news20091021jt1

[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[BUSINESS NEWS]
Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009
Public funds mulled to keep JAL afloat
Carrier's losses mount; hotels may be ditched
By KAZUAKI NAGATA
Staff writer

The government may need to inject public funds into Japan Airlines Corp. to keep the ailing carrier aloft, transport minister Seiji Maehara and Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii indicated Tuesday.

The announcement comes as JAL faces a much bigger than expected group operating loss of around 200 billion in fiscal 2009, compared with an earlier forecast of 59 billion, with management considering selling its hotel business in an urgent move to improve earnings.

The two key members of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's administration met with members of the JAL reconstruction task force Tuesday morning for a briefing on JAL's rehabilitation plans. The task force, formed by the transport ministry, has already informed JAL's creditors of the higher forecast loss, sources said Monday.

Both later admitted that the plans were drafted under the premise that the government will come to JAL's rescue.

The task force is expected to outline the rescue plan by the end of the month and issue a final version by the end of November. But Fujii said JAL's revival plan will be decided "within the next several days."

Apparently at the center of Tuesday's discussions was whether it would be right to use public funds to support JAL, which is projected to suffer huge losses for a second straight year.

The meeting was the first ministerial consultation about Japan's top airline since the Democratic Party of Japan took power a month ago.

Maehara has been emphasizing the importance of JAL turning itself around. But during a news conference Tuesday he hinted public funds may be necessary.

"When the previous government was in charge, 100 billion was loaned to JAL," Maehara said, noting the funds came from major banks and the Development Bank of Japan.

"That loan comes with government compensation. Taking this under consideration, public support has already been provided, and everything was not purely done with private-sector funds. I think we can think of that point in a broader sense," he said.

Maehara meanwhile did not rule out a possible court-managed reconstruction program, saying coming discussions will address this issue.

The swelling loss expected for the year through March 31 is due to increases in spending needed for downsizing JAL's corporate structure and workforce, in addition to sluggish revenues from its operations, the sources said.

As part of efforts to turn its business around, JAL is considering selling JAL Hotels Co., a subsidiary that runs about 60 hotels at home and abroad, the sources said.

The subsidiary runs two chains, Nikko Hotels International and Hotel JAL City. It operates 17 hotels overseas, including in Beijing, Dusseldorf, Hanoi, London and San Francisco. JAL is also considering closing 27 offices over the next two years, they said.

JAL, which posted a record group net loss of 99.04 billion in the April-June quarter, has already asked for more than 300 billion in fresh loans from its main creditors.

Of the envisaged 300 billion, JAL hopes to get up to 180 billion from the DBJ.

JAL proposed a revival plan in September to the government to receive funds, but Maehara rejected it, calling it unfeasible and lacking specifics.

Maehara launched the task force Sept. 25, tasking business reconstruction professionals with thoroughly checking JAL's massive debt woes.

Although Maehara stressed that JAL will be able to become stable with a viable rehabilitation plan, "I think this view is shared by all the government members that we have to avoid a situation in which aircraft are not able to fly."

JAL has also entered the final stages of arranging for a private-sector corporate revival body to mediate with its creditor banks for a debt waiver, other sources said Monday.

The airline plans to hold preliminary talks with such an organization by the end of this week under the "alternative dispute resolution" procedure, an out-of-court arbitration process. The ADR involves engineering a corporate revival with a noncourt third-party body acting as an intermediary. Bringing the procedure to a successful close requires securing creditors' consent.

If a company uses the ADR, financial institutions that write off the company's debts would receive tax benefits.

The task force expects the carrier to be able to post a consolidated operating profit of 40 billion in fiscal 2011 if it streamlines or sells unprofitable operations.

Information from Kyodo added


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009
Japan Post boss set to step down
Kyodo News

Japan Post Holdings President Yoshifumi Nishikawa announced Tuesday he intends to resign amid mounting pressure from the Democratic Party of Japan-led administration.

Nishikawa said he will submit his letter of resignation Oct. 28, when Japan Post holds a board meeting.

He told reporters at the holding company's headquarters that there is a big difference between what he has already done and intends to do for the privatization of the Japan Post group and the new government's policy.

"I cannot remain in my current post," he said.

Shizuka Kamei, state minister in charge of postal services, said he will swiftly decide on Nishikawa's successor, adding that he has some names in mind. Kamei, a strong opponent of Junichiro Koizumi's postal privatization drive, has been demanding that Nishikawa go.

"It should be someone who could contribute to the local society and the nation," said Kamei.

Names of business leaders, former presidents of public entities and retired bureaucrats of the internal affairs ministry have been floated in the Nagata-cho political district.

Postal privatization, the biggest reform effort under former Prime Minister Koizumi, has reached a turning point with the change of management and policies.

Nishikawa was considered a prime player in Japan Post's aborted bid to sell its nationwide inn holdings at fire-sale prices to Orix Corp. in what was considered a shady deal.

The government is expected to submit legislation to revise the postal privatization process during the extraordinary Diet session to be convened next Monday. Although Nishikawa had been planning to list two of Japan Post's financial units on the stock market, this has been met with opposition by the new administration, particularly Kamei.

Nishikawa, a former president of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., took the helm of Japan Post's predecessor firm formed in 2006 in preparation for the postal privatization.

He assumed the presidency of Japan Post in October 2007 at the launch of a 10-year privatization process.

The holding firm is now wholly owned by the government and controls four companies that provide mail delivery, over-the-counter services, banking and insurance operations.

Earlier in the day, the government laid out its basic position on postal privatization at a Cabinet meeting, drastically changing the policy initiated by previous governments of the Liberal Democratic Party.

Under the new plan, the government will reorganize the Japan Post group to ensure universal postal services nationwide, stipulating that mail and financial services are to be provided in an integrated manner through the postal network. It did not elaborate on specifics.

{{New policy on postal reform{
Kyodo News
The government will:
> Make the Japan Post group offer universal mail, savings and life insurance services in an integrated manner at post offices nationwide.

> Utilize the post office network as a "one-stop base" for government services.

> Legally require the group to offer uniform basic savings and insurance services nationwide.

> Introduce a new regulation to supervise the group's financial operations.

> Reorganize the group's current structure in which a holding company manages four units under its wing.

> Maintain the stock company status for the group companies.

> Oblige the group to disclose more information and raise its accountability.

> Abolish the current law on privatizing Japan Post.}

Since September's change of government, the DPJ-led ruling bloc has put the postal group in its sights, saying its operations under the existing framework have deteriorated and the current structure should be changed to better serve the public.

"The postal business was largely distorted by the Koizumi reforms and experienced a major retreat from what it was supposed to be," financial and postal services minister Kamei told a news conference.

But Kamei, leader of Kokumin Shinto and whose priority has been to oppose Koizumi's privatization plans, said he has no intention of bringing the postal business back to what it was before Koizumi carried out the reforms in October 2007.

"We will deal with this as if we are (embarking on) a new business," Kamei said, adding the government will make related services more accessible to people living anywhere in Japan, including sparsely populated and mountainous areas.

The basic policy was endorsed in line with a coalition accord by the DPJ, Kokumin Shinto and the Social Democratic Party.

"We would like to scrutinize the services and business management" at the Japan Post group to "revitalize the regional communities," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano said at a separate news conference.

news20091021jt2

[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009
Gates: Japan must stick to Futenma deal
By JUN HONGO
Staff writer

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged Japan on Tuesday to stick with its agreements on relocating the functions of the Futenma air base in Okinawa Prefecture.

In talks with Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada in Tokyo, Gates said it is important that the new administration led by the Democratic Party of Japan delivers on the promises made by previous administrations, a Foreign Ministry official said.

Calling the plan to keep Futenma's operations within Okinawa the only feasible measure, the Pentagon chief urged Tokyo to reach a conclusion soon, the official said.

The relocation plan was hammered out by Washington and governments led by the DPJ's political foe, the Liberal Democratic Party, and the DPJ pledged in its policy platform for the Aug. 30 Lower House election to to move Futenma's operations outside Okinawa.

In response, Okada told Gates he is aware of the accord between the two governments, but domestic circumstances have changed. Citing some recent local elections won by opponents of the U.S. bases, Okada said Okinawans have called for a change in the relocation plan.

He told Gates that Tokyo will work on reaching a quick conclusion but asked the U.S. to be patient and understand Japan's change in government, according to the ministry official who briefed reporters.

On the DPJ's plan to withdraw the Maritime Self-Defense Force from its refueling mission in the Indian Ocean, Gates told Okada that Japan should decide what it can do to assist antiterrorism efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The ministry official said Gates expressed hope that Tokyo will come up with supportive measures to assist the global effort.

Okada replied that the DPJ is not in a position to submit a bill to extend the MSDF mission and is instead drawing up plans for Japan to contribute in the region in other ways.

Despite the sticking points, however, Okada and Gates agreed to strengthen bilateral ties, the official said.

Gates was quoted as saying Washington will stand with the DPJ as it becomes accustomed to governing and assured Okada that Tokyo "remains the cornerstone" of U.S. policy in the region.

The meeting was the first in Tokyo between the DPJ administration and a top U.S. official.

