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[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Copenhagen climate change conference 2009]
Copenhagen negotiating text: 200 pages to save the world?
Draft agreement being discussed ahead of December's crucial Copenhagen summit is long, confusing and contradictory
Interactive: Beginner's guide to the negotiating text
Help us interpret the document
David Adam, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 September 2009 16.37 BST Article history

It is a blueprint to save the world. And yet it is long, confusing and contradictory. Negotiators have released a draft version of a new global agreement on climate change, which is widely billed as the last chance to save the planet from the ravages of global warming.

Running to some 200 pages, the draft agreement is being discussed for the first time this week as officials from 190 countries gather in Bangkok for the latest round of UN talks. There is only one short meeting after this before they meet in Copenhagen aiming to hammer out a final version.

The draft text consolidates and reorders hundreds of changes demanded by countries to the previous version, which saw it balloon to an unmanageable 300 pages. It has no official status yet, and must be formally approved before negotiators can start to whittle it down. Here, we present key, edited sections from the text and attempt to decipher what the words mean.

The text includes sections on the traditional sticking points that have delayed progress on climate change for a decade or longer.

• How much are rich countries willing to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, and by when?

• Will large developing nations such as China make an effort to put at least a dent in their soaring levels of pollution?

• How much money must flow from the developed world to developing countries to grease the wheels and secure their approval? How much to compensate for the impact of past emissions, and how much to help prevent future emissions?

According to the UN rules, for a new treaty to be agreed, every country must sign up – a challenging requirement. The new treaty is designed to follow the Kyoto protocol, the world's existing treaty to regulate greenhouse gases, the first phase of which expires in 2012. Because the US did not ratify Kyoto, the climate talks have been forced on to awkward parallel tracks, with one set of negotiations, from which the US is excluded, debating how the treaty could be extended past 2012. This new text comes from the second track, which lays out a plan to include all countries in long-term co-operative action.

Behind the scenes, pessimism about the Copenhagen talks is rising. Despite references in the text to a global goal and collective emission cuts of 25-40% by 2020 for rich countries, many observers believe there is little chance such an approach will succeed.

Stuart Eizenstat, who negotiated Kyoto for the US, said: "Copenhagen is more likely to be a way station to a final agreement, where each country posts the best that it can do... The key thing is let's not go into Copenhagen with all the same kind of guns blazing like we did in Kyoto."

A top European official told the Guardian: "We've moved on from the idea that we can negotiate on targets. That's naive and just not the way the deal will be done. The best we can get is that countries will put in what they want to commit to."

Once all the carbon offsets – buying pollution credits instead of cutting emissions – and "fudges" are taken into account, the outcome is likely to be that emissions in 2020 from rich countries will be broadly similar to those in 1990, he said. "That's really scary stuff."


[Business > Airline industry]
British Airways launches luxury service to New York
Twice daily flights on Airbus A318s has come under fire from environmental groups Plane Stupid and Greenpeace
David Teather
guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 September 2009 19.10 BST Article history

British Airways was accused of hypocrisy as the airline prepared to launch a luxury all-business service between London and New York, with just 32 seats on an aircraft normally fitted for 100 people, days after chief executive Willie Walsh pledged a drastic cut in emissions.

Environmental group Plane Stupid will stage a protest at London City Airport tomorrow to coincide with the maiden flight at 12.50pm, with Walsh on board.

The twice daily service on customised Airbus A318s features flat beds and latest technology allowing passengers to send emails and text and use the internet while on board. Return fares will start at £1,901 but go up to £5,000 for more flexible tickets. The airport in London's Docklands, close to the financial districts in Canary Wharf and the City, means the service is likely to appeal to bankers.

Flights leaving from London though will be forced to make a brief refuelling stop at Shannon airport in the west of Ireland because City airport's runway is too short to handle an A318 aircraft with a full fuel load. BA is arranging for passengers to use the Shannon stop to clear US customs and immigration

Greenpeace aviation campaigner, Vicky Wyatt, said the service was "another example of BA saying one thing, and doing another. Only last week, Willie Walsh announced that the industry is committed to playing its part in the fight against climate change. But it is blindingly obvious that the aviation industry doesn't intend to cut emissions at all. Rather airlines, like BA, want to pay other countries and sectors to make those cuts so that the industry can carry on with business as usual."

Friends of the Earth campaigner Richard Dyer said the spacious layout of the aircraft meant that each passenger is responsible for around three times the emissions from regular flights.

"Aviation causes harmful emissions that contribute to climate change – we should be curbing the growth in flying, not laying on new flights," he said.

Walsh appeared before the United Nations forum on climate change in New York last week, to unveil an agreement between airlines, airports and aircraft companies to cut emissions to 50% below 2005 levels by 2050. The plan was viewed as a bid to seize the initiative on the issue, to ensure that the industry would not be ambushed with more punishing strictures at the global warming summit in Copenhagen in December. Aviation accounts for 1.6% of global greenhouse gas emissions currently, but that figure is set to grow significantly if left unchecked.

A BA spokesman said the airline remained committed to reducing its emissions. He said the A318 was the smallest commercial aircraft on the route and produced only 25% of the carbon of a typical Boeing 747.

"Of the hundreds of commercial aircraft crossing the Atlantic every day between the UK and US, these two purpose built new A318s will produce the least amount of carbon dioxide. Even with this extra service we have reduced our flying schedule between the UK and New York by almost 20% over the past two years."

The timing of the all-business class launch, with the economy still stuck in the doldrums, has also raised eyebrows. Silverjet, Maxjet and Eos, three short-lived airlines which competed in the business-only market, all collapsed last year, the last survivor, Silverjet, going under in June.

But Douglas McNeill, an aviation analyst at Blue Oar Securities, said BA had a reasonable chance of success. "In some ways the timing does look odd, I would be curious to know when they gave this the greenlight," he said. "That said, there is grounds for quite a lot of optimism. The pioneers such as Silverjet showed there is a market. They did many things right and offered high quality services but they were ultimately overwhelmed by the oil price.

"In March 2008, Silverjet and Eos carried 10,000 passengers a month, BA will have capacity for 3,000 a month, so there is reason to believe there will be more than enough demand for BA to fill the requisite number of seats," McNeill added. "The premium market has shrunk about 20% since then, but even then there should be plenty of demand. The pioneer airlines blazed the trail but it may be that those that come later and are better capitalised that make it work."

BA also has the advantage of City airport – Silverjet flew from Luton and Eos and Maxjet from Stansted. But BA is charging a premium. Silverjet charged about £999 return, Maxjet started at £840 and Eos at £1,765.

BA will be under pressure to show investors that the premium airline can be a success. The carrier lost £148m in the three months to the end of June, amid warnings of a prolonged downturn. The airline said it intended to ground 22 planes, 9% of its fleet, over the winter.

The figures showed that yields – the revenue per passenger – had fallen by nearly 10%, owing to the downward pressure on prices and the number of passengers trading down from premium seats, BA's main source of profits,

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[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Water]
Adelaide latest victim of global water shortages
Australia's fifth-largest city could be reliant on bottled water as early as next week as overuse and drought stretch the Murray river to its limit
Toni O'Loughlin and John Vidal
guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 September 2009 17.58 BST Article history

The water in Australia's biggest river is running so low and is so salty that the nation's fifth-largest city, Adelaide, is at risk of having to ship water in to its residents, politicians have warned.

