

Chicago was chosen to bid for the Games two years ago by the US Olympic Committee ahead of four other US cities.

The city's plan revolves around providing a compact event in the middle of the city, on the shores of Lake Michigan, using many established venues. The costs of Games will be borne by the private sector - unlike the three other bids.

It is expected that Chicago's renowned skyline, history and cultural heritage will be positive factors in its Olympics bid, while the city also boasts good transport infrastructure.

Although there is no official IOC continental rotation policy, correspondents say the Americas may have an edge as previous games will have been held in Asia, Europe, and Australasia.

This factor, they add, is considered the most significant weakness of both Madrid - one of the few major European capitals yet to host the Games - and Tokyo's bids.

Rio de Janeiro's successful staging of the Pan-American Games in 2007 and their future hosting of the 2014 World Cup seemed to bolster its prospects, but the IOC recently noted that it would not be capable of providing the level of security and safety required for the Games.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 11:25 GMT, Monday, 28 September 2009 12:25 UK
Japan's LDP chooses a new leader
Japan's Liberal Democratic Party has elected a new leader after its crushing electoral defeat last month.
By Roland Buerk
BBC News, Tokyo

Sadakazu Tanigaki, a 64-year-old who has held a number of cabinet posts, replaces former Prime Minister Taro Aso, who stepped down as party leader.

He now faces the task of rebuilding the LDP, which is in opposition for only the second time in more than 50 years.

He will have an early test next year when elections are due for the less powerful upper house of Parliament.

Mr Tanigaki is a former finance minister known as a consensus builder, and his election is being seen as an attempt to maintain party unity.

His two rivals for the post, both in their 40s, had campaigned for a generational change.

New Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, of the Democratic Party of Japan, has said he will steer the country away from unrestrained capitalism towards what he has described as a more fraternal society.

Among his pledges are cash allowances for families with children and a reduction in the power of bureaucrats.


[Asia-Pacific > Business]
Page last updated at 06:45 GMT, Monday, 28 September 2009 07:45 UK
Yen hits eight-month dollar high
The Japanese yen has hit an eight-month high against the dollar - denting the share prices of many exporters.

The currency reached 88.23 yen per dollar - the highest since January's 13-year high of 87.10.

A stronger yen makes Japanese exports less competitive - but makes imports more affordable to Japanese consumers.

Observers said the strengthening of the yen came after comments suggesting that the likelihood of Japan intervening to weaken its currency had receded.

'Mistake'

In the past, Japan has stepped into the currency markets to weaken the yen when the government thought its rise was threatening growth in the world's second-largest economy.

The authorities have not intervened since 2005, but some observers had believed finance minister Hirohisa Fujii could step in to halt the yen's strengthening.

However, Mr Fujii told the Dow Jones newswire that that "foreign exchange dumping" to defend Japanese exporters would be the wrong policy.

"It would be a mistake to artificially influence foreign exchange rates," Mr Fujii was quoted as saying.

Mr Fujii became finance minister after the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) last month ended more than 50 years of almost unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party.

Earlier this month, he said a strong yen had merits, but he has backed down from this view as the rise has gained momentum.

Honda Motors and electronic parts maker Kyocera were among the exporters seeing their shares lose ground on Monday.

The benchmark Nikkei index fell 256.46 points to 10,009.52 - its lowest close since late July. It also hit a two-month intraday low of 9,971.05.

news20090928bbc3

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

[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 10:33 GMT, Monday, 28 September 2009 11:33 UK
Philippine floods test rescuers
Rescue workers are being overwhelmed by the scale of floods in the Philippines that are estimated to have killed at least 140 people, officials say.

The head of the National Disaster Co-ordinating Council, Anthony Golez, said resources were being spread too thinly.

Torrential rains from Tropical Storm Ketsana flooded the capital, Manila, and 25 nearby provinces on Saturday.

Some 80% of Manila was submerged, displacing 450,000 people. More than 115,000 are now in makeshift shelters.

"We are concentrating on massive relief operations. The system is overwhelmed, local government units are overwhelmed," Mr Golez told reporters.