They agreed to continue exchanging opinions on global denuclearization and ruling out pre-emptive nuclear attacks, although Gates reiterated the need for flexibility to sustain the deterrence factor.

Okada and Gates did not exchange opinions on North Korea's nuclear development program.

Gates met with Okada on the first of his two days in Tokyo. He was scheduled to meet Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa on Wednesday.

His visit is laying the groundwork for President Barack Obama's scheduled trip to Japan next month.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009
Okada wants to fast-track bill for North Korea cargo inspections
Kyodo News

Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said Tuesday he wants a bill submitted to the Diet that would allow Japan to carry out strict inspections of North Korean cargo, despite Pyongyang's recent conciliatory moves.

Okada's remarks came after Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano had earlier indicated his reluctance to give the bill fast-track treatment. Hirano later told reporters the government is in "final considerations" about what to do with the bill.

Okada said he told an informal ministerial session, "It's wrong to put off submission of the bill on grounds that North Korea is now taking a conciliatory approach."

He said the bill is aimed at implementing a U.N. Security Council resolution to punish North Korea for its second nuclear test in May.

Okada also told reporters that if the bill is not submitted to the Diet during the extra session that starts next Monday, it should be presented during the ordinary session that convenes in January.

The cargo inspection bill was initially submitted under the previous government in line with the U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution. It was scrapped when the Lower House was dissolved July 21 for the general election.

The bill was designed to enable law enforcement authorities to inspect vessels suspected of carrying North Korea-related cargo on the high seas and elsewhere. It also set rules for the inspections by designating the Japan Coast Guard as the primary agent and the Self-Defense Forces as a backup in special circumstances.

Afghan SDF rethink
Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said Tuesday he will look at plans to redeploy the Self-Defense Forces to help reconstruct Afghanistan after Japan's refueling mission in the Indian Ocean ends in January.

Kitazawa's remarks add a new dimension to Japan's alternative support plan for the conflict-ravaged country. Until now the government has been focusing on civilian-based aid, including vocational training and farming assistance.

"When I hear international opinions, including those of Europe, I am a little concerned about whether civilian support would be enough for Japan's alternative plan" to help rebuild Afghanistan, Kitazawa said at a news conference.

He said he will try to explore Afghan aid plans involving SDF troops by weighing various suggestions.

Defense policy delay
Crafting the next defense policy guidelines will be delayed for a year so the new administration can make sure its views are included, officials said Tuesday.

The move, which automatically delays the next medium-term defense buildup plan, was endorsed at a meeting of the Security Council of Japan, the top decision-making panel on defense, involving Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and other ministers.

"The government will advance (discussions) on the review of the National Defense Program Guidelines and the medium-term defense buildup plan that will follow the current one and draw a conclusion by the end of fiscal 2010," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano told reporters.

The guidelines on basic security policy were to be revised in December along with the current medium-term buildup plan, which stipulates the size of the Self-Defense Forces and related expenses. The timetable was set by the previous administration.

But Hatoyama's government said at a Cabinet committee meeting Friday involving key ministers involved with defense and another gathering involving both ministers and senior ruling coalition lawmakers that the next outline will be delayed until the end of next year.

The government also confirmed plans to create a new expert panel on defense policy and have a Cabinet committee on basic policy, in which the leaders of the Democratic Party of Japan's coalition partners participate as ministers, join in deliberations.

"(The delay approved Tuesday) means we will have enough time (to reflect the views of) the new government," Hirano said.

"We will have to show political leadership in making decisions, rather than rubber-stamping the recommendations of an expert panel, because this is such an important matter," Hirano said.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009
First ever poverty rate released by ministry stands at relatively high 15.7%
By NATSUKO FUKUE
Staff writer

The national poverty rate stood at 15.7 percent in 2006, according to first-ever figures released Tuesday by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, a fairly high rate for a developed country.

The poverty rate for children was 14.2 percent that year, the ministry said. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development defines households with less than half the median national disposable income as poor. For Japan it was \ 1.14 million in 2006.

The OECD has published the poverty rates for member countries through 2004, but the Japanese government had not previously calculated the rate.

The rate in Japan "is quite high among the OECD countries," welfare minister Akira Nagatsuma said at a news conference.

According to an OECD report on poverty rates in the mid-2000s, Japan had the fourth-highest rate of relative poverty among OECD member countries.

"Once the poverty rate is announced (by the government), you will be able to check if the figure goes up or down under the administration," welfare parliamentary secretary Kazunori Yamanoi said.

Nagatsuma stressed that the poverty rate for single-parent households is particularly high in Japan at 58.7 percent in 2004, according to OECD figures.

'It's the worst in the member countries," he said, adding that the government will hammer out measures to improve the lives of children living in relative poverty.

Nagatsuma said the government will strive to cut the poverty rate after estimating how steps to support children affect household finances. In April, the previous administration ended a single-parent allowance of about \ 23,000 a month despite the country's high child-poverty rate, drawing fire from welfare experts.

The Hatoyama administration plans to reinstate the allowance in December and is expected to eventually provide child allowances totaling \ 26,000 per child per month, and to scrap tuition for high school students.

news20091021jt3

[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009
Hopes high as Windows 7 debuts
Microsoft, PC makers hope to recover from Vista fiasco, but Google OS threat looms
By KANA INAGAKI
Kyodo News

As Microsoft Corp. prepares for the upcoming release of its Windows 7, Japanese manufacturers of personal computers are hoping the latest operating system will be the long-awaited silver bullet for a market hammered by eroding prices and flagging demand.

{Hasta la Vista: Windows 7 packages, reserved for advance orders, pack the shelves of a Bic Camera electronics outlet in Tokyo's Yurakucho district last week.}

For the U.S. software giant, the success of Windows 7 will be critical to repairing a reputation bruised by its disfavored predecessor, Vista, especially at a time when Microsoft faces growing threats from rivals Google Inc. and Apple Inc.

The new operating system, now on sale only to large businesses, will be available to the wider public starting Thursday with expectations already hyped on the back of strong preorders.

"This is an OS that has significantly improved speed, stability, compatibility and operability in a balanced manner," said Yasuyuki Higuchi, president of Microsoft's Japanese unit. "Many of our employees say this is the best OS so far."

An official at the Bic Camera major home electronics discount chain said its stores have received a larger number of inquiries from customers on Windows 7 compared with the prelaunch interest for Vista in 2007.

Demand for Microsoft's new OS was strong to begin with following the cold response for Vista, which has been riddled with problems linked to frequent crashes, slow speed and complicated security functions.

According to a report by ITR Corp., an information technology research and consulting firm, nearly 80 percent of firms in Japan as of last October were still using Windows XP, which came out in 2001, while less than 10 percent had switched to Vista.

"With Vista, we put more priority on security rather than user feedback," Higuchi said as a reason for the overall heaviness of the Vista system.

Because so many companies and consumers are still using XP, a major sales point for Windows 7 is the new XP compatibility mode, which supposedly ensures that existing applications will run smoothly on the new OS.

A string of Japanese PC makers, including Sony Corp. and Fujitsu Ltd., will be rolling out new products based on Windows 7 ahead of the yearend shopping season, hoping to attract customers with the addition of multitouch functions.

"As Microsoft is already promoting, we are experiencing firsthand that this is actually very much lighter than Vista," Ryosuke Akahane, Sony's deputy president in charge of the Vaio business, told reporters.

"We hope the market will heat up with the launch of Windows 7," Akahane said during the unveiling of the new lineup of Vaio PCs, which will hit store shelves in Japan the same day as Microsoft's OS.

A successful debut for Windows 7 is pivotal at a time when the domestic PC market has seen a jump in demand for smaller, low-priced netbooks with narrow profit margins versus sluggish sales of bigger laptop and desktop PCs amid the economic downturn.

"The introduction of the Eco-point program in March helped significantly in revitalizing the consumer electronics industry, but it appears to be working unfavorably for PCs," Akihiro Matsubara, corporate vice president at Sony Marketing (Japan) Inc. said, referring to a government program to reward purchases of energy-saving consumer appliances.

"Market conditions from after the summer are especially severe," he added.

According to the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association, PC shipments in Japan fell nearly 10 percent from a year earlier during the April to August period. The value of PC shipments also dropped nearly 25 percent during the first five months of the current business year.

Even though Microsoft still has a dominant share in the OS market, the company hopes to quickly move past the sour Vista experience and brace for growing competition with other players, such as Google, which is set to release its first operating system — Google Chrome — during the second half of next year.

Although Google's Chrome OS will initially be targeting only netbooks, many view its planned OS as a direct threat to Microsoft because it will likely be extremely fast, lightweight, and offered for free. Microsoft's Windows 7 is expected to be priced at ¥ 24,800 to ¥ 38,800 for full versions or ¥ 15,800 to ¥ 26,800 for upgrade versions.

"It's not that easy to make an OS," Higuchi said, citing years of Microsoft's experience and investment in OS development.

"We do feel a big threat in the sense that (Google's) business baseline is different," he said, emphasizing companies need to get paid for their products to secure sufficient funds for development.

But despite promises of a revamped operating system, uncertainty still remains strong on whether skeptical and fickle consumers will quickly switch to the new Windows 7 as counted on by both Microsoft and computer makers.