Adelaide's water crisis follows similar problems in cities around the world, as the combination of growing population, increasing agricultural use and global warming stretches resources to the limit. Experts are warning of permanent drought in many regions.

Salinity levels in some stretches of the Murray river already exceed the World Health Organisation's (WHO) recommendations for safe drinking, and South Australia's water authority and 11 rural townships east of Adelaide have been told to prepare for the worst.

"Another dry year will deplete our reservoirs and the water in the Murray will become too saline to drink. We are talking about 1.3 million people, who are not far off becoming reliant on bottled water. We are talking a national emergency," said South Australian MP David Winderlich.

As early as next week, water from parts of the river may become too dangerous to drink, which would require the water authority to begin delivering supplies to hospitals, clinics, aged care facilities and local supermarkets in plastic bottles, said Winderlich.

"There's simply too many people pulling water out of the river," said Roger Strother, Coorong council mayor. "We've been saying that one day it would catch up, and this summer is when it is going to happen. It could be next week."

Recent rains have topped up Adelaide's dams, but only enough for one year, and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, which oversees water use across the whole of south-east Australia, says water levels in reservoirs are much lower than expected. Today the authority said the whole basin was at 25% capacity.

Australia's worst drought in a century has lasted over 10 years in places, and many cities have had to restrict water use.

Climate experts fear the continent faces a permanently drier future as the impact of global warming kicks in. South Australians have watched the waters stagnate as farmers, especially cotton and rice growers upstream, siphoned up to 83% of the water from the river system.

The WHO says the acceptable level of salinity for safe drinking water is 800 EC (electrical conductivity) units but the salinity in parts of the Murray is now around 1,200 EC units. The water authority says it will begin shipping water when the salinity rises to 1,400 EC units.

Adelaide is one of many cities around the world facing acute water shortages as populations grow, long-term droughts continue and ground water is not replenished. The Chinese water minister, Chen Lei, today told engineers at a water conference that two-thirds of Chinese cities now face serious shortages due to rapid industrialisation and climate change.

"Compared to 1956-79, the average rainfall has dropped 6% in three major river basins," Lei said. "Most parts in the north of China are now facing water shortages problems, especially because of the increasing influence of climate change and the faster speed of industrialisation and urbanisation."

By 2015, Lei said, water efficiency would have to be increased by 30%. "Water abstraction must be strictly controlled. We should have strict management of groundwater exploitation and consumption, put a limit on total use of groundwater, and ban or set quotas on groundwater exploitation. Nearly two out of three cities are facing water shortages, and the farmland affected by drought reaches nearly 15m sq km a year."

According to a new UN environment programme report, perennial drought conditions are developing in south-eastern Australia and south-western North America. "Projections suggest that persistent water scarcity will increase in a number of regions in coming years, including southern and northern Africa, the Mediterranean, much of the Middle East, a broad band in central Asia and the Indian subcontinent," the report said.

"There is growing concern that thresholds or tipping points may now be reached in a matter of years or a few decades, including dramatic changes to the Indian subcontinent's monsoon rains, the Sahara and west Africa monsoons, and climate systems affecting the Amazon rainforest," it said.

Hopes in some countries that an El Niño weather event would bring rain to parched areas of the US this week declined as the US government climate prediction centre said temperatures in the equatorial Pacific had stopped climbing. During strong El Niños, abnormally warm waters in that region pump heat and moisture into the atmosphere, which leads to intense storms.

Cities around the world under water stress

Beijing: Most of Beijing's water comes from the Miyun reservoir, but a decade of drought and huge population increase has left extreme shortages. Water diversion projects are helping, but this is depleting resources from other regions. The city must spend $3.5bn (£2.2bn) in the next five years to cope with a population expected to rise to 17 million.

Nairobi: The city has imposed water rationing, following an acute drought that has affected all Kenya's water catchment areas. River and reservoirs are at historically low levels. Flower farms and export-oriented agriculture are also reducing supplies available to people.

Mexico City: 2009 has been the driest year recorded in the city of 19 million people. Water is rationed and many areas have no piped water for days at a time. The government has imposed fines of up to $1,200 for hosing down cars and sidewalks or watering lawns during daytime hours. Signs warn that the city could run out of water next spring unless residents switch to low-flow showers and toilets, and plug leaks.

Gaza: Water fit for human use will run out in the Gaza strip within 10 years, the Gaza Coastal Municipal Water Utility and UN agencies said this month. Tap water is already salty, and only 5-10% of groundwater is drinkable. Gaza's population is expected to increase to 3 million by 2025.

Kathmandu: Erratic rainfall and drier winters have left Nepal's capital very short of water. The water company can provide only 160m litres a day but the demand is well over 200m litres. Many households are drilling their own boreholes to extract groundwater with electric pumps, but the water table is sinking approximately 2.5 metres a year and this is not sustainable in the medium term.

news20090929gdn3

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Nuclear power]
India plans to cut carbon and fuel poverty with untested nuclear power
Prime minister Manmohan Singh announces 100-fold increase in nuclear energy output by 2050 with thorium technology
Randeep Ramesh in Delhi
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 29 September 2009 13.29 BST Article history

India's prime minister today signalled a huge push in nuclear power over the coming decades, using an untested technology based on nuclear waste and the radioactive element thorium.

Manmohan Singh, speaking at a conference of atomic scientists in Delhi, announced that 470,000MW of energy could come from Indian nuclear power stations by 2050 — more than 100 times the current output from India's current 17 reactors.

"This will sharply reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and will be a major contribution to global efforts to combat climate change," he said, adding that Asia was now seeing a huge spurt in nuclear plant building. The Indian plan, which relies on untested technology, was criticised by anti-nuclear campaigners as "a nightmare disguised as a dream".

The prime minister said a breakthrough deal with the US, sanctioned by the international community, had opened the door for the country to "think big" and meet the demands of its billion-strong population.

The intervention comes as talks in Bangkok aimed at resolving the impasse between developing and developed countries over a new climate change deal to replace the Kyoto protocol have stalled. India, one of the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, has been dismayed that its pledges of action – including a dramatic expansion of nuclear power - have been met with inaction from richer nations.

The prime minister's statement also brings Delhi alongside Beijing which has long promoted atomic energy. India's plan would see it leapfrog its northern neighbour. At present China has 11 reactors in operation producing 8GW but has proposed that by 2020 this output be increased 10-fold

Nuclear power has been a contentious issue in India. Although the country has had a decades-old atomic programme, it was effectively blacklisted from global civilian nuclear trade after testing a nuclear device in 1974. That embargo was lifted in 2008 after negotations with Washington.

The result has been a rush to sign deals – both to supply uranium and to build reactors. France, Russia and the United States have all sought access to the booming Indian market.

India has an ambitious three-stage nuclear programme which it sees as a "silver bullet" to its dire energy shortage. At present 400m people cannot light their homes and the country imports 70% of its oil.