{{AT THE SCENE}
BBC correspondent Alastair Leithead in Manila
The rain is still coming down in Marikina, the worst affected part of Manila, but it certainly has got through the worst of what the storm threw at it.
All the streets were under metres of water. There's a thick coating of mud over everything. At the bottom of the road, there's a pink car which is balanced on the diagonal on its roof on top of another. The only people who escaped the floods were those who went up onto the upper floors of their buildings. All the shops and businesses on the ground floors have been destroyed.
Now people are just focusing on clearing up, trying to get what possessions they can together, along with food, water and some shelter, because more rain is forecast.}}

"We were used to helping one city, one or two provinces but now, they are following one after another. Our assets and people are spread too thinly."

One doctor in Manila told the BBC that he had been working 24-hour shifts in a hospital flooded with water since Saturday.

Defence Minister Gilbert Teodoro said troops, police and volunteers had so far been able to rescue more than 7,900 people. Thirty-two people are missing.

The authorities were now focusing on providing food, medicine and other necessities to those in emergency shelters, he added. Telephone and power services in some parts of Manila remain cut.

Over the weekend, the government declared a "state of calamity" in Manila and the 25 storm-hit provinces, including many that have not experienced widespread flooding before, allowing access to emergency funds.

The Philippine government has not yet requested international help, but Mr Golez said it would welcome any assistance. The US military has deployed a helicopter and soldiers to the country's south to help.

'Stranded'

On Sunday, President Gloria Arroyo visited the devastated areas, appealing for calm over what she described as an "extreme event" that "strained our response capabilities to the limit but ultimately did not break us".

Ramil Digal Culle in Cavite City, south of Manila, told the BBC that he had spent the night with families trapped on rooftops without food and water.

"The mothers were at work when the flooding happened and they got stranded with me, unable to go home," he wrote in an e-mail.

"Strange how I could have internet access during the disaster to describe this experience... while the government struggles with a scarcity of rescue equipment," he added.

Some officials are quoted as saying rubbish-choked drains and waterways, along with high tides, compounded the flooding.

The BBC's Alastair Leithead in Marikina City, the worst affected part of the capital, says all the streets in the area were under metres of water and that now there is a thick coating of mud over everything which was submerged.

Our correspondent says the government argues it could not have been expected to cope easily with a storm in which a month's rain fell in 12 hours.

In the meantime, he adds, people are just focusing on clearing up, trying to salvage what possessions they can, along with food, water and some shelter, because further rainstorms are forecast.

'Heroic rescuer'

Reports have also emerged of acts of heroism by members of the public during the floods, including Muelmar Magallanes, who rescued more than 30 people, but ended up sacrificing his own life.

With the help of his older brother, the 18-year-old construction worker tied rope around his waist and took his siblings to safety before going back to the house for his parents, according to the AFP news agency.

Later, he decided go back to save neighbours trapped on rooftops. He then dived back in again when he saw a mother and her six-month-old baby daughter in the water.

"I didn't know that the current was so strong. In an instant, I was under water. We were going to die," the mother Menchie Penalosa told AFP.

"Then this man came from nowhere and grabbed us. He took us to where the other neighbours were, and then he was gone," she added.

Witnesses said an exhausted Mr Megallanes was simply swept away by the water.

His father Samuel said: "He always had a good heart. We had already been saved. But he decided to go back one last time for the girl."

The Philippines chief weather forecaster, Nathaniel Cruz, said more than 40cm (16in) of rain fell on Manila within 12 hours on Saturday, exceeding the 39cm average for the whole month of September.

The previous record of just over 33cm in a 24-hour period was set in June 1967, Mr Cruz added. He had earlier blamed climate change for the mass downpours.

Ketsana, with winds of up to 100km/h (62mph), hit the Philippines early on Saturday, crossing the main northern Luzon island before heading out toward the South China Sea.

news20090928cnn1

[Top stories] from [CNN.com]

[Asia]
Scores killed in Philippines floods
Story Highlights
> Flooding caused by Tropical Storm Ketsana leaves up to 300,000 displaced
> More than 80 percent of capital was under water at one point Sunday
> Manila, on island of Luzon, and nearby province of Rizal bore brunt of storm
> Power, water supply fail in some areas; Roads impassable, affecting rescue efforts
September 28, 2009

(CNN) -- The death toll from flooding in the Philippines climbed to 140 Monday as a tropical depression in the Pacific sparked new fears of flooding.