According to a survey conducted last month by Kakaku.com Inc., which operates an online price comparison Web site, 39 percent of 10,715 registered users responded that they plan to buy Windows 7 at an undetermined date, while nearly 40 percent said they do not know or do not plan to buy the OS, indicating many are taking a wait-and-see attitude.

"Users now make replacements when they feel like buying," a Fujitsu official said. "We are unlikely to see a 1.5-fold growth in (PC) sales just because a new OS is out."


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009
PlayStation 3 outsells Wii for first time in U.S.
Bloomberg

Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 outsold Nintendo Co.'s Wii console for the first time following a $100 price cut, helping the U.S. video game market end six consecutive months of declining revenue.

Hardware, software and accessory sales in the world's largest game market rose 1 percent to $1.28 billion last month, researcher NPD Group Inc. said Monday. Sales of Sony's PS3 more than doubled to 491,800, while those of the Wii fell 33 percent to 462,800. Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 sales gained 1.6 percent to 352,600.

Sony's reduction of the PS3 price on Aug. 19 helped reverse an industry slump that had been exacerbated by the absence of new hit games. Industry revenue is down 13 percent through September, NPD said.

Microsoft lowered the price of its most powerful console, the Xbox 360 Elite, by $100 to $300 on Aug. 27. Nintendo followed a month later with a 20 percent price cut for the Wii.

"For some time, people held off on buying because they were expecting a PS3 price cut," said Atul Bagga, an industry analyst with ThinkEquity LLC in San Francisco. Nintendo's Wii price cut came late in September so "they aren't seeing the full effect. October should be better for Nintendo," he said.

With Nintendo's slide, hardware sales fell 6 percent to $472.3 million, NPD said. September was the first month Sony outsold its rivals in the U.S. since the PS3 was introduced in November 2006. The system has a built-in Blu-ray player and wireless Internet connection.

"We've felt that we have a system that would stand the test of time," Jack Tretton, president of Sony Computer Entertainment America, said in an interview Monday. The sales pace is continuing in October, he added.

Game software sales totaled $649.3 million, up 5 percent from a year earlier. The top-selling games were Microsoft's "Halo 3: ODST," Nintendo's "Wii Sports Resort" and Electronic Arts Inc.'s "Madden NFL 10." "The Beatles: Rock Band" was the fifth best-selling game.

news20091021lat

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

[U.S.]
White House relies on core healthcare team
President Obama's overhaul hinges on six crucial individuals and their skill at negotiating behind closed doors. Now Rahm Emanuel, Nancy-Ann DeParle and the others will see if their efforts pay off.
By Peter Nicholas
October 21, 2009

Reporting from Washington - Peter R. Orszag, the White House official steeped in budget detail, is now so at home in the Capitol that he freely grabs Coke Zeros from the Senate Finance Committee's private stash when he talks healthcare costs with aides.

Nancy-Ann DeParle, who joined the administration after a career that included running Medicare, is routinely hooked into a nightly 9 o'clock conference call for legislative staff.

And nearly every week, presidential aide Jim Messina eats the same steak-and-fries plate at the same table in the same restaurant with his old boss, Sen. Max Baucus -- the man responsible for the centrist bill that will shape the final healthcare plan.

Months ago, when President Obama made healthcare his top domestic priority and picked the White House team to make it happen, he selected individuals for just this moment -- not for the beginning or the middle of the campaign, but for the end of the fight.

That time has arrived for Obama and for the six people he chose. With deep ties to Capitol Hill, the team is designed for the inside game unfolding now in House and Senate offices. Their job includes gathering intelligence, assessing what lawmakers want and devising compromises to win over balky members without alienating others.

But their paramount goal has been -- and remains -- to keep the process moving irrepressibly forward and on a practicable track. They believe that letting it bog down or veer in some damaging direction, even for a moment, could doom the whole effort.

The core group consists of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, legislative affairs director Phil Schiliro, communications expert Dan Pfeiffer, Orszag, Messina and DeParle. Each brings particular experience and skills to the task. Each is first and foremost an inside player, comfortable operating behind the scenes.

The administration suffered some setbacks because of that focus during the spring and summer, when none of the six took on the role of a public surrogate for Obama.

But the White House survived the early pummeling, and the emphasis on the inside game has paid off more recently.

"The key factor in all major legislation, particularly healthcare, is momentum," Pfeiffer said. "Healthcare is a boulder: You're either pushing uphill or downhill. We've reached the top, we're headed downhill now, and we want it to stay that way."

The mission is changing, however. Where before the focus was on committees, the battle is moving to the House and Senate floor. Now, Obama's crew will be at the table with lawmakers behind closed doors, crafting compromises to meet attacks from a determined Republican minority and well-financed industry groups.

Obama will play an important role, phoning wavering legislators and trying to coax them to vote yes. But success also hinges on the negotiating savvy of the team.

"All of us are known," Emanuel said in an interview. "We've been through a lot together. We don't start from scratch, either inside or in dealing with the Senate and House. . . . You're in a business of relationships: knowing what people can and can't do, explaining things and [ascertaining] what they care about."

None of this looks to be easy. The White House wants to pass a healthcare bill with a 60-vote majority in the Senate, which would forestall a filibuster. It is up to Emanuel and company to hit that target.

Though there is ample overlap, each member of Obama's healthcare team has a different focus. Emanuel oversees the operation. A former congressman from Chicago, he describes himself as a negotiator, but he is also deeply involved in policy, political strategy and communication.

As an illustration of his role, twice over the past month he spoke to union leaders and asked them not to publicly criticize the healthcare legislation advancing in the Senate. He succeeded the first time and was rebuffed the second.

Orszag is the resident budget whiz. A congressional aide recalls watching him page through a fat, dog-eared copy of the U.S. tax code one Sunday in a Senate office, during a conversation about the crucial and politically sensitive question of how to pay for the healthcare plan.

But Orszag's staff also describes his human side. One night in August he had dinner at a Greek restaurant in Portland, Maine, with Republican Sen. Olympia J. Snowe. He mentioned that he was going to climb New Hampshire's Mt. Washington the next day. Snowe warned him to be careful, and Orszag, after reaching the summit, sent her an e-mail to assure her he was OK.

When the Senate Finance Committee voted to pass a healthcare bill last week, Snowe was the lone Republican to vote yes.

DeParle, a former healthcare advisor to President Clinton, has embedded herself in the Capitol. When Obama hired DeParle, he told her he wanted her to be the "point guard" of the healthcare team.

The goal seems to be ubiquity -- blanketing Congress with White House aides.

By her count, DeParle has met one-on-one with 135 people, part of a strategy she mapped out with Schiliro.

No one from the team is dictating to Congress. "We've been clear on some guardrails. We don't want to increase the deficit, things like that," DeParle said. "Otherwise we've given them some license to work within their caucuses."

Both Schiliro and Messina consult with committee chairs to identify wavering members who should get a phone call or personal meeting with the president.

Messina also dispenses political advice, showing up at meetings of senior legislative aides to share poll numbers. The White House message is that if healthcare fails this year, that could spell trouble for Democrats in the 2010 midterm election.

Obama aides point to the Democratic Party's 1994 midterm losses after Clinton's healthcare plan collapsed.

"There's a myth about health reform that came out of 1993-'94: that the Democrats lost the majority because they took on health reform," said one White House aide, who requested anonymity when discussing the ongoing negotiations. "Our view is that it's not that they took on health reform. It's that they didn't get it done. . . . And when you're the governing majority and you take on a major issue and you fail, you're going to pay a political price for that."

Over the summer, it seemed the Obama plan could fail too. The White House concedes that opponents gained traction by arguing that the proposals amounted to a government takeover of healthcare.

Pfeiffer stepped up his role around that time, seeking to revive some of the aggressive, rapid-response tactics that worked during the 2008 campaign. Just as the old Obama campaign set up websites to "fight the smears," the White House created Web videos meant to quickly rebut damaging allegations.

"Frankly, we took some lumps in July," Pfeiffer said.

The White House Six are happier about where they stand now. Last week, at an initial meeting with Senate leaders to discuss merging the various bills, DeParle said the differences did not seem daunting:

"One of the senators present said, 'Gee, is that all there is? I thought there would be a lot more issues.'

news20091021nyt

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

[Health]
In Shift, Cancer Society Has Concerns on Screenings
By GINA KOLATA
Published: October 20, 2009

The American Cancer Society, which has long been a staunch defender of most cancer screening, is now saying that the benefits of detecting many cancers, especially breast and prostate, have been overstated.

It is quietly working on a message, to put on its Web site early next year, to emphasize that screening for breast and prostate cancer and certain other cancers can come with a real risk of overtreating many small cancers while missing cancers that are deadly.

“We don’t want people to panic,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the cancer society. “But I’m admitting that American medicine has overpromised when it comes to screening. The advantages to screening have been exaggerated.”

Prostate cancer screening has long been problematic. The cancer society, which with more than two million volunteers is one of the nation’s largest voluntary health agencies, does not advocate testing for all men. And many researchers point out that the PSA prostate cancer screening test has not been shown to prevent prostate cancer deaths.