Delhi says that it will be able to surmount these considerable problems and generate clean green power with an atomic programme that "virtuously recycles" the plutonium waste that reactors produce. This radioactive isotope takes thousands of years to be rendered safe and dealing with it is the greatest challenge facing nuclear energy's proponents.

The Indian plan turns this waste into fuel. Using thorium, which is abundant in the country, combined with plutonium, the country aims to produce power and "breed" stockpiles of uranium.

It is a technology that no other country has mastered – and many have dropped – but India still has more than 2,000 scientists working on the technical problems.

Singh said the country had entered "stage two" of the programme and had completed a prototype breeder reactor in southern India.

However campaigners said "if climate change is the problem, nuclear power is not the answer". SP Udayakumar, convenor of India's Alliance for Anti-Nuclear Movements, questioned whether the technology India was pushing would ever be ready.

"The nuclear technology the prime minister talks about is not proven. If we start going ahead then the issue is the amount of carbon emitted by building, maintaining, operating and decommissioning nuclear plants means that (nuclear power) is a hugely polluting technology. If it does not work then we are left with waste that takes 24,000 years to become safe. It is a gamble we will pay for generations to come."

news20090929nn

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 28 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.958
News
Target crater changed for Moon crash
Evidence of ice convinces NASA team to make last-minute switch.
By Eric Hand

Scientists have picked a new target for the planned 9 October crash of a NASA spacecraft into a crater near the Moon's south pole.

The Lunar Crater Remote Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) will now plough into Cabeus, a 100-kilometre-wide crater, in the hopes of kicking up some ice along with the rock and dust of the lunar soil. This is a switch from the previous target, Cabeus A, a crater half as wide that sits further from the south pole.

Cabeus A presented favourable viewing angles for the many telescopes on Earth that will be trained on the impact site. But instruments aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched with LCROSS on 18 June, have been offering up startling evidence: not only that water could be locked in a deep freeze within permanently shadowed polar craters, but also that there are significant differences between the craters (see 'Water on the moon?'). In particular, a neutron-counting instrument has shown a significant excess of hydrogen — a possible indicator of ice — within Cabeus. "The Cabeus region seems to be one of the places that could be the wettest, so we'd like to go there," says Jennifer Heldmann, the LCROSS observation campaign coordinator at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

Cabeus is deeper than Cabeus A, so the impact plume will have to rise higher to be seen from Earth. But Heldmann says this drawback is mitigated by a deep cleft in the rim wall of Cabeus, which will make viewing lower parts of the plume not as difficult as it could be.

The LCROSS team told astronomers of the new target on 25 September. Nancy Chanover, an astronomer at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, says the adjustment shouldn't be too difficult. "It's not a big burden," says Chanover, who is leading an effort to deduce the composition of the plume through an analysis of its ballistics. Twenty professional observatories, including the Hubble Space Telescope, will be watching the event, and hundreds of amateur astronomers are expected to add their data to the mix.

But LCROSS itself, which has two components, will have the closest view. The spent upper stage of an Atlas V rocket will provide the main punch. A 'shepherding spacecraft', following four minutes behind, will watch the impact until the plume envelops it and conceals its own crash.


[naturenews]
Published online 28 September 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.956
News
Not blind to emotion
Out of sight is not out of mind for facial expressions or body language.
By Alison Abbott

Partially blind people can 'unconsciously' sense the facial expressions of others.PunchstockTwo patients, partially blind because of damage to one side of their brain, were able to sense, and respond to, emotions expressed by people in pictures presented to their blind sides.

A study by an international team of researchers found that the patients unconsciously twitched a facial muscle uniquely involved in smiling when a picture showed a happy person, and a muscle involved in frowning when the person depicted looked fearful1.

The patients, both from the United Kingdom, have the very rare condition known as partial cortical blindness. Their eyes are intact but they have damage to the visual cortex on one side of their brain. This means that they cannot process information from the visual field on the opposite side of their nose.

The scientists, who were led by Marco Tamietto and Beatrice de Gelder at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, say the results show that our spontaneous tendency to synchronize our facial expressions with those of other people in face-to-face situations — known as emotional contagion — occurs even if we cannot consciously see them.

"This is interesting evidence that we can recognize the emotions of others without needing to be visually aware of them," says neuroscientist Christian Keysers, an expert in the neurophysiology of emotion at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, who was not involved in the study.

Second sight

The two patients were shown random mixtures of images of people looking happy or fearful, each for two seconds, in rapid succession. The pictures were presented on the side of their visual field that they could see, then on the side they could not consciously see. They were asked to press a button after each picture to indicate the emotion they had recognized, or guessed at.

{{“They could sense emotion through an unconscious mechanism, and resonate with it.”}
Marco Tamietto
Tilburg University}}

The scientists attached special electrodes to the patients' faces, allowing them to measure subtle contractions — of which we are usually unaware — of the tiny muscles involved in expressing emotion.

The patients twitched their smiling-specific zygomaticus major muscle when presented with happy pictures and the frowning-specific corrugator supercilii muscle when presented with fearful pictures. The response was the same whether the pictures were presented on the side they could see or the side they could not see. But the response was faster when the pictures were presented to the blind side — perhaps because there was no conscious emotional evaluation to delay things, says Tamietto.

"The subjects were not simply imitating the expression of others, because their faces responded whether the emotion was conveyed to them via facial expression or body language," he says. "They could sense emotion through an unconscious mechanism, and resonate with it."

Mixed picture?

Much of the visual input from the retina goes directly to the visual cortex, which processes the information so that we consciously perceive the image we are looking at. But a small part goes directly to the midbrain, through an evolutionarily primitive subcortical pathway that processes emotion and other information central to survival — and that is intact in the two patients.

So it seems that emotional contagion can be implemented via evolutionarily ancient neural structures, says Tamietto, and does not necessarily require the involvement of higher brain regions, visual awareness or the mirror neurons that are active when we recognize the physical actions of others.

But Keysers cautions that it remains to be determined whether the subcortical and higher cortical pathways for recognizing emotions operate in parallel. Emotion recognition could use several types of available information, he says.

References
1. Tamietto, M. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA http://dx.doi:10.1073/pnas.0908994106 (2009).

news20090929bbc1

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

[Africa]
Page last updated at 12:11 GMT, Tuesday, 29 September 2009 13:11 UK
Guinea rally death toll nears 130
At least 128 people were killed when Guinean troops opened fire on opposition protesters on Monday, rights groups and opposition figures claim.

Earlier police said 87 people had died, but local activists say hospital sources confirmed a much higher toll.

Human rights groups say they have had reports of soldiers bayoneting people and women being stripped and raped in the streets during Monday's protest.

Junta head Captain Moussa Dadis Camara denied knowledge of sexual assaults.

About 50,000 people were protesting over rumours that Capt Camara intends to run for president in an election schedule for next January.

But soldiers moved in to quell the rally using tear gas and baton charges and firing live ammunition into the crowds.

An eyewitness told Human Rights Watch: "I saw the Red Berets [an elite military unit] catch some of the women who were trying to flee, rip off their clothes, and stick their hands in their private parts.

"Others beat the women, including on their genitals. It was pathetic - the women were crying out."