Flood water began to subside after a weekend that saw Manila hit with its heaviest rainfall in more than 40 years.

More than 80 percent of the capital was under water at one point Sunday. The deluge caused by Tropical Storm Ketsana, which has since strengthened into a typhoon, engulfed whole houses and buses.

At least 140 people have died, the National Disaster Coordinating Council said.

Manila, on the island of Luzon, and the nearby province of Rizal bore the brunt of the storm. People huddled on rooftops Sunday waiting on army helicopters to pluck them to safety. Others used ropes to wade through waist-deep muddy waters.

Power and water supply failed in some areas. Roads were rendered impassable, making rescue efforts challenging. Rescue crews were handing out food rations.

"Right now the challenge is to find out how many people have actually died and how many people we have to take care of in terms of people who've been displaced," said Richard Gordon, the chairman of the Philippines National Red Cross.

"We're really talking about maybe hundreds of thousands of people," with about 280,000 to 300,000 displaced in the island of Luzon alone, he said.

Though the Philippines is no stranger to floods, Saturday's downpours approached a record, with a month's worth of rain falling within six hours.

The average rainfall for the month of September is 391 mm (15.4 inches), said Gilberto Teodoro, chairman of the National Disaster Coordinating Council.

The capital experienced 341 mm (13.4 inches) between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m., he said.

Officials worried that if the rains return, they could bring more floods if reservoirs burst.

"We're hoping that there will be no more breaching of the dams," Gordon said. "That's one of the things that are very disconcerting to many people right now."

Mike Anthony Catuira spent Sunday retrieving valuable belongings and seeking cover on higher ground. Overflowing rivers in the municipality of Tanay in Rizal province had inundated shops and homes, he said.

"The storm's local name 'Ondoy' is really a powerful storm, and this is the most severe storm in my whole life," he said in an iReport video to CNN.


[World]
Iran test-fires long-range missiles
Story Highlights
> Military exercises come days before key meeting with Western leaders
> Tests also come days after Iran admits it has second uranium enrichment plant
> Greece, Russia, Italy among nations in range of Iranian missiles tested
> Iran test-fired short- and medium-range missiles over the weekend
September 28, 2009

(CNN) -- Days before a key meeting with Western leaders, Iran test-fired two types of long-range missiles Monday in part of what the Islamic republic called routine military exercises, its state-run media reported.

The tests drew condemnation from France, which noted through its Foreign Ministry that the action comes only a week after Iran revealed the existence of a covert uranium enrichment site.

"These tests can only reinforce the worries of countries in the surrounding region and the international community, especially as Iran is, in parallel, developing a nuclear program, with the existence of a clandestine uranium enrichment site having just been revealed," the ministry said.

"We ask Iran to choose cooperation and not confrontation, immediately putting an end to its profoundly destabilizing activities and responding without delay to the demands of the international community in order to find a solution in this affair."

Iran's nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili is scheduled Thursday to meet with representatives of the five permanent United Nations Security Council members, plus Germany. European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana will also attend the talks Thursday in Geneva, Switzerland.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps began a series of missile exercises Saturday to promote the armed forces' defense capabilities, Fars News Agency reported.

After a series of short-range missile tests, Iran concluded Monday with the testing of the long range Shahab-3 and the two-stage Sajil missiles, according to reports from state-run media.

Both hit their targets, and Iran's air force commander hailed the exercise as a show that Iran is "fully prepared and determined to stand against all threats."

"We will give a fully decisive, crushing and destructive response to anyone who poses a threat to the existence, independence and freedom of the ruling system and our values," Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami said, according to Fars News Agency.

The Shahab-3 missile can strike targets between 800 and 1,250 miles (1,300 and 2,000 kilometers), according to the reports.

The Sajil-2 missile is a solid-fuel rocket with a similar range and has been launched twice before, in November 2008 and May 2009.