There has been much less public debate about mammograms. Studies from the 1960s to the 1980s found that they reduced the death rate from breast cancer by up to 20 percent.

The cancer society’s decision to reconsider its message about the risks as well as potential benefits of screening was spurred in part by an analysis published Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Brawley said.

In it, researchers report a 40 percent increase in breast cancer diagnoses and a near doubling of early stage cancers, but just a 10 percent decline in cancers that have spread beyond the breast to the lymph nodes or elsewhere in the body. With prostate cancer, the situation is similar, the researchers report.

If breast and prostate cancer screening really fulfilled their promise, the researchers note, cancers that once were found late, when they were often incurable, would now be found early, when they could be cured. A large increase in early cancers would be balanced by a commensurate decline in late-stage cancers. That is what happened with screening for colon and cervical cancers. But not with breast and prostate cancer.

Still, the researchers and others say, they do not think all screening will — or should — go away. Instead, they say that when people make a decision about being screened, they should understand what is known about the risks and benefits.

For now, those risks are not emphasized in the cancer society’s mammogram message which states that a mammogram is “one of the best things a woman can do to protect her health.”

Dr. Brawley says mammograms can prevent some cancer deaths. However, he says, “If a woman says, ‘I don’t want it,’ I would not think badly of her but I would like her to get it.”

But some, like Colin Begg, a biostatistician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, worry that the increased discussion of screening’s risks is going to confuse the public and make people turn away from screening, mammography in particular.

“I am concerned that the complex view of a changing landscape will be distilled by the public into yet another ‘screening does not work’ headline,” Dr. Begg said. “The fact that population screening is no panacea does not mean that it is useless,” he added.

The new analysis — by Dr. Laura Esserman, a professor of surgery and radiology at the University of California, San Francisco, and director of the Carol Frank Buck Breast Care Center there, and Dr. Ian Thompson, professor and chairman of the department of urology at The University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio — finds that prostate cancer screening and breast cancer screening are not so different.

Both have a problem that runs counter to everything people have been told about cancer: They are finding cancers that do not need to be found because they would never spread and kill or even be noticed if left alone. That has led to a huge increase in cancer diagnoses because, without screening, those innocuous cancers would go undetected.

At the same time, both screening tests are not making much of a dent in the number of cancers that are deadly. That may be because many lethal breast cancers grow so fast they spring up between mammograms. And the deadly prostate ones have already spread at the time of cancer screening. The dilemma for breast and prostate screening is that it is not usually clear which tumors need aggressive treatment and which can be left alone. And one reason that is not clear, some say, is that studying it has not been much of a priority.

“The issue here is, as we look at cancer medicine over the last 35 or 40 years, we have always worked to treat cancer or to find cancer early,” Dr. Brawley said. “And we never sat back and actually thought, ‘Are we treating the cancers that need to be treated?’ ”

The very idea that some cancers are not dangerous and some might actually go away on their own can be hard to swallow, researchers say.

“It is so counterintuitive that it raises debate every time it comes up and every time it has been observed,” said Dr. Barnett Kramer, associate director for disease prevention at the National Institutes of Health.

It was first raised as a theoretical possibility in the 1970s, Dr. Kramer said. Then it was documented in a rare pediatric cancer, but was dismissed as something peculiar to that cancer. Then it was discovered in common cancers as well, but it is still not always accepted or appreciated, he said.

But finding those insignificant cancers is the reason the breast and prostate cancer rates soared when screening was introduced, Dr. Kramer said. And those cancers, he said, are the reason screening has the problem called overdiagnosis — labeling innocuous tumors cancer and treating them as though they could be lethal when in fact they are not dangerous.

“Overdiagnosis is pure, unadulterated harm,” he said.

Dr. Peter Albertsen, chief and program director of the urology division at the University of Connecticut Health Center, said that had not been an easy message to get across. “Politically, it’s almost unacceptable,” Dr. Albertsen said. “If you question overdiagnosis in breast cancer, you are against women. If you question overdiagnosis in prostate cancer, you are against men.”

Dr. Esserman hopes that as research continues on how to advance beyond screening, distinguishing innocuous tumors from dangerous ones, people will be more realistic about what screening can do.

“Someone may say, ‘I don’t want to be screened’ ” she said. “Another person may say, ‘Of course I want to be screened.’ Just like everything in medicine, there is no free lunch. For every intervention, there are complications and problems.”

news20091021gdn1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[News > Media > Advertising Standards Authority]
Government climate change ad investigated after 350 complaints
Advertising Standards Authority to look into £6m campaign accused of scaremongering and misleading the public
Mark Sweney
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 October 2009 08.00 BST Article history

The advertising regulator has launched an investigation into the government's climate change TV campaign after receiving more than 350 complaints accusing it of scaremongering and misleading the public.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change launched the £6m campaign, in which the government states for the first time that scientific evidence has confirmed that climate change is man-made, earlier this month.

The Advertising Standards Authority has received 357 complaints about the campaign.

Some of the complaints argued that there is no scientific evidence of climate change. Others claimed there was a division of scientific opinion on the issue and that the ad should therefore not have attributed global warming to human activity.

Another complaint was that the ad, which features a father telling his daughter a scary bedtime story about climate change in which a cartoon dog drowns, is inappropriate for children because it is "upsetting and scaremongering".

The ASA has said it intends to investigate the complaints and the assertions on which the campaign has been based.

The campaign marked a step change in the tone of the government's marketing around its Act on CO2 initiative. The DECC came out with the hard-hitting message after research showed that more than half of the UK public think climate change will have no effect on them.

Last week the DECC defended the campaign, and the science behind it, arguing that the goal is to "protect the next generation".

"It is consistent with government policy on the issue, which is informed by the latest science and assessments of peer-reviewed, scientific literature made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and other international bodies," said the energy and climate change minister Joan Ruddock.


[Environment]
Campaigners to appeal block on Treasury review
Tim Webb
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 October 2009 19.00 BST Article history

Campaigners are to appeal against today's high court decision to block a judicial review into the Treasury's environmental and ethical record over its handling of the government's 70% stake in Royal Bank of Scotland. Three campaign groups – World Development Movement, Platform and People & Planet – claim that the bank's activities are undermining Britain's commitments on climate change. This summer the government carried out a "green book" assessment of its obligations which concluded that it must manage its stake in a commercial way. But the campaigners wanted the courts to hold a full hearing.


[Environment > GM]
GM research is needed urgently to avoid food crisis, says Royal Society
GM techniques will help crops survive harsher climates, as populations grow and global warming worsens, says report
David Adam, Environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 October 2009

Research to develop genetically modified crops must be stepped up as part of a £2bn "grand challenge" to avoid future food shortages, an influential panel of scientists said yesterday. In its report, the Royal Society said that GM techniques would be needed to boost yields and help crops survive harsher climates, as the global population rises and global warming worsens.

But the report said GM was not the only answer, and that measures to improve crop management, such as improved irrigation, were needed too.

Professor David Baulcombe, a plant scientist at the University of Cambridge who chaired the study, said: "We need to take action now to stave off food shortages. If we wait even five to 10 years, it may be too late. Biological science has progressed in leaps and bounds in the last decade and UK scientists have been at the head of the pack when it comes to topics related to food crops. In the UK we have the potential to come up with viable scientific solutions for feeding a growing population and we have a responsibility to realise this potential. There's a very clear need for policy action and publicly funded science to make sure this happens."

The Royal Society said the government should reverse a decay in agricultural research in Britain and spend at least £200m each year for the next 10 years on science that improves crops and sustainable crop management.

The report said the changing diets of people around the world, the likely impact of climate change and growing scarcity of water and land made it harder to increase food production to meet an expected rise in global population of 3 billion by the mid-century. Production methods would need to sustain the environment, preserve natural resources and support the livelihoods of farmers and rural populations around the world, it added.

The report came as John Beddington, chief scientific adviser to the government, said a "range of solutions" would be needed to feed a growing world population.

Baulcombe added: "There is no panacea for ensuring global food security. Science-based approaches introduced alongside social science and economic innovations are essential if we're to have a decent chance of feeding the world's population in 40 years' time. Technologies that work on a farm in the UK may have little impact for harvests in Africa. Research is going to need to take into account a diverse range of crops, localities, cultures and numerous other circumstances."

Anti-GM campaigners criticised the report, which they said was at odds with a separate report on future food production produced last year by the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), which said there was little role for GM, as currently practised, in feeding the poor on a large scale.

Kirtana Chandrasekaran of Friends of the Earth said: "Science has a key role to play in reducing hunger and poverty, but the report's focus on GM crops ignores mounting evidence that this technology is failing. GM crops are an extension of big-business factory farming that is already wiping out wildlife, destroying communities and making climate change worse. Any attempt to combat the global food crisis must also address its root causes, such as industrial livestock production and a narrow focus on increasing yields."

Tom MacMillan, executive director of the Food Ethics Council, said: "They get ahead of themselves by demanding £2bn more for science. That's exactly the kind of decision that should be up for wider debate. The money might be better spent tackling the social and economic problems that affect whether growing more food makes a jot of difference to food security."