Another eyewitness told the group: "I saw several women stripped and then put inside the military trucks and taken away. I don't know what happened to them."

There has been worldwide condemnation of the violence.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the Guinean authorities to exercise maximum restraint, while the West African regional body Ecowas is reported to be pursuing sanctions against the military regime.


[South Asia]
Page last updated at 12:07 GMT, Tuesday, 29 September 2009 13:07 UK
Afghan bus bombing kills dozens
At least 30 civilians travelling on a bus in southern Afghanistan have been killed by a roadside bomb blast, the Afghan interior ministry has said.

The bus was on its way from Herat to Kandahar when the device exploded, the ministry said, adding that 10 children and seven women were among the dead.

The most seriously wounded have been taken to a Nato base for treatment.

Kandahar's provincial government blamed the Taliban for planting the device, although the group has yet to comment.

A similar blast on the same main road - in Maywand district - had killed three civilians on Monday, a government spokesman said.

"An explosion hit the bus. I don't know what happened. When I came to, I got out of the bus and saw that it was totally wrecked," one of the passengers, Lal Jan, told the Associated Press in Kandahar.

The BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul says the Taliban are increasingly using roadside bombs to attack foreign forces.

However, civilians are frequently caught up in the violence, our correspondent says. According to the UN, more than 1,500 have been killed this year, the majority in insurgent attacks.

'More troops needed'

The deaths come shortly after Anders Fogh Rasmussen made his first speech in the United States as Nato secretary-general.

{{MARDELL'S AMERICA}
{ Some want to get back a strategy where the main aim is killing terrorists, not building a nation}
Mark Mardell
BBC North America editor}}

Speaking at the Atlantic Council in Washington, the former Danish prime minister called on European nations to stand with US forces in Afghanistan.

There are currently some 100,000 foreign soldiers in Afghanistan from more than 40 countries - more than 60,000 of them American.

US military commanders have warned that more troops will be needed, but US President Barack Obama says he will not decide until after a strategy review.

The commanding US officer in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, delivered a review of the situation in the country to Mr Obama earlier this month.

However, rising military casualties have undermined public support for the operation in some Western countries.

Correspondents say European nations are not expected to offer any significant increase in troops unless Washington takes the lead.

The Netherlands and Canada have already set 2010 and 2011 as deadlines for withdrawal and Italy has announced plans for a "strong reduction" in its forces.


[South Asia]
Page last updated at 10:04 GMT, Tuesday, 29 September 2009 11:04 UK
Air India protest hampers flights
Hundreds of passengers have been left stranded in India because of a strike by senior pilots working for the national carrier, Air India.

The company says that a significant number of flights have been disrupted after pilots reported sick for a fourth consecutive day as part of a protest.

The pilots are protesting against the cancellation of performance-related bonuses by the cash-strapped airline.

Talks between pilots and management failed to reach a solution on Monday.

The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi says that the Indian aviation industry has been hit hard by the global economic turndown with increased costs of operation and travellers opting for low-cost airlines or train services.

Earlier this month a protest by pilots for India's privately-owned Jet Airways caused considerable disruption.

During that protest hundreds of passengers were stranded at various airports, leading to angry confrontations.

Air India said that the pilots' refusal to accept their decision to slash bonuses and incentives by up to 50% were "unacceptable".

So far the management has held firm saying they need to cut costs since Air India is facing huge losses because of the worldwide recession.

Air India is state owned and the government is now intervening to try and end the crisis. The airline posted losses of more than $800m in 2008-09 and has asked the government for a financial bail-out.

But it also said that it was keeping options open. As well as cancelling many flights, the airline has suspended bookings for flights in the next fortnight.

The struggling airline had to delay by a fortnight payment of June salaries and incentives to its 31,500 employees.

The protest comes as airlines around the world try to cope with declining passenger traffic due to the global slowdown.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 08:56 GMT, Tuesday, 29 September 2009 09:56 UK
Six jailed for Vietnam baby fraud
Six Vietnamese have been sentenced to jail for arranging more than 300 fraudulent adoptions, an official said.

The six were jailed for two to four-and-a-half years for "abuse of power", court official Nguyen Tien Hung said.

Among those convicted were two heads of provincial welfare centres, doctors, nurses and local officials.

They were found to have filed false papers to allow babies from poor families to be adopted, many by parents in France, Italy and the US.

Ten other people received suspended sentences of 15 to 18 months.

They came from the province of Nam Dinh, south of Hanoi.

The falsified papers said the babies had been abandoned, making them eligible for adoption by foreign parents, the prosecutors said.

The group was operating from 2005 to July 2008, when the two key suspects were arrested.

The case came to light last year after the US embassy in Hanoi accused Vietnam of failing to police its adoption system, allowing corruption, fraud and baby-selling to flourish.

The US report led Vietnam to end a bilateral adoption agreement.

news20090929bcc2

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

[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 03:44 GMT, Tuesday, 29 September 2009 04:44 UK
Japan prices continue record fall
Japan's core consumer prices dropped 2.4% in August year-on-year, the fourth successive month of record falls.

Official figures showed core prices, which exclude those of volatile fresh food, fell for a sixth month in a row.

The record fall for August was due to lower petrol and other energy costs as well as weak domestic demand.

Japan, the world's second largest economy, experienced a prolonged period of deflation in the 1990s, commonly referred to as "the lost decade".

Lower prices may appear to be a good thing, but deflation can hamper growth by depressing company profits and causing consumers to postpone purchases, leading to production and wage cuts. It can also increase debt burdens.

The deflation comes despite recent signs of an improvement in the Japanese economy, which returned to positive growth in the second quarter of 2009, exiting a severe year-long recession.

Not to worry?

The central bank has expressed confidence that low interest rates and the stimulus packages it has already implemented will prevent deflation taking hold again.

Analysts are not so sure.

Several have said that although the impact of last summer's spike in the oil price will lessen towards the end of the year, they expect further falls in prices.

"Reflecting stagnant retail sales, falls in prices are spreading more broadly than we had expected," said Susumu Kato, chief economist at Calyon Securities.

"There's a chance that deflation might continue longer than expected."

Few economists expect falls in prices to accelerate sharply but weak domestic demand is likely to keep up the deflationary pressure.

The Bank of Japan has already forecast deflation to last until the year to March 2011 and is expected to extend its deflation forecast by another year in its next set of forecasts due out in late October.

Separately, the Japanese Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii said that it is important not to overreact to current foreign exchange moves, which he said are within a natural "margin of error".

The yen surged to an eight-month high against the greenback on Monday.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 07:25 GMT, Tuesday, 29 September 2009 08:25 UK
Yen falls from eight-month highs
The yen has weakened from Monday's eight-month highs against the US dollar following comments from Japanese Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii.

It hit 88.23 to the dollar on Monday after Mr Fujii made comments taken to mean that he was comfortable with the yen's strength.

But on Tuesday, he said the government might intervene in the currency markets if exchange rates made irregular moves.

The yen gave up most of Monday's gains, returning to about 90 to the dollar.

'National interest'

"If [exchange rates] move abnormally, we could take appropriate measures for our national interest," Mr Fujii told a news conference.