If Iran's claims are true, the missile brings Moscow, Russia; Athens, Greece; and southern Italy within striking distance.

Last Monday, Iran wrote a letter to the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, revealing the existence of a second uranium enrichment facility. The IAEA acknowledged the admission Friday, prompting President Obama and the leaders of Britain and France to publicly chide the Islamic republic and threaten further sanctions.

The United States and France had been aware of the unfinished nuclear site for several years, according to senior U.S. officials who declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the negotiations.

The facility is on a military base near the city of Qom, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of Tehran, and is thought to be capable of housing 3,000 centrifuges, according to the officials and the IAEA. That is not enough to produce nuclear fuel to power a reactor, but sufficient to manufacture bomb-making material, according to a U.S. diplomatic source who read the letter.

Iran told the IAEA there is no nuclear material at the site, an agency spokesman said.

Iran's revelation of the site could actually "strengthen their hand" as Tehran heads into Thursday's Geneva talks, according to Paul Ingram, an analyst who studies Iran and nuclear nonproliferation.

He said the timing of Iran's revelation -- in between the U.N. General Assembly sessions and the Thursday meeting -- is deliberate on Iran's part.

"This will make it more difficult to persuade them to abandon enrichment," said Ingram, the executive director of the British American Security Information Council in London.

Iran says its nuclear enrichment program is intended for peaceful purposes, but the international community accuses it of continuing to try to develop nuclear weapons.

Iran conducts research for its nuclear program in sites around the country. Until the new letter, it had acknowledged only a uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, which nuclear inspectors visited recently. Iran also has an unfinished nuclear research reactor in Arak, and U.N. nuclear inspectors were allowed access to that facility earlier this month.

Other important nuclear sites in Iran include its Bushehr nuclear power plant and the Isfahan uranium conversion plant.

news20090928cnn2

[Top stories] from [CNN.com]

[U.S.]
Obama plans trip to Denmark to seek Olympics
Story Highlights
> Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro are finalists to host 2016 Summer Olympics
> International Olympic Committee will vote Friday on location
> Obama trip to Denmark marks first time a U.S. president has attended IOC vote
> On one-day trip, Obama will also meet with Denmark's queen, prime minister
September 28, 2009
From Dan Lothian
CNN White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obama will travel this week to Copenhagen, Denmark, to make a big push for holding the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Chicago, Illinois, the White House said Monday.

Obama will join other administration officials and first lady Michelle Obama in pitching Chicago to the International Olympic Committee on Friday, spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

No other U.S. president has ever attended an IOC vote.

Chicago is vying for the Summer Games against Madrid, Spain; Tokyo, Japan; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Leaders from Brazil, Spain and Japan are expected to also make in-person pitches.

The United States has hosted four Summer Olympic Games. The games were held in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1904; in Los Angeles, California, in 1932 and 1984; and in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1996. The last U.S. city to host the Olympics was Salt Lake City, Utah, which was the venue for the 2002 Winter Games.

The International Olympic Committee will vote on the host city Friday in Copenhagen.

In April, the U.S. Olympic Committee chose Chicago over Los Angeles as the U.S. bid city. Earlier, three other U.S. cities were in the running: Houston, Texas; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and San Francisco, California.

Obama held an event at the White House earlier this month to rally for Chicago as the host city.

"I may live in Washington these days, but I've called Chicago home for nearly 25 years," Obama said.

"It's a city of broad shoulders, big hearts, and bold dreams. A city of legendary sports figures, legendary sports venues and legendary sports fans.

"We want these games!" Obama exclaimed, drawing applause.

While in Denmark, the president and first lady will meet with Queen Margrethe II and her husband, Prince Henrik, the White House said in a release. Obama also is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen.

Obama will leave Thursday night and return Friday afternoon, the White House said.


[World]
Zimbabwe court bars activist Mukoko's prosecution
Story Highlights
> Zimbabwe's highest court grants permanent stay of prosecution to Jestina Mukoko
> Mukoko was facing charges of plotting to topple Robert Mugabe's government
> Ruling sets precedent for other activists facing similar charges in Zimbabwe

HARARE, ZIMBABWE (CNN) -- Zimbabwe's highest court granted a permanent stay of prosecution Monday to a leading human rights activist facing charges of plotting to topple President Robert Mugabe's government.