Julian Little, chairman of the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, which represents GM crop companies, said: "Farmers must be given access to all the proven tools available to help them produce more food in a more sustainable way. This should include advanced crop breeding using biotechnology and GM methods, which are already being used by more than 13 million farmers around the world and helping to deliver higher and more reliable crop yields while mitigating major threats to crop production, such as damaging effects of pests, diseases and droughts."

news20091021gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Nuclear power]
Secret files reveal covert network run by nuclear police
> Industry-funded force uses moles and surveillance
> Strategic aims include tackling 'public disquiet'
Rob Evans
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 October 2009 19.17 BST Article history

The nuclear industry funds the special armed police force which guards its installations across the UK, and secret documents, seen by the Guardian, show the 750-strong force is authorised to carry out covert intelligence operations against anti-nuclear protesters, one of its main targets.

The nuclear industry will pay £57m this year to finance the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC). The funding comes from the companies which run 17 nuclear plants, including Dounreay in Caithness, Sellafield in Cumbria and Dungeness in Kent.

Around a third is paid by the private consortium managing Sellafield, which is largely owned by American and French firms. Nearly a fifth of the funding is provided by British Energy, the privatised company owned by French firm EDF.

Private correspondence shows that in June, the EDF's head of security complained that the force had overspent its budget "without timely and satisfactory explanations to us". The industry acknowledges it is in regular contact with the CNC and the security services.

Most of the nuclear force's officers are armed with high-powered guns and Tasers. The CNC has spent £1.4m on weapons and ammunition in the past three years.

They patrol outside nuclear plants, with their jurisdiction stretching to three miles beyond the perimeter of the installations. They have the same powers as any other British police officer and can, for instance, arrest and stop and search people.

The body that regulates the CNC is also funded by the nuclear industry. Four of the eight members of the Civil Nuclear Police Authority are nominated by the nuclear industry as its representatives. Those four are employed in the industry. The others – mainly former police officers – are deemed to be independent.

The force is expected to expand as the government presses ahead with plans for a new generation of nuclear plants, which are likely to attract protests.

Ben Ayliffe, head of Greenpeace's anti-nuclear campaign, said: "There are very obvious worries about an armed police force that is accountable to an industry desperate to build nuclear reactors in the UK. This industry will probably be very keen for their police force to use all the powers available to them to prevent peaceful protests against nuclear power."

John Sampson, the CNC's deputy chief constable, said the force was by law operationally independent from the industry and safeguarded by its regulatory police authority. Its surveillance operations were only conducted if they had legal approval and were proportionate to the crime under investigation, he added.

Sampson said it would be "ill-advised" of any nuclear company to put pressure on the force and surveillance was not conducted at the instigation of the companies. The government has provided a small amount of capital funding but does not pay any of the running costs.

The job of the force is to protect civil nuclear plants and guard radioactive nuclear material when it is being transported by land, rail or sea to ensure it is not stolen or sabotaged. The industry also receives advice from the security services on how to protect itself from attack.

The force is authorised to send informers to infiltrate organisations and to conduct undercover surveillance under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA). It is also permitted to obtain communications data such as phone numbers and email addresses.

Reports by Sir Christopher Rose, the watchdog responsible for inspecting the use of these surveillance powers, have been obtained by the Guardian under freedom of information legislation.

Rose, the chief surveillance commissioner, noted last year: "The strategic aims of the constabulary remain on the threat from terrorism and public disquiet over nuclear matters, including demonstrations/protests and criminal offences towards nuclear movements/installations."

The force keeps secret the extent of its clandestine surveillance operations on protesters and others. It has been collecting more intelligence in recent years.

Sampson said its surveillance was "relatively modest" and mainly concerned with stopping terrorism.

In July, Rose said the CNC's "approach to covert activity is conspicuously professional". He found that the system for storing the intelligence gained from informers was "working well".

He says he has been told during inspections that "senior officers regard covert surveillance as a long-term requirement".

Since 2007, the CNC has also been headed by an ex-intelligence official, rather than a police officer. Richard Thompson is reported to have been a senior officer in MI6. Rose noted Thompson "has extensive experience in the intelligence world, but has no previous police background".


[Environment > Carbon emissions]
EU ministers set to agree cut in aviation emissions
Alok Jha and Ian Traynor
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 October 2009 22.31 BST Article history

European environment ministers are set to agree a cut in the carbon emissions from flying, the Guardian has learned.

In Brussels tomorrow representatives of the 27 states of the European Union are expected to agree on a 10% cut for aviation by 2020, relative to 2005, as part of its negotiating position at the upcoming UN summit on climate change in Copenhagen.

Aviation is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases, but politicians have been reluctant to act, as the number of passengers and flights is rising sharply. But earlier this year Ed Miliband, energy and climate change secretary, said that the UK would return emissions to 2005 levels by 2050. "I don't want to have a situation where only rich people can afford to fly," he said.

Quentin Browell, of the International Air Transport Association, questioned whether the 10% cut was achievable. "We're looking at 1.5% improvement in fuel efficiency each year, the vast majority from new planes joining the fleet. The 10% does not look realistic."

On another issue, EU finance ministers failed to agree on the funding it will give the developing world to cope with global warming, a setback for the deal negotiators hope to deliver in Copenhagen.

A call from the chancellor, Alistair Darling, for the EU to commit to €10bn, of which Britain would contribute €1bn, went unheeded. The European Commission has proposed €15bn a year by 2020. The European parliament's environment committee this week put the figure at €30bn, but environmental lobby groups talk of €35bn.

"It's a disappointing outcome," admitted Anders Borg, the Swedish finance minister, who chaired the meeting. "There's obviously been a lack of commitment."

With fewer than 50 days to the Copenhagen summit, differences between states over how to split the bill wrecked preparation of such a deal at its last attempt, before an EU summit in Brussels next week.

The argument is between richer west Europeans and the poorer, newer member states from central and eastern Europe who are seeking to minimise their share of the overall bill. Eliot Whittington, at Christian Aid, said: "There is only one week of formal negotiations left before Copenhagen. Brinksmanship of this nature is a betrayal of millions of poor people."

news20091021nn1

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 20 October 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/4611039a
News
Europe's Galileo project gains ground
Long-troubled satellite-navigation system receives formal backing from European Commission president.
By Katharine Sanderson

BRUSSELS

{{Europe plans to launch up to 30 satellites that will be independent of the US Global Positioning System.}
J. Huart/ESA}

Europe is inching closer to realizing its far-reaching plans for Earth-observing. Last week José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission (EC), publicly confirmed his support for the Galileo and GMES satellite-navigation and Earth-monitoring programmes.

"Without space applications we will not be able to observe and tackle climate change," Barroso told a European space conference held in Brussels on 15–16 October. "Without space research, our knowledge society will simply not come about."

Critics point out, however, that Galileo has been in the works for a decade and still does not have the first of 30 planned satellites in orbit.

Volker Liebig, director of Earth-observation programmes for the European Space Agency (ESA) in Frascati, Italy, said that Barroso's presence at the meeting was "a real sign of change". It is the first time that Barroso, who was re-elected in September for a second five-year term as president, has attended a meeting on Galileo and offered his support so publicly. "This is proof of the stronger and stronger involvement of the European Union [EU] in space policy," says Alain Bories, director for strategy at satellite manufacturer OHB Technology in Bremen, Germany. "This is good news."

Galileo, Europe's ambitious answer to the US Global Positioning System (GPS), is set to become operational in 2013. Its troubled past includes several near-cancellations of the project, including a 2006 collapse of the public–private partnership intended to fund it. The project was revived in 2008, when it was decided that the EC would fund Galileo completely, using surplus money from the agriculture budget. Two test satellites for the system have been launched, in 2005 and 2008, although the latter was two years late.

Barroso told the conference that Europe can succeed in getting Galileo launched. "We must guarantee the success of our flagship programmes," he said. "Governance issues must not get in the way." Space policy will be further entrenched in EU policy if the Lisbon treaty is ratified as expected by January 2010; the treaty contains a provision stating that a pan-European space policy will be drawn up.

ESA developed Galileo and is contracted to procure services for it. This process is now in full swing, with a 13 November deadline for final tenders from companies bidding to provide satellites, integration systems and launches. "The plan is to sign the contracts as soon as possible," says Karamitsos.

The two leading contenders to build the bulk of the satellites for Galileo are EADS Astrium and a partnership between UK space company Surrey Satellite Technology, based in Guildford, and Germany's OHB. "There's a danger Europe will miss the boat," says Philip Davies of Surrey Satellite. "We're 10 years into the programme and still don't have working satellites."

The first four satellites are slated for launch by the end of next year, although this phase of the project has already overrun its budget by €376 million (US$560 million). "In all space programmes there's always an overspend," argues Fotis Karamitsos, who directs the Galileo efforts for the EC's directorate-general for energy and transport. The money must come out of the overall €3.4-billion budget for Galileo and the related navigation system EGNOS (European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System), which became operational on 1 October.

The remaining 26 satellites are slated to begin launching at the end of 2012. But the current launch capacity is two satellites per launch, with a maximum of four launches per year from the Kourou site in French Guiana. That would mean that the maximum number of satellites in space by the end of 2013 would be only 14. An updated Ariane launcher capable of launching four satellites at a time might be ready by 2013, says René Oosterlinck, ESA's Galileo director.