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

"Perhaps [Mr] Fujii didn't realise how much the market would move on his comments after he became finance minister. But now he realises that this isn't such a good thing," said Tokichi Ito at Trust & Custody Services Bank in Tokyo.

Japan has not intervened in the currency markets since March 2004.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 03:53 GMT, Tuesday, 29 September 2009 04:53 UK
N Korea constitution bolsters Kim
South Korea's news agency has published excerpts from North Korea's amended constitution.
By Jill McGivering
BBC News

It seems to bolster the position of leader Kim Jong-il amid speculation about his health and growing pressure about the North's nuclear programme.

The constitution was changed in April this year but this is the first time its wording has been seen outside the country.

Political change and shifts in power inside North Korea are guarded secrets.

So it has taken months for details to emerge in the South about changes to the country's constitution.

There is particular interest in the terms used to describe Kim Jong-il, amid months of speculation about his health and possible successor.

For the first time, the constitution refers to him implicitly as "supreme leader".

'Respect'

It also endorses the role of the National Defence Commission - which he chairs - in national and foreign affairs.

And it places more weight on Kim's personal doctrine of "military first".

So as well as strengthening Kim Jong-il's position, the changes could also be designed to boost the status of military.

There has been speculation too about the decision to change the wording about the rights of citizens.

The new constitution says the country "respects" its citizens' human rights, as well as protecting them.

This may be an attempt to show concern about human rights in the face of international condemnation about its rights record.

All this comes as China's premier Wen Jia-bao prepares to visit North Korea next week.

It is part of growing efforts to persuade Pyongyang to rejoin multilateral talks on its nuclear programme.

There have been signs of a softening of the North's usually harsh rhetoric.

But it is still unclear if Pyongyang will accept a return to the six party talks framework - or press for an alternative.


[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 21:39 GMT, Monday, 28 September 2009 22:39 UK
US wants sustained Burma dialogue
The US says its planned dialogue with Burma's military rulers must be part of a "sustained process of interaction".

The State Department says the Burmese leadership has for the first time shown an interest in engaging with the US, and Washington intends to pursue that.

But it says sanctions will remain until there is progress on human rights.

Also on Monday, Burma's Prime Minister, Gen Thein Sein, told the UN General Assembly that sanctions were "unjust" and should be stopped.

Gen Thein Sein - the most senior member of the Burmese government to appear at the UN for nearly 15 years - vowed to take "systematic steps to hold free and fair elections" next year.

'Core concerns'

{{Lifting sanctions now would send the wrong signal }
Kurt Campbell
US Assistant Secretary of State }}

Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said the US wanted a "sustained process of interaction" with Burma after only sporadic contacts in recent years.

"We intend to begin a direct dialogue with Burmese authorities to lay out the path towards better relations," Campbell was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.

But he said that key reforms were needed.

"Lifting sanctions now would send the wrong signal," he said. "We will tell the Burmese that we will discuss easing sanctions only if they take actions on our core concerns."

He said the US would press for the unconditional release of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the past two decades under house arrest.

Mr Campbell said the Obama administration has also called on Burma to free all political prisoners and end conflicts with ethnic minorities.

news20090929cnn

[Top stories] from [CNN.com]

[World]
Palestinians call for Israel to be 'punished' for Gaza offensive
Story Highlights
> U.N. group presents scathing report on Israel's conduct during Gaza offensive
> Palestinians urge U.N. to address alleged crimes; Israel condemns report
> Report accuses Israel of "actions amounting to war crimes" during offensive
> Report finds Palestinian militants also committed war crimes
September 29, 2009

(CNN) -- Palestinians on Tuesday urged the United Nations to "punish" Israel as a scathing U.N. report accused the nation of war crimes during its military offensive in Gaza last winter.

But Israel rejected the investigation as one-sided and shameful.

The report accused Israel of committing "actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity" during its military incursion into Gaza from December 27 to January 18.

Richard Goldstone, the South African judge who headed the U.N. investigation into the conflict, demanded that someone be held responsible for crimes committed during it.

"The lack of accountability for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity has reached a crisis point," Goldstone said Tuesday. "This is the time of action."

He formally presented the report to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland on Tuesday.

It claims that the Israeli Defense Forces "failed to take feasible precautions required by international law to avoid or minimize loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects."

Ibrahim Khraishi, the Palestinian Authority's ambassador to the United Nations, called the report professional and unbiased.

"This report should not be another report to just document and archive," said Khraishi. "My people will not forgive this council if they let these criminals go unpunished."

But Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Aharon Leshno-Yaar, questioned the report in strong language Tuesday, calling it one-sided and shameful.

"This report is based on carefully picked incidents, cherry-picked for political effect," Leshno-Yaar said. "The authors of this fact-finding report had little thought about finding facts."

Israel did not cooperate in the U.N. investigation, calling it flawed and biased.

There is an ongoing dispute about the number of people killed in the three-week military offensive which Israel called Operation Cast Lead.

The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights put the death toll at 1,419 and said that 1,167 of those were "non-combatants."

The Israeli military released its own figures earlier this year, claiming 1,166 people were killed and that 60 percent of those were "terror operatives."

A separate report released earlier this month by Israeli human rights organization B'tselem put the death toll at 1,387, claiming that more than half of those killed were civilians.

Israel has said it "had both a right and an obligation to take military action against Hamas in Gaza to stop Hamas' almost incessant rocket and mortar attacks upon thousands of Israeli civilians and its other acts of terrorism."

Hamas is the militant Palestinian movement which governs Gaza. It rejects Israel's right to exist.

The U.N. report said Israel fired the chemical agent white phosphorus in civilian areas, intentionally fired upon hospitals using high-explosive artillery shells, and failed to provide effective warnings to civilians or U.N. workers before attacks, all of which can be war crimes.

It also claims that Israel used Palestinian civilians as human shields and deliberately attacked Palestinian food supplies in Gaza.

The report recommends that the U.N. Security Council require the government of Israel to launch appropriate independent investigations into the findings of the report within three months. The findings also recommend that the alleged Israeli war crimes be explored by the International Criminal Court.

Israel has launched a number of its own investigations into the conflict.

The findings also call on Palestinian leadership to investigate alleged war crimes, for militants to respect humanitarian law, and for the release of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped by Palestinian militants in 2006, on humanitarian grounds.

Representatives from Russia, Cuba and Egypt applauded the Goldstone report.

The U.S. representative to the U.N. Human Rights Council, Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner, said some of the recommendations in the report were "deeply flawed" and called for Israel and Palestinian authorities to be allowed to finish conducting their own investigations before passing judgment.

A spokeswoman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said the Human Rights Council could draft a resolution on the issue by Friday.

The group that prepared the report is called the U.N. Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. Its 500-plus page report was released earlier this month and presented formally on Tuesday.


[World]
Iran to give IAEA inspection timetable
Story Highlights
> Iran says it will soon tell IAEA when it can inspect newly revealed nuclear facility
> Iran revealed covert site last week, drawing condemnation from the West
> Iran's nuclear chief to meet 5 permanent U.N. Security Council members Thursday
> Country has also carried out missile tests, provoking further strong response
September 29, 2009

(CNN) -- Iran will soon tell the International Atomic Energy Agency when it can inspect the Islamic republic's recently revealed nuclear facility, the country's state-run Press TV reported.