The court said the abduction and torture in custody of Jestina Mukoko grossly violated her rights.

Mukoko, the leader of Zimbabwe Peace Project, challenged her prosecution in an appeal to the country's Supreme Court saying state security agents had abducted her from her home during a dawn raid and tortured her while holding her at secret locations for three weeks.

"The state, through its agents, violated the applicant's constitutional rights to the extent of entitling the applicant (Mukoko) a permanent stay of criminal prosecution," said Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku as he delivered the ruling in a packed Supreme Court chamber, adding that he would give full details of the reasons for the ruling later.

Monday's ruling sets a precedent for other human rights and opposition activists who face similar charges and were subjected to the same conditions. They have applied to the same court to have their charges dropped but are awaiting rulings.

Mukoko broke into tears as journalists, friends and relatives mobbed her when she was leaving the court room.

"I am so overwhelmed. I want to thank all my colleagues, in the region and internationally because they believed in me," she said. "Justice has just prevailed. I am so excited. Becoming a free person again in Zimbabwe.

"I did not have to go through what I went through. For a while I have been someone who was not free. I'm really going to enjoy this with my family. It did not make sense. I have never in my life done anything wrong, and for me to be referred to as a common criminal.... ah..." She then broke down before being whisked away by her relatives.

"I have no comment," said state prosecutor Fatima Maxwell.

But Mukoko's lawyer Harrison Nkomo said, "It is a good ruling for my client. I should congratulate the Supreme Court for capturing the law quiet clearly. She had not committed any offense.

"She would have been brought to court had the Attorney General's office applied its mind. The manner in which the state agents apprehended her show testimony to the fact that she had not done anything wrong."

news20090928reut1

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
TerniEnergia to exceed 2009 solar targets
Mon Sep 28, 2009 8:19am EDT
By Svetlana Kovalyova

MILAN (Reuters) - Italian renewable energy company TerniEnergia is set to exceed its 2009 target for new solar installations and may review 2010 and 2011 goals aiming to expand in the rapidly growing market, its chairman told Reuters.

Photovoltaic (PV) installations which turn sunlight into power have mushroomed in Italy since 2007 when the government approved new incentives, among the most generous in Europe. Investors ranging from families to utilities and from banks to sports car maker Ferrari have piled into the sector.

TerniEnergia, a leading PV system integrator, has built and prepared for grid connection about 22 megawatt (MW) of PV capacity in Italy so far this year, its chairman Stefano Neri told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"We have already reached (annual) target ahead of time ... We still have other work to do in the final quarter," Neri said. "By the end of this year we will review the (2010 and 2011) targets, but surely we plan to increase our production in 2010."

Under its 2009-2011 industrial plan, TerniEnergia aimed to install 22 MW of PV capacity in 2009 and raise the new installed capacity targets to 29 MW next year and to 37 MW in 2011.

22 MW is about 4 percent of all PV installed capacity in Italy.

TerniEnergia said in a statement on Monday it has completed and tested a 3 MW peak capacity PV plant in Umbria, central Italy, one of the biggest in the country and able to produce 4 million kilowatt hours of power a year.

The company which has bought three small unlisted companies this month to implement industrial size PV plants with a total capacity of 13 MW in the southern region of Puglia in the first quarter of next year, plans to continue with the buying spree.

"Given demand that we see on the strongly expanding market, we have decided to buy companies which already have approved projects. This will allow us to speed up our production activity and increase the quantity of implemented projects," Neri said.

CREDIT CRUNCH EASING

The credit crunch which has practically frozen access to some forms of financing, such as leasing, from October last year has been easing and financing conditions in the Italian PV sector have improved in the past few months, he said.

Falling operating costs due to a sharp drop in solar panel prices also helped to facilitate access to funding, he added.

The PV sector operators want to know as soon as possible how the government would change the existing incentive scheme including a feed-in tariff which guarantees operators up to 0.49 euros per KWh of produced power for 20 years, Neri said.