While politicians discussed funding and launch details in Brussels, scientists gathered in Padua, Italy, last week to talk about what they can learn from Galileo.

Because both the GPS and Galileo emit signals that are reflected by Earth's surface, these signals can monitor long-term changes on the planet. "The biggest interest is that [scientists] have 40 or 50 satellites moving around, guaranteed, for years and years emitting signals," says Oosterlinck. Potential investigations, he says, could range from testing Einstein's theory of relativity to probing the ionosphere and troposphere. Each of the main satellites can also carry a small payload; around half of the satellites might be able to carry a small project for outside researchers, says Oosterlinck.

Meanwhile, Europe's GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security)/Kopernikus project might benefit from lessons learnt from Galileo's funding tribulations. Five families of satellites, known as Sentinels, are to be launched, beginning in 2012. So far, €1.6 billion of the estimated €2.7-billion budget has been raised, including €831 million allocated at an EU ministerial meeting last November.

But without a better way to finance big projects over many years, Liebig says, GMES might fall prey to the same funding turbulence that has plagued Galileo.

news20091021nn2

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 20 October 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1016
News
Total recall achieved
Activating a small fraction of neurons triggers complete memory.
By Lizzie Buchen

Just as a whiff of pumpkin pie can unleash powerful memories of holiday dinners, the stimulation of a tiny number of neurons can evoke entire memories, new research in mice suggests.

{{Shining light on mouse neurons caused them to remember.}hotolibrary}

Memories are stored in neurons distributed across a host of brain regions. When something triggers a memory, that diffuse information is immediately and cohesively reactivated, but it's unclear how the circuit gets kicked into full gear. Over the past few years, a handful of studies have suggested that a small number of neurons — perhaps even single neurons — can trigger sensations^1,2,3. But this idea remains controversial and has never been demonstrated with memory.

Now, Michael Häusser and his colleagues at the the Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research at University College London have developed a way to activate a small subset of the neural circuit that underlies a specific memory. They found that this handful of neurons was able to activate the rest of the circuit and get animals to recall the memory. The team's findings were presented in Chicago at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience⁴.

"I was surprised that such a small spark could bring the memory back to life," Häusser says. "It gets at a fundamental question in memory research: what fraction of the cells in a network that are used to store information are required to reactivate that memory?"

Genetic trickery

To target the neurons involved in memory formation, Häusser's group used a combination of genetic tricks. The researchers took advantage of a gene called c-fos — which is expressed by recently activated neurons — and used the portion that controls gene expression to turn on the light-sensitive protein channelrhodopsin. They inserted the gene for the c-fos-controlled channelrhodopsin into cells in a portion of the hippocampus that is known to have a crucial role in memory formation.

Häusser and his team then trained mice to associate a painful electric shock with a tone. Whenever the mice heard the tone they would stop moving, bracing themselves for the imminent shock. When the neurons involved in remembering the association fired during the learning process, c-fos became activated. And for the small number of neurons that had received the gene, the light-sensitive channel was activated too.

"We basically get the brain to select the cells that express the channel," says team member Kate Powell. "The stronger the cells are activated, the stronger the channel is going to be expressed. We're really getting the cells that are most important for the memory."

Neurons that express channelrhodopsin will fire when exposed to blue light. When the researchers shined blue light onto the hippocampus using a laser and an implanted fibre-optic cable, the mice promptly froze, suggesting that the light had triggered the fearful memory. Activating about a hundred cells, and as few as 20 cells, was enough to trigger the memory.

But when the group inserted channelrhodopsin into random cells in the hippocampus, they were unable to make the mice freeze — indicating that only the cells that were activated during memory formation can trigger the memory.

"It's a remarkably small number of neurons, when such a huge number is thought to be involved," says Powell. There are about one to two million cells in this region of the hippocampus, she says, and between 5–15% are activated during the fear-learning process.

Häusser says he wants to try to target smaller and smaller populations to find out the minimum number required to evoke the memory. "The brain is very efficient in terms of its storage and processing. There are lots of computational and energetic and wiring advantages to having a small number of cells being effective," he says.

Light touch

A couple of recent papers have shown that precise, light-controlled activation of certain brain areas can affect memory formation, but these were not specific to the circuit underlying the memory^5,6.

"It's a beautiful demonstration, and a very clever, very precise technique," says neuroscientist Serge Charpak at INSERM, France's main biomedical research agency, in Paris. "I certainly wouldn't have expected so few neurons to be enough to get this behaviour."

"So far all manipulations of neural activity have targeted local clusters of neurons or certain neural cell types," adds Michael Brecht at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, who studies neural circuitry. "If the conclusions turn out to be correct, such highly selective manipulations suggest that the brain might actually compute with small, precisely selected sets of neurons."

The latter idea started to gain support in the field only recently, and is "a major departure from the mass action views of neural activity that were taught just 10 years ago", says Brecht.

The authors note that the fear-conditioning paradigm, although robust and thoroughly studied, is a crude probe. They hope to be able to use their genetic tool to probe more subtle memories, and to search for other regions of the circuit that might be able to trigger the behaviour.

"It's really cool that you can select cells based on their activity," says Powell. "It gives us a lot of options for investigating memory in a new way."

References
1. Houweling, A. R. & Brecht, M. Nature 451, 65-68 (2007). | Article | PubMed
2. Huber, D. et al. Nature 451, 61-64 (2008). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
3. Li, C.Y. et al. Science 324, 643-646 (2009). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
4. Rizzi, M., Powell, K., Hefendehl, J., Fernandes, A. & Häusser M. "Memory recall driven by optical stimulation of functionally identified sub-populations of neurons", Poster 388.8/GG103 (Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, 2009).
5. Tsai, H.-C. et al. Science 324, 1080-1084 (2009). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
6. Claridge-Chang, A. et al. Cell 139, 405-415 (2009). | Article | PubMed

news20091021nn3

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 20 October 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1022
News
Darwin's geological mystery solved
Origin of odd South American boulders may have defeated the Origin's author.
By Richard A. Lovett

{Charles Darwin was puzzled by the odd arrangement of boulders on the South American coast.}

In June 1833, Charles Darwin asked the captain of the HMS Beagle to delay his departure from Tierra del Fuego so that he could study a strange group of granite boulders he had found on the coast at Bahía San Sebastián.

"[O]ne of these, shaped somewhat like a barn, was forty-seven feet in circumference and projected five feet above the sand beach," he later wrote. "There were many others half this size, and they all must have traveled at least ninety miles from their parent rock."

What made the boulders unusual was that, other than these 500 or so big rocks spread out in a long, banana-shaped region, there were no others in the vicinity. Darwin was puzzled. How did the boulders get there?

"Darwin is known mostly for evolution and natural selection," says Edward Evenson, a glacial geologist from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania — but his interests were broader. "Darwin considered himself a geologist," Evenson said yesterday at a meeting of the Geological Society of America in Portland, Oregon.

In South America, mysterious rocks weren't all that Darwin found. He also saw beach-like landscapes, hundreds of metres above the present-day waters of the Pacific. He saw rocks embedded in glacial ice and heard at least one report of a rocky iceberg floating far out to sea.

The boulders, he concluded, had been scoured out of the mountains by glaciers that calved into the sea. The icebergs then ran aground, melted and dropped their rocky burdens on the seabed, where subsequent uplift raised them above the waves.

In a pickle

It was a good theory, but unfortunately, says Evenson, who recently revisited the site as part of a mapping project, it doesn't quite work. To begin with, he said, there is another, similar group of rocks at a place called Bahía Inútil. This group consisted of 1,000 large rocks, again spread over an elongated zone, whose outline Evenson this time compared to a pickle or gherkin, 8 kilometres long by 2 kilometres wide. "Darwin never saw these boulders," he said.

If both groups of rocks had been carried by icebergs, the icebergs must have been remarkably similar. Nevertheless, both sets of rocks were angular, indicating that they had been carried atop the ice, rather than bulldozed in front of it.

"Where do big angular boulders get onto glaciers today?" Evenson asked. "Rockslides." The shapes of the boulder fields were another clue: because glaciers flow more rapidly in their centre than at their edges, landslide debris tends to get stretched into ever-lengthening ellipses as it moves down a valley.

{The Tierra del Fuego boulders were likely carried by an ice field to their current locations.}

Finally, he said, the rock must have fallen onto the glacier somewhere above the zone where snow melts faster than it accumulates. That far up, Evenson said, glaciers tend to be concave, allowing rocks to slide far along their surfaces. Lower down, the glaciers are more likely to be convex, trapping rocks near the edges.

Putting all these clues together, Evenson was able to pinpoint the source of the rockfall to one of three locations, the most likely of which was beside a tributary called the Parry Glacier, 200 kilometres from the boulders' present locations.

When the flow of a roughly circular patch of rocks is modelled from that starting location, he said, "we get a pickle at Bahía Inútil and a banana at San Sebastián."

Other scientists were impressed. "It was quite convincing," says Kevin Padian, curator of the Museum of Paleontology at the University of California, Berkeley.