The head of Iran's nuclear program made the announcement in an interview with Press TV on Monday, but he did not give a timetable for the potential inspection.

Iran revealed the existence of the covert uranium enrichment site last week, drawing condemnation from the West.

The country has also launched a series of missile tests which provoked a further strong response from Western leaders. Saturday, Iran tested short-range missiles, and Monday, it fired two types of long-range missiles.

What Tehran described as routine military exercises, France and the United States called "destabilizing" and "provocative."

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

Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, accused the major powers of politicizing the Islamic Republic's nuclear activities. He told Press TV the accusations that the newly revealed uranium enrichment plant is used for military purposes are "baseless."

"It is against our tenets, it is against our religion to produce, use, hold or have nuclear weapons or arsenal," Salehi told Press TV. "How can we more clearly state our position? Since 1974 we have been saying this."

Iran's nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, is scheduled to meet Thursday 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 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Salehi told Press TV that Iran will try to resolve the issue "both politically and technically" during those meetings.

Both of Iran's long-range missile tests successfully 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."

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

If true, the missile brings Moscow, Russia; Athens, Greece; and southern Italy within striking distance.

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.

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

The facility is located on a military base near the city of Qom, about 100 miles 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.

Salehi told Press TV that the plant is under construction within IAEA regulations. He said Iran has informed the IAEA that the new site will produce enriched uranium of up to 5 percent, consistent with its nuclear energy program.

news20090929reut1

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Clean tech investments soar worldwide: report
Tue Sep 29, 2009 4:35am EDT

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Global investment in clean technology roared back in the third quarter, driven by solar power and a public offering that underscores growing enthusiasm for the sector, Greentech Media reported on Monday.

Clean tech investments -- which include solar power, an electric grid controlled by computers for efficiency, electric cars, biofuels and green building materials -- rose to $1.9 billion in 112 deals, Greentech said.

That represents another big jump, after clean tech went from $836 million in the first quarter to $1.2 billion of second quarter.

"There is a lot of momentum and there are a lot of deals in the pipeline," said Eric Wesoff, who wrote the report. "People are energized by the A123 Systems Inc IPO. I'd say it's reasonable to look for moderate growth in the fourth quarter."

Shares of battery maker A123 soared more than 50 percent on Thursday, marking it as the most attractive of last week's public offerings.

Wesoff said venture capitalists will take note of that, but that their pockets are not deep enough to support continued growth at the rate of the past two quarters.

More than half the clean tech investment in the third quarter went into two areas -- solar and a combined category of biofuels, gasification and cleaner coal.

Solar accounted for $575 million in 29 deals, and biofuels, gasification and coal for $513 million in 17 deals.

One company alone, high-efficiency solar electric panel maker Solyndra, accounted for a $198 million, in a round led by Argonaut Private Equity.

Exxon Mobile Corp made a multi-year commitment to invest $300 million in Synthetic Genomics for the development of algae-based fuels.

Smart grid and associated technologies accounted for $160 million in 14 deals, and auto and transport in five deals for $158 million.

Green buildings at $105 million and green materials at $100 million were the other two major areas.

Still the deals failed to hit the record highs of 2008, when the third quarter saw $2.9 billion and the entire year $7.6 billion. Wesoff said the year -- and the quarter -- were driven by unusual capital investment to build out solar manufacturing plants.

(Reporting by David Lawsky; Editing by Richard Chang)


[Green Business]
Investors eye forest CO₂ market, climate pact key: poll
Tue Sep 29, 2009 6:22am EDT

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Investors such as UBS, Citigroup and Blackrock back a potentially multi-billion dollar carbon credit market centered on saving forests but regulations and cash were needed to build a market first, a survey has found.

The survey of investors with $7 trillion of assets under management by the Brunswick Group for global conservation group WWF said banks and fund managers were waiting for the forest carbon scheme to be included in a broader U.N. climate pact.

They also said rich nations needed to include the U.N.-backed scheme, called reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD), into laws that allow forest carbon offsets to be included as part of steps to meet national emissions targets.

The tougher the targets the likely greater the demand for the offsets. The survey was released on Tuesday.

"REDD is critical to a climate solution and financing is critical to make REDD work," said Donald Kanak, chairman of WWF's Forest Carbon Initiative, which commissioned the survey of 25 senior institutional money managers, analysts and sustainability investors globally.

"In the long term private capital could play a major role if certain conditions are satisfied. We need the public sector to support sufficient financing in the near term to help forest countries become REDD ready," he told reporters in Bangkok.

Delegates from about 180 countries are trying to narrow differences on emissions reduction targets, climate finance and transfer of clean-energy technology before a December deadline to try to seal a tougher pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

REDD is seen as a crucial part of a new climate pact because deforestation is responsible for about 20 percent of mankind's greenhouse gas emissions, so saving forests is a key part of the climate puzzle.

Developing countries could potentially earn billions of dollars in annual funds from selling carbon offsets from projects that protect or rehabilitate forests for decades, thereby locking away large amounts of carbon dioxide.

PRECONDITIONS But Kanak said a number of preconditions needed to be met before a global forest carbon market could take off.

"Agreement on a climate treaty at Copenhagen, with support from major economies such as China and India, and legislation in the U.S. are key pre-requisites," he said. Negotiators will try to agree on a broad outline of a post-Kyoto pact in Copenhagen in December.

"Public sector funding will be vital before a market-based approach can take effect," he said, adding that problems on ensuring REDD projects are permanent and lead to significant long-term CO2 reductions could be addressed if there was a strong political framework in place.

"National governments must also put in place robust and durable legal frameworks to create certainty for investors," he said.

The survey also found more than a third of investors expected a forest CO2 market would evolve from the existing voluntary carbon market to a "compliance" market backed by national emissions trading schemes in five to 15 years if the preconditions were met.

(Reporting by David Fogarty; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)


[Green Business]
Indonesia CO₂ pledge to help climate talks: greens
Tue Sep 29, 2009 5:10am EDT
By David Fogarty, Climate Change Correspondent, Asia

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Environmentalists on Tuesday welcomed Indonesia's pledge to substantially cut the growth of its greenhouse gas emissions, saying the promise could help talks on crafting a broader global pact to fight climate change.

Indonesia is the world's third largest greenhouse emitter and steps by big developing nations to curb their emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases are a key focus of U.N.-led climate talks under way in the Thai capital until Oct 9.

Delegates from about 180 countries are trying to narrow differences on emissions reduction targets, climate finance and transfer of clean-energy technology before a December deadline to try to seal a tougher pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

In a speech to G20 leaders on September 25, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the government was crafting a policy that would cut emissions by 26 percent by 2020 from "business as usual" (BAU) levels.

The policy would be a mix of stepping up investment in renewable energy, such as geothermal power, and curbing emissions from deforestation and changes in land use.

With international support, he said he was confident Indonesia could cut emissions by as much as 41 percent.

"This target is entirely achievable because most of our emissions come from forest-related issues, such as forest fires and deforestation," he said during a working lunch in the U.S. city of Pittsburgh. Reuters obtained a copy of his speech on Tuesday.