"We would appreciate it if the indications of the new incentive scheme were given well in advance. It will give the company a chance to adjust its strategy," he said.

The current incentive scheme puts a 1,200 MW cap on capacity to be covered by incentives. Neri said he doubted the limit would be reached in 2010, as widely belived by sector operators, because of bureaucratic hurdles and grid connection delays.

Italy's PV sector, made up mostly of numerous small and unlisted project developers is likely to regroup in the next couple of years, with companies dealing with industrial-size projects consolidating around big players, while small companies would carry with household-size installations, he said.

(Editing by Keiron Henderson)


[Green Business]
Negotiators urged to speed up climate pact talks
Mon Sep 28, 2009 8:07am EDT
By Thin Lei Win and David Fogarty

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Delegates at the start of marathon climate talks in Thailand on Monday were told to speed up "painfully slow" negotiations as they struggle to settle on the outline of a tougher pact to fight global warming.

The Bangkok talks, which run until October 9, is the last major negotiating round before a gathering in Copenhagen in December that the United Nations has set as a deadline to seal a broad agreement on a pact to expand and replace the Kyoto Protocol.

"Time is not just pressing. It has almost run out," Yvo de Boer, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told delegates from about 180 countries.

"But in two weeks real progress can be made toward the goals that world leaders have set for the negotiations to break deadlocks and to cooperate toward concrete progress," he said.

Delegates at the talks are tasked with trying to streamline a draft legal text of a pact that would replace Kyoto. The main text, running to about 180 pages, is filled with blanks, options and alternative wording options.

The U.N.-led negotiations have become bogged down over arguments about rich nations' targets to cut emissions by 2020, financing for poorer nations to adapt to climate change and to curb their own greenhouse gas emissions and the best way to deliver and manage those funds.

"We've talked for long enough, the world expects actions," Connie Hedegaard, Denmark's minister of climate change and energy and host of the December 7-18 Copenhagen gathering, told delegates.

De Boer later told reporters the negotiating process so far had been painfully slow. "We must have a higher level of ambition in terms of emissions cuts by industrialized countries.

"In addition, we need to see more clarity here on how the process is going to make it possible for developing countries to engage," he said.

"DROWNING IN TEXT"

The United Nations, many developing nations and green groups have expressed frustration about the lack of progress during several negotiating rounds in the run-up to Copenhagen.

"The problem we have at the moment in these negotiations is that we are drowning in text," Tove Ryding of Greenpeace told reporters.

"What we need to see is late nights and fights. We need to see them sit there -- that's what these people do for a living -- they need to smell like sweat and coffee. If they don't do that, they're not actually at work."

De Boer spoke of progress at last week's U.N. climate change summit in New York but said a Copenhagen agreement must have five essential elements.

These included enhanced steps to help the most vulnerable nations adapt to climate change impacts, tougher emissions targets for rich nations, which are currently well below the 25-40 percent reductions from 1990 levels by 2020 recommended by the U.N. climate panel, and cash to help poorer countries cut their emissions.

Hedegaard said a picture was beginning to emerge from the puzzle of the climate text, but rapid progress was needed to refine it into a document with clear political choices.

Artur Runge-Metzger, head of the European Commission delegation, said final figures on finance would most likely be decided on the last night of the Copenhagen talks.

"Because you can only commit to figures if you know what kind of deal you are going to have and which direction are you going to go," he said.

De Boer said long-term financing to help poorer nations adapt to climate change and to slow the pace of their emissions growth should be in the hundreds of billions of dollars per year.

"I think the main worry for us here in Bangkok is that there's only 70 days left," said Runge-Metzger, referring to the start of the Copenhagen meeting. "There's so much work to be done."

(Editing by Alex Richardson)


[Green Business]
Denmark's KommuneKredit offers eco-tech bond
Mon Sep 28, 2009 8:06am EDT

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Danish municipal credit institution KommuneKredit will offer up to 400 million Danish crowns ($78.92 million) worth of a new 2012 zero-coupon bond based on a basket of 10 environmental technology shares, it said on Monday.