He notes, though, that Darwin wasn't completely wrong. "He had the general idea of where [the rocks] came from and what direction they were going, but he didn't realize they were carried by an ice field," Padian said. "He thought they were carried by icebergs."


[naturenews]
Published online 20 October 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1030
News
Moon scientist arrested on spy charges
Radar expert worked on US and Indian missions.
By Eric Hand

A US scientist who had high-level security clearance and was a principal investigator on a current NASA Moon mission has been arrested for attempted espionage.

NASAThe charges from the US Department of Justice accuse Stewart Nozette, 52, of attempting to sell classified information concerning nuclear weapons and military satellites to an undercover agent posing as an Israeli spy. After being arrested on 19 October, Nozette appeared the following day in US District Court in the District of Columbia.

A visiting research scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Nozette ran a non-profit space technology organization out of his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland. He is the principal investigator for the radar instrument on NASA's currently orbiting Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, was a scientist for the radar instrument on India's recent lunar Chandrayaan-1 mission, and ran the radar experiment on the US Clementine lunar mission in 1994. All the missions have hinted at ice at the lunar poles, and Nozette has published related data in journals such as Science and the Journal of Geophysical Research — Planets.

"I think it's a sad situation," says John Logsdon, a space policy expert at the George Washington University in Washington DC. Logsdon knew Nozette when Nozette served on the National Space Council for former president George H. W. Bush in 1989 and 1990.

Investigative pace

From 1990 to 1999, Nozette worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where he had access to atomic secrets. During this time, he also set up the non-profit Alliance for Competitive Technology (ACT). Tax records indicate that ACT took in $525,654 in 2007, of which $143,450 was spent on Nozette's salary, $52,034 on use of his home office and $185,924 on legal fees. The records name three people for the organization: Nozette as president; his wife, Wendy McColough, as vice president; and Klaus Heiss as director. Heiss is an advocate for Moon bases and has connections to the Science and Environmental Policy Project, a group that opposes current scientific thinking on climate change.

ACT, according to its mission statement, specializes in transferring technology from national laboratories to US industrial organizations. But according to a criminal complaint in support of the federal charges, Nozette was planning to simply sell technology to the highest bidder. An undercover agent, posing as a spy for Israel, asked if Nozette would be willing to work for them. Nozette allegedly asked for an Israeli passport and said he still remembered lots of classified information.

"Well, I should tell you my first need is that they should figure out how to pay me... they don't expect me to do this for free," Nozette told the fake agent, according to the complaint.

On 1 October, Nozette was allegedly filmed dropping a manila envelope with a portable hard disk containing classified secrets on it, in exchange for $9,000. Nozette had his security clearance suspended in 2006, according to the complaint.

This isn't the first time Nozette has been in trouble. A civil suit in the US District Court in 2006 shows that NASA's office of the inspector general had been investigating whether Nozette was charging NASA for expenses he didn't incur. The agency inspector general's office declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation.

In court filings from 2006, lawyers for Nozette sought to quash NASA's request for ACT's bank records. The filing states that NASA's inspector general opened an investigation only after Nozette had raised questions about an ex-convict who was appointed in 2005 to lead NASA's Moon programme. In an e-mail, Nozette wondered if the Thomas Jasin who had been picked to lead the Moon programme was the same Thomas Jasin who had spent time in prison in Pennsylvania. "Just checking if it's the same person, there are concerns?" Nozette wrote.

Neither Nozette nor his attorney could be immediately reached for comment. Nozette did not enter a plea at his Tuesday court appearance. He is being held without bail pending a 29 October hearing.

news20091021nn4

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 20 October 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1030
News
Moon scientist arrested on spy charges
Radar expert worked on US and Indian missions.
By Eric Hand

A US scientist who had high-level security clearance and was a principal investigator on a current NASA Moon mission has been arrested for attempted espionage.

NASAThe charges from the US Department of Justice accuse Stewart Nozette, 52, of attempting to sell classified information concerning nuclear weapons and military satellites to an undercover agent posing as an Israeli spy. After being arrested on 19 October, Nozette appeared the following day in US District Court in the District of Columbia.

A visiting research scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Nozette ran a non-profit space technology organization out of his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland. He is the principal investigator for the radar instrument on NASA's currently orbiting Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, was a scientist for the radar instrument on India's recent lunar Chandrayaan-1 mission, and ran the radar experiment on the US Clementine lunar mission in 1994. All the missions have hinted at ice at the lunar poles, and Nozette has published related data in journals such as Science and the Journal of Geophysical Research — Planets.

"I think it's a sad situation," says John Logsdon, a space policy expert at the George Washington University in Washington DC. Logsdon knew Nozette when Nozette served on the National Space Council for former president George H. W. Bush in 1989 and 1990.

Investigative pace

From 1990 to 1999, Nozette worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where he had access to atomic secrets. During this time, he also set up the non-profit Alliance for Competitive Technology (ACT). Tax records indicate that ACT took in $525,654 in 2007, of which $143,450 was spent on Nozette's salary, $52,034 on use of his home office and $185,924 on legal fees. The records name three people for the organization: Nozette as president; his wife, Wendy McColough, as vice president; and Klaus Heiss as director. Heiss is an advocate for Moon bases and has connections to the Science and Environmental Policy Project, a group that opposes current scientific thinking on climate change.

ACT, according to its mission statement, specializes in transferring technology from national laboratories to US industrial organizations. But according to a criminal complaint in support of the federal charges, Nozette was planning to simply sell technology to the highest bidder. An undercover agent, posing as a spy for Israel, asked if Nozette would be willing to work for them. Nozette allegedly asked for an Israeli passport and said he still remembered lots of classified information.

"Well, I should tell you my first need is that they should figure out how to pay me... they don't expect me to do this for free," Nozette told the fake agent, according to the complaint.

On 1 October, Nozette was allegedly filmed dropping a manila envelope with a portable hard disk containing classified secrets on it, in exchange for $9,000. Nozette had his security clearance suspended in 2006, according to the complaint.

This isn't the first time Nozette has been in trouble. A civil suit in the US District Court in 2006 shows that NASA's office of the inspector general had been investigating whether Nozette was charging NASA for expenses he didn't incur. The agency inspector general's office declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation.

In court filings from 2006, lawyers for Nozette sought to quash NASA's request for ACT's bank records. The filing states that NASA's inspector general opened an investigation only after Nozette had raised questions about an ex-convict who was appointed in 2005 to lead NASA's Moon programme. In an e-mail, Nozette wondered if the Thomas Jasin who had been picked to lead the Moon programme was the same Thomas Jasin who had spent time in prison in Pennsylvania. "Just checking if it's the same person, there are concerns?" Nozette wrote.

Neither Nozette nor his attorney could be immediately reached for comment. Nozette did not enter a plea at his Tuesday court appearance. He is being held without bail pending a 29 October hearing.


[naturenews]
Published online 21 October 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1020
News
Lazy male spiders avoid dinner date
Trespassing redbacks reap the rewards of reproduction without the costs of courting.
By Elie Dolgin

{{The tiny male redback spider can either dance for the female before mating — or cheat.}
Ken Jones}

Male spiders that saunter onto a female's web after a rival has spent hours wooing her can quickly copulate without being prematurely eaten by the female. This tactic could lead to small spider suitors seeking out competition with larger rival spiders rather than avoiding it, Canadian researchers say.

The Australian redback spider (Latrodectus hasselti), a member of the black widow family, has a particularly deadly mating ritual. It is one of only a handful of spider species in which the males willingly and actively assist the females with sexual cannibalism — in which the female consumes the male after copulation. In the process of mating, the tiny redback male, whose 4-millimetre body is dwarfed by that of the centimetre-long female, inserts one of his two penis-like organs into one of the female's two sperm-storage sacs. The male then somersaults to place his abdomen over the female's mouthparts, and the female starts eating him as they mate.

The male is eventually completely consumed, but first, the female makes one of two choices. Either she lets the male inseminate her other sperm-storage sac, enabling him to father all her offspring before polishing him off; or, in an act of premature cannibalism, she gobbles him up then and there and waits for another mate. This decision, show Jeff Stoltz and Maydianne Andrade of the University of Toronto Scarborough in Ontario, Canada, depends on the length of time that the male spends courting the female before copulation commences.

Sneak thief

The male redback's courtship dance, which can take up to five hours, starts with him spending about two hours plucking on the female's web. He then makes contact with the female's abdomen, vibrates both the web and her abdomen some more, and eventually attempts copulation. Stoltz and Andrade measured these courtship durations and found that males could avoid premature cannibalism if they flattered the females for at least 100 minutes before copulation.

"If you get above the bar it's no longer important how long you court," says Andrade. "But below the bar you get penalized."

The researchers then staged competitions in which they allowed solitary males to get past the first phase of courtship and make contact, then introduced intruder males (see video). These latecomers, Stoltz and Andrade report in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, could then mate after only 20-50 minutes of wooing without being prematurely eaten, thereby allowing less-fit males to get one up on their stronger rivals.

"It's a very sneaky tactic that males are employing here to get around having to expend any energy in courting these females," says Stoltz. "Females are unable or unwilling to discriminate the source of the courtship, and that provides the opportunity for other males to circumvent female choice."