"We are also looking into the distinct possibility to commit a billion ton of CO2 reduction by 2050 from BAU. We will change the status of our forest from that of a net emitter sector to a net sink sector by 2030."

In the jargon of international climate talks, "business as usual" levels refers to what would happen if emissions grew at the same rate as has accompanied economic growth in the past.

DESTRUCTION OF RAINFOREST

Indonesia is the world's third largest greenhouse gas emitter, the country's National Climate Change Council says, mainly through loss of rainforests and forest fires. Slowing the pace of destruction is a key focus of climate negotiators trying to firm up ways to curb the pace of global warming.

Deforestation is responsible for about 20 percent of mankind's greenhouse gas emissions, so saving forests is a key part of the climate puzzle.

"This is extremely positive, that developing countries can commit to the world that this is the ambition level we are at, we can do," Kim Carstensen, head of conservation group WWF's global climate initiative, told Reuters in Bangkok.

"What's even more interesting and something that's been lacking in the negotiations is that they are willing to provide an additional 15 percent if they get financial support."

Greenpeace said Yudhoyono's comments would put pressure on rich nations to act faster on fighting climate change.

"This puts the focus firmly back on the developed world, most especially the countries who have been bleating that they won't move without the big southern emitters," said Paul Winn, Greenpeace international forest climate campaigner, in Bangkok.

"It also highlights the urgent need for financing to help developing countries take further action on climate."

Rich nations say developing nations need to include any emissions reduction steps into a post-Kyoto pact to ensure such measures can be monitored and verified. Developing countries would also need to make regular progress reports on such steps.

Developing nations are resisting this demand and say rich nations should pay substantial sums to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change and to pay for clean-energy technology.

(Editing by Alex Richardson)

news20090929reut2

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
EU, U.S. eye green goods tax pact in climate fight
Mon Sep 28, 2009 3:43pm EDT
By Darren Ennis

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The European Union and the United States are holding talks on forging a pact with OECD countries and China to eliminate duties on green goods as part of incentives to Beijing in a potential global climate deal.

EU diplomats told Reuters that under a plan being discussed by Brussels and Washington, the 30 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and China would agree a global pact to phase out import tariffs on goods such as wind turbines, renewables and green technologies.

But any deal is unlikely to include environmentally friendly hybrid cars, the diplomats said.

"The talks are entering an advanced stage. Brussels and Washington hope this could be one of the incentives needed to get China on board in the lead up to the Copenhagen climate change talks," one EU diplomat told Reuters.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative's office said the United States and the EU had been pushing within the Doha round of world trade talks since November 2007 for a deal to cut tariffs on environmental goods "and continue to work closely in pushing for concrete progress."

"We remain eager to move ahead with negotiations to eliminate tariff barriers on climate-friendly technologies and spur momentum on a larger WTO Doha package on environmental goods and services," said USTR spokeswoman Carol Guthrie.

U.S. businesses such as United Technologies Corp and General Electric Co, that are frustrated with the slow pace of the Doha round, have urged the Obama administration to consider alternative paths to reach a deal to boost trade in environmental goods and services.

"It's a chance to jump-start U.S. trade policy and aid global climate negotiations at the same time," said Jake Colvin, vice president for global trade policy at the National Foreign Trade Council, a U.S. business group.

China is on course to become the world's largest producer of wind turbines in the world this year and is a major manufacturer of solar products.

CHINA UNDER PRESSURE

The Asian powerhouse -- the world's biggest polluter -- is under pressure from Europe and the United States to cut its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions as part of negotiations on a new global climate treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which lapses at the end of 2012.

In return Beijing wants billions of dollars in cash from the EU and the United States to help it harness new greener technologies for its export-driven economy.

"This deal would save Chinese exporters billions of euros and dollars and could form a large part of the overall package offered to Beijing to cut emissions," another diplomat said.

India and Brazil are also being wooed by the EU and Washington before global climate talks in Copenhagen in December, but are considered unlikely to take part in the initiative.

"Brazil and India are not seen as part of the deal since reducing their import tariffs would not benefit them. They can opt in, but it is expected they will opt out," the first diplomat said.

EU trade ministers gave the green light earlier this month to EU president Sweden and the European Commission -- which oversees trade policy for the 27-nation bloc -- to pursue the negotiations with Washington.

"Member states will get a complete update on October 6 in Sweden and if approved, formal negotiations could start with the OECD and China before Copenhagen," the second diplomat said.

Any negotiations would take place between ambassadors at the World Trade Organization in Geneva, but any deal would be formally agreed outside the global trade watchdog, the diplomats said.

"It would be similar to an agreement in the pharmaceutical sector and would not contravene WTO rules," one envoy said.

Pharmaceutical-producing countries accounting for approximately 90 percent of global production, including the United States, EU and China, have agreed to "zero-for-zero" tariffs for pharmaceutical products and for chemicals used in the production of pharmaceuticals.

(Additional reporting by Doug Palmer in Washington; Editing by Timothy Heritage and Chris Wilson)


[Green Business]
U.S. solar stocks knocked by German demand fears
Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:48pm EDT
By Laura Isensee

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S.-listed solar shares sank on Monday, cutting into gains earlier this month as investors feared Germany's new coalition government could trim support for the industry.

Shares of First Solar Inc, Suntech Power, Yingli Green Energy and LDK Solar Co Ltd all slipped 2 to 3.5 percent as Germany, the world's largest renewable energy market, prepared for the Free Democrats to join Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives in a governing coalition.

The Free Democrats (FDP), who have called for reduced solar supports, are expected to replace the Social Democrats (SPD).

"The elections are likely to be a negative for the sector," said Gordon Johnson, analyst with Hapoalim Securities.

Solar companies have struggled with an oversupply of cells and modules this year as a cutback in Spanish subsidies and the global financial crisis knocked demand for the systems that turn sunlight into electricity.

Still, the shares had rebounded in September on hopes that demand growth was returning to the nascent companies. First Solar shares have jumped 22 percent since the end of August, to $148.51 at mid-afternoon on Monday. U.S.-based SunPower Corp and China's Suntech Power Holdings Co Ltd have gained 19 percent and 7 percent, respectively, since the end of August while Trina Solar Ltd hit a high for the year at $35.90 last week.

Prices for solar modules have fallen by as much as 40 percent since the fourth quarter of 2008, eroding margins for many companies and raising worries that smaller companies may lack the resources to withstand the downturn.

Cowen & Co analyst Rob Stone said solar stocks were "somewhat oversold" in August as companies expected price erosion to continue, putting pressure all the way down to their bottom line.

"The bear argument was that you had this pricing spiral going on with no bottom in sight," Stone said.

"The thought (in August) was that, yes, Q3 might be OK, but then you've got six months of unknown territory to cross with lower volume, falling prices and margin pressures. So it's probably better to sell them and come back in the springtime," Stone added.

Since August, however, companies have been shipping strong enough orders so that bookings have stretched into December, shedding some light on how the fourth quarter might look, Stone said.

The solar power industry's busiest season tends to be the third quarter.

An uptick in demand, the stock market gains on Wall Street and firmer oil and natural gas prices also helped lift the solar sector this month.