The bond will be issued at 105 percent of face value and redeemed at no less than face value or at a maximum to be determined based on an estimate of the potential growth in the underlying basket of shares, triple-A issuer KommuneKredit said in a statement.

The ceiling for appreciation of the bond, named "KommuneKredit Klima 2012," has indicatively been set at 32 percent, but will be fixed by the arranger Danske Bank based on market conditions, KommuneKredit said.

The maturity is October 30, 2012, it said.

The underlying shares are:

Spanish wind turbine maker Gamesa

Danish wind turbine maker Vestas

U.S. cable maker General Cable Corp

U.S. solar panel maker First Solar

Spanish wind power group Iberdrola Renovables

German solar company Solarworld AG

Spanish wind power developer Acciona Energia SA

Norwegian solar industry firm Renewable Energy Corp

U.S. solar technology firm SunPower Corp

U.S. network infrastructure supplier Quanta Services

(Reporting by John Acher; Editing by Victoria Main)

news20090928reut2

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Italy plans gradual cut for solar incentives
Mon Sep 28, 2009 8:04am EDT
By Stephen Jewkes

MILAN (Reuters) - Italy plans to reduce solar energy incentives to save money, but would do it gradually to ease the impact, Industry Ministry Undersecretary Stefano Saglia told Reuters on Monday.

Photovoltaic (PV) energy, which turns sunlight into power, has boomed in Italy since 2007 when the government approved incentives which are among the most generous in Europe.

"As regards solar incentives, we'll try to reduce them, not as Spain did in a traumatic way, but to do it gradually," Saglia said in an interview at an energy conference.

Italy's incentive scheme should come under review when PV capacity covered by incentives reaches 1,200 megawatt. Many sector operators believe the cap will be reached next year and are keen to know how the government would change incentives.

Saglia said the government aimed to balance reducing the burden on the debt-laden state budget with supporting the rapidly growing PV sector.

Asked about the possible introduction of an annual cap for the photovoltaic industry incentives, Saglia said: "The government is discussing the issue."

He said that technical experts were looking at the issue but politicians were less enthusiastic.

"I am personally not that warm to the idea," he added.

Spain slashed subsidies for PV generation and placed a 500 MW per year cap on the installations covered by state aid in September 2008, hitting the worldwide PV industry which had come to rely on the Spanish market.

Saglia said Italy would keep the incentive scheme "since it works well along with priority dispatching (for renewable energy) on the network."

CUTTING RED TAPE

Solar sector operators often complain about bureaucratic hurdles with authorization procedures in Italy, including a lack of unified regulations which vary from region to region.

Saglia said the government has prepared national guidelines with a view to reaching agreement between regions and ministries which he hoped would be approved by the end of this year.

"They provide permitting standards so that companies have a single interlocutor and a single procedure to follow," he said.

Turning to the southern region of Puglia which has turned into a hotbed of PV activity in Italy thanks to a relatively easy permitting regime, Saglia said:

"It's not all good. It has created a kind of oversupply of projects ... a kind of trading in authorizations. We've got to find a balance between what they do in Puglia and the rest of the country."

Saglia said Italy has focused on renewable energy as a short-term way to cut its heavy dependence on fossil fuel imports, but revival of nuclear power after a 22-year ban was a long-term solution.

Italy rejected nuclear power in a public referendum in 1987 after the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine. In July, Rome passed a law outlining measures for the nuclear renaissance.

The law has upset some regional authorities who see it as curbing their powers but Scaglia told reporters the government would never decide on building a nuclear plant without an agreement with the regions.

(Writing by Svetlana Kovalyova, editing by William Hardy)


[Green Business]
EU to propose climate action on planes, ships
Mon Sep 28, 2009 4:04am EDT

By Pete Harrison

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Aviation and shipping should cut their respective carbon dioxide emissions to 10 and 20 percent below 2005 levels over the next decade, the European Union is likely to propose at global climate talks this week.

EU diplomats said the cuts might be linked to a tax on fuel to generate billions of dollars of revenues to help poor countries cope with climate change -- a key contribution to finding a global climate deal by December.