"The idea being if energy prices are higher, companies are more willing to invest and there will be more capital to build solar projects," Pavel Molchanov, analyst with Raymond James.

Some analysts warned that the rally might be premature if the rise in demand turns out to be only seasonal. Hapoalim's Johnson said expectations that Germany could reduce its supports for solar in 2010 or 2011 was driving demand for equipment higher this year at the expense of future sales.

German demand was forecast to be about 1.5 gigawatts in 2009, but may reach as much as 2.0 to 2.2 GW as customers speed up orders, he said.

And with the price for solar modules sharply below year-ago levels, new sales will not necessarily equal rising profits.

"In a muted pricing environment, you really need to have this unit growth continue throughout the next year. Right now it's a bit early," said Oppenheimer and Co analyst Sam Dubinsky.

(Reporting by Laura Isensee and Matt Daily; Editing by Richard Chang)

news20090929cbs

[Today's News] from [CBS News.com]

[World]
Sept. 29, 2009
White House to Go After Iran's Oil Income
Obama Administration to Push for Tough New Economic Sanctions if Iran Doesn't Come Clean on Nuclear Plans

(CBS/AP) The Obama administration is planning to push for new sanctions against Iran, targeting its energy, financial and telecommunications sectors if it does not comply with international demands to come clean about its nuclear program, according to U.S. officials.

The officials said the U.S. would expand its own penalties against Iranian companies and press for greater international sanctions against foreign firms, largely European, that do business in the country unless Iran can prove that its nuclear activities are not aimed at developing an atomic weapon.

Among the ideas being considered are asset freezes and travel bans against Iranian and foreign businesses and individuals who do business in those areas, the officials said. The officials spoke Monday on condition of anonymity because the measures were still under review.

As the White House mulls its next move, Iran continued Tuesday to defiantly tout its most recent play in the diplomatic chess game over its weapons program.

Iran tested its longest-range missiles Monday and warned on Tuesday that they can reach any place that threatens the country, including Israel, parts of Europe and U.S. military bases in the Mideast. The launch capped two days of war games and was condemned as a provocation by Western powers, which are demanding Tehran come clean about a newly revealed nuclear facility it has been secretly building.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said there has never been a stronger international consensus to get tough on Iran's nuclear program, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Fuss.

Western nations accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons, while Iran says it only seeks to create fuel for nuclear power plants.

Diplomats from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - as well as Germany meet with Iran's top nuclear negotiator on Thursday to press once again an offer of incentives for Iran to halt suspect activity.

Of the Thursday meeting in Geneva, Gibbs said Iran must provide full transparency about its nuclear activities and ensure that it will only pursue peaceful nuclear energy uses.

"They have decisions to make. They have one of two paths that they can take. They can continue the path that they've been on, even while the world has shown conclusive intelligence about a facility in Qom, or it can make a decision to step away from its nuclear weapons program and build confidence in the world and ... enter into a meaningful relationship with the world based on their own security, but not based on nuclear weapons," Gibbs said.

The proposed sanctions would largely focus on investment in Iran's energy infrastructure and development, the officials said. Until now, the sanctions have dealt mainly with companies and people suspected of buying or selling weapons of mass destruction or their components.

CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that going after Iran's ability to profit from its vast energy reserves is the key aspect to the expected new sanctions - as Iran "is not yet a nuclear power, but an oil power".

"To really have an impact on Iran you have to have an impact on its ability to export oil at substantial leveles," Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations told Martin. "

For those sanctions to be effective, adds Takeyh, they must have full backing from Russia and China.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev indicated a willingness to consider sanctions against Tehran for the first time during the United Nations General Assembly in New York last week, but China may prove a more difficult ally to bring onboard.

"The Chinese are actually investors in Iran - Iran's petroleum sector, and also consumers of Iran's petroleum products," Takeyh explained to CBS News. "So they might have some hesitation in terms of really imposing rigorous sanctions."


[World]
MANILA, Philippines, Sept. 29, 2009
2 U.S. Troops Killed in Philippines Blast
Suspected al Qaeda-Linked Militants' Landmine Hits Joint U.S.-Filipino Convoy in Deadly Southern Region
(CBS/AP) Updated at 4:29 a.m. Eastern.

Two U.S. troops were killed in a land mine attack Tuesday by suspected al Qaeda-linked militants in the southern Philippines, officials said.

It was believed to be just the second time U.S. soldiers have been killed in the southern Philippines in violence blamed on the Abu Sayyaf group since American counterterrorism troops were deployed to the region in 2002, and the first fatalities in years.

One Philippine marine also was killed and two others were wounded in the blast on Jolo island, where the Americans have been providing combat training and weapons to Filipino troops battling Abu Sayyaf militants.

Military spokesman Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner said a Philippine military convoy joined by U.S. troops was on its way to an area in Jolo's Indanan township where troops were building two school buildings and digging artesian wells when the land mine exploded.

One U.S. soldier died at the scene, while another who was critically wounded in the blast died a short time later, Brawner told The Associated Press.

CBS News' Barnaby Lo reports that U.S. Ambassador Kristie A. Kenney released a statement saying the troops, "lost their lives serving others and we will always be grateful for their contributions to improve the quality of life on Jolo."

Lo reports that the slain troops were noncombatant members of the U.S. Navy.

"They were not in combat," Brawner confirmed to reporters. "These U.S. soldiers were there in the area to supervise the developmental projects in Indanan."

In a statement, the U.S. Embassy said the deaths happened when the soldiers' vehicle struck an improvised explosive device at about 8:45 a.m. (0045 GMT) during a resupply mission for the school construction project.

The troops were not identified pending notification of next of kin.

Brawner said no suspects were immediately identified, but suspicion immediately fell on the well-armed Abu Sayyaf, which is blamed for numerous bombings, beheadings and kidnappings of Filipinos and foreigners in the south in recent years.

Lo reports that Jolo is Abu Sayyaf's stronghold in the southern Philippines.

Abu Sayyaf has declared a temporary ceasefire in the Philippines, vowing to help local villagers recover from the devastating flooding left in the wake of Tropical Storm Ketsana. At least 240 people have been killed and many thousands more left homeless by the inundation, primarily in the northern parts of the country.

A senior Philippine military commander overseeing counterterrorism campaigns in the south told The Associated Press that Abu Sayyaf had likely planted the landmine in Indanan, where the militants have jungle strongholds. The commander spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give information to reporters.

Abu Sayyaf is believed to have about 400 fighters, to have received funds from al Qaeda and is suspected of sheltering militants from the larger Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah.

An estimated 600 U.S. troops are stationed in the Philippines to train and advise their Filipino counterparts in their fight against Abu Sayyaf and other Muslim insurgents in the country's south, reports Lo.

In recent months, however, a Philippine Navy officer has accused U.S. troops of engaging directly in the fighting. The accusation has been repeatedly denied by both the Filipino military and the U.S. Embassy. It has stoked significant protests on the streets of Manila, with demonstrators calling for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. forces.
The only previous publically known fatality of American service members in the Philippines was the death in October 2002 of a U.S. Green Beret, killed along with two Filipinos when a bomb loaded with nails exploded outside a cafe in Zamboanga city.