"We are concerned about the slow international negotiations and are keen to shift gear," said an EU diplomat involved with the proposal. "This is a concrete measure from the EU side in order to contribute to this step-up."

After fine-tuning the proposal, the EU will present it at a meeting in Bangkok where climate negotiators from up to 190 nations will try to revive momentum toward a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol from 2013.

Aviation and shipping are not covered by Kyoto, the global climate change treaty agreed in 1997.

Britain, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, and most eastern European states have already indicated support for a cut of 20 percent or more to shipping emissions, compared to 2005 levels, according to a document seen by Reuters.

But seafaring nations including Malta, Cyprus, and Spain favor easier reductions. There is also debate over the base-line year.

CLIMATE FUNDING

"It's good that the EU is moving forward on capping emissions from these two sectors, not least because it creates significant potential for raising funding for developing countries," said Tim Gore, a campaigner at anti-poverty group Oxfam.

The proposal has been put forward by Sweden, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, and is based on a report three weeks ago by the EU's executive, the European Commission.

The Commission calculated the two sectors could generate revenues as high as 25 billion euros ($36.7 billion) a year in 2020, if their emissions were capped at 30 percent below 2005 levels.

Some countries with big airlines or a heavy reliance on air links have put up opposition. France, Finland, Italy, Malta and Austria have suggested airlines get an easier target than 10 percent.

"How these targets should be met should be decided by the International Civil Aviation Organization and International Maritime Organization," said the EU diplomat. "Should they fail, the EU will come back to the issue in 2011."

A system of taxes might meet more political resistance than a cap and trade scheme, which would force polluters to buy permits to emit carbon dioxide.

Shipping would be best served by a cap and trade scheme, the industry associations of Australia, Britain, Belgium, Norway and Sweden argued in a report last week that did not set targets.

The UK Chamber of Shipping estimated a trading scheme for emissions would cost the seaborne industry up to 6 billion euros a year, depending on the price of carbon.

(Reporting by Pete Harrison; editing by Robin Pomeroy)


[Green Business]
FACTBOX: Key issues on the table at Bangkok climate talks
Mon Sep 28, 2009 7:46am EDT

(Reuters) - Delegates at U.N. climate talks in Bangkok are trying to whittle down a complex negotiating text that will form the basis of a broader global pact to curb the pace of climate change.

The two-week talks are crucial because negotiators have very little time to trim the options and alternative wording proposals in the 180-page text with just over two months to go before a December 7-18 climate meeting in Copenhagen.

The United Nations has set the Copenhagen gathering as the deadline to try to reach a broad agreement on a replacement pact for the Kyoto Protocol.

Following are some of the main issues being discussed in Bangkok.

FINANCING

This is the glue that will hold any new pact together. Developing nations are demanding rich countries offer new and substantial annual funds to help them adapt to climate change and to help them green their economies without sacrificing growth.

Failure by rich nations to implement immediate, far-reaching actions to cut their emissions would only increase the need for poorer countries to adapt to the impact of climate change and therefore increase costs, the text says.

Poorer nations as well small-island states are seen as the most vulnerable to greater extremes of weather, rising seas and changes in rainfall patterns.

Estimates for long-term financing are in the hundreds of billions of dollars a year but as yet no firm amounts have been pledged in the negotiations by individual countries. That is expected to come in the final hours of the Copenhagen talks.

Nor is it clear how much of the money will be public funds or come from revenue generated by carbon markets or other sources.

The rules governing the allocation of funds have also not yet been decided, nor have governments agreed to beef up existing institutions or create new ones to manage the money and low-carbon programmes.

STRUCTURE FOR ALL NATIONS

Any post-Kyoto agreement will need to include steps by big developing nations such as India and China to curb emissions and to help them acquire technology to substantially cut emissions.

But developing nations won't accept binding emissions targets and have instead pledged to take a range of voluntary steps mandated by their governments, such as energy efficiency and renewable energy programmes.

Negotiators in Bangkok will be focused on designing what they call a legal framework or architecture that will encourage developing nations to sign up.

Kyoto backs economy-wide emissions reduction efforts for rich nations but many developing nations say they won't sign up to such steps in a broader climate pact.