Textbook case

The study could explain why seemingly suboptimal males, which would normally achieve little fertilization success, still manage to persist in the species, says Marie Herberstein, a behavioural ecologist who studies spider sexual cannibalism at Macquarie University near Sydney, Australia. "As long as there are vigorous males out there, there will always be sluggish ones coming along for a free ride," she says.

The findings also suggest that low-quality males that don't have the stamina to sustain a lengthy courtship ritual might gain the upper hand by choosing to pursue females already surrounded by other males, instead of going after solitary spouses. "This thing could really happen in nature," says Andrade. Indeed, earlier this year, she and a colleague published observational evidence from spider enclosures in the field showing that males cluster around the same female webs even if nearby webs lack any competition2.

"This really could be one for the animal-behaviour textbooks and David Attenborough programmes," says Jeremy Miller, a spider expert at Naturalis, the natural history museum in Leiden, the Netherlands. Miller notes that the mating rituals of two of the most intensively studied orb-weaving spiders are also characterized by many tiny males dancing on a single huge female's web. Given that these species all evolved independently of each other, the orb weavers should now also be probed to test whether similar ecological conditions select for similar outcomes.

References
1. Stoltz, J. A. & Andrade, M. C. B. Proc. R. Soc. B advance online publication doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.1554 (2009).
2. Kasumovic, M. M. & Andrade, M. C. B. J. Evol. Biol. 22, 324-333 (2009).

news20091021bbc1

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

[South Asia]
Page last updated at 09:52 GMT, Wednesday, 21 October 2009 10:52 UK
Sack Afghan poll officials - UN
{UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon: "We will take all necessary measures"}
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said the UN wants more than half the top officials involved in Afghanistan's election replaced.

Mr Ban told the BBC that 200 officials who had been complicit in fraud should go, to ensure a run-off vote due next month was "transparent and credible".

World leaders have welcomed the acceptance by President Hamid Karzai that he had not won the poll outright.

It came after a UN-backed panel lowered Mr Karzai's vote share below 50%.

The UN investigation found evidence of vote-rigging on a massive scale in the August election.

The second round, between Mr Karzai and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, has been scheduled for 7 November.

The president said it was "time to move forward to stability and national unity".

'Completely ready'

Meanwhile the BBC's Andrew North in Kabul says there are indications that President Karzai and Mr Abdullah may reach some kind of deal, meaning that the run-off may not be required.

{{We have made it clear to the Afghan government, we made it clear to the Security Council that there was fraud we wanted to rectify.}
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon}

]Mr Abdullah said he had spoken to Mr Karzai by phone, in what is said to be their first confirmed contact since the first round in August.

"We are completely ready for the second round," the former foreign minister said, urging officials to organise a "free, fair and credible" election.

Speaking on the BBC's Newsnight programme on Tuesday, Mr Abdullah said a coalition government was unlikely, but if elections proved impossible for "practical reasons" the two rivals needed to talk to find an alternative solution.

There are concerns that holding a second round of voting in November could lead to a repeat of August's massive fraud, as well as logistical problems caused by winter weather, which could leave much of the north of the country inaccessible.

Also, AFP news agency quoted Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt as saying the European Union would not have enough time to mobilise a large contingent of observers for the run-off.

EU officials observing the August elections said that up to a quarter of votes counted showed indications of fraud.

'All necessary measures'

Speaking in New York on Tuesday, Mr Ban said the UN had learned "quite a painful lesson" after seeing the widespread fraud in August.

{{ KARZAI V ABDULLAH}
Hamid Karzai:
> First popularly elected president of Afghanistan
> Opposed Soviet occupation in 1980s
> Critics say he has done little to rein in corruption
Abdullah Abdullah:
> Tajik-Pashtun, doctor by profession
> Senior Northern Alliance leader during Taliban rule
> Removed from Karzai's cabinet in 2006}

"We realised that it was quite difficult for a young democracy to stand on its own, even with strong international assistance, particularly by the UN," he told the BBC's Barbara Plett.

To ensure that mistakes were not repeated, he said the UN would advise the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) not to re-recruit officials who might have been involved in fraud.

"We will try to replace all the officials who have been implicated in not following the guidelines or who have been complicit in fraudulent procedures."

Mr Ban added: "We will also try to visit all the polling stations to make sure that no such fraud can happen."

The secretary general dismissed charges that the UN tried to cover up the extent of the widespread fraud in the first round vote, saying the issue had been not to hide it, but how best to deal with it.

"We have made it clear to the Afghan government, and we made it clear to the Security Council, that there was fraud we wanted to rectify," he said.

"We really wanted to provide a full opportunity to all the Afghan people so they could cast their free vote to elect their next leader."

'Statesmanlike'

Since the disputed first round of polling, there has been intensive Western lobbying of Afghanistan's leaders to resolve the weeks of political paralysis.

The White House - debating a request for 40,000 more US troops to be sent to Afghanistan - warned at the weekend that no more soldiers would be deployed until a political resolution was reached.

{Coalition soldiers will need to ensure the Afghan people feel safe enough to vote a second time round}

President Barack Obama welcomed news of the run-off, saying: "It is now vital that all elements of Afghan society continue to come together to advance democracy, peace and justice."

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown also welcomed the "statesmanlike" move.

Initial election results suggested Mr Karzai, the incumbent, had received 55% of the vote, and former foreign minister Mr Abdullah 28%.

But on Monday the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) ordered that ballots from 210 of the 380 electoral districts be discounted.

This meant Mr Karzai's total was reduced to below the threshold required for outright victory - 50% plus one vote - indicating a second round was needed.

The BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul says there is no guarantee that any new vote will be free of the fraud that dogged the first round.

But for now the political deadlock appears to have been broken, for a couple of weeks at least, our correspondent says.


[South Asia]
Page last updated at 07:00 GMT, Wednesday, 21 October 2009 08:00 UK
Attack shuts all Pakistan schools
{Many students were injured in Wednesday's attack}
All schools and universities have been closed across Pakistan a day after suicide bombers attacked an Islamic university in the capital, Islamabad.

Four people died and at least 18 were wounded in the twin blasts at the International Islamic University.

The Taliban claimed the attack and said there would be more violence unless the army ended its offensive in the tribal areas of South Waziristan.

It was the first attack since the army began it offensive against militants.

Following the attack, Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that Pakistan was now in state of war.

'Indefinite'

The government has ordered the closure of schools, colleges and universities to prevent them from being targeted by suicide bombers.

Earlier, schools run by the armed forces and the government - and some public schools - closed for a week in the wake of the South Waziristan operation.

The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says the present closure is indefinite.

Schools, colleges and universities may reopen next week if the security threat decreases, he says.

A wave of attacks on Pakistani cities have killed more than 180 people in October alone.

Wednesday's attack was the first since the army launched its offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan.

The militants have threatened more such attacks if the army continues its offensive.

Meanwhile, in South Waziristan, fighting is continuing for the fifth day as Pakistani troops battle to gain control of the key Taliban-held town of Kotkai.

Because of reporting restrictions, it is extremely hard to find out what is going on there.

The fighting has caused tens of thousands of civilians to flee the area.

news20091021bbc2

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

[Entertainment]
Page last updated at 09:14 GMT, Wednesday, 21 October 2009 10:14 UK
Swiss admit US Polanski tip-off
{Polanski lost an appeal to be released on bail earlier this week}
Authorities in Switzerland have claimed they acted correctly in informing their US counterparts that director Roman Polanski was travelling to Zurich.

It was this tip-off, revealed in e-mails obtained by AP, that set in motion the 76-year-old's arrest last month on decades-old sex charges.

Justice Ministry spokesman Folco Galli told AP that US officials were asked if an alert issued in 2005 remained valid.

After receiving confirmation, he said that Switzerland was obliged to act.

Polanski was taken into custody in Zurich after he travelled from France to collect an award at the city's film festival.

He has been wanted in the US since pleading guilty to unlawful sex with an under-age girl and then fleeing in 1978.

Records request

Galli's comments follow the emergence of the e-mails - revealed by AP following a public records request - which shed light on how the US came to be aware of the fugitive director's movements.

{{CASE TIMELINE}
> 1977 - Polanski admits unlawful sex with Samantha Geimer, 13, in Los Angeles
> 1978 - He flees to Britain after US arrest warrant is issued. He immediately moves to France, where he holds citizenship. He settles there - protected by France's limited extradition with US
> 2008 - Polanski's lawyer demands case be dismissed and hearing moved out of LA court
> 2009 - Polanski's request to have hearing outside LA is denied. Swiss authorities detain Polanski after he travels to Zurich}

After receiving the tip-off, US federal officials alerted prosecutors in Los Angeles who drafted an arrest warrant.

The US authorities had declined to say how they learned of Polanski's trip to Zurich.

He had been a frequent visitor to Switzerland prior to his arrest and owns property in the country.

Earlier this week, he lost an appeal to be released on bail from the Swiss jail where he is being held ahead of his possible extradition to the US.

Switzerland's highest criminal court backed an earlier government ruling that there was a high risk of him fleeing the country if he was released.

The Paris-born Polish filmmaker has not set foot in the US for more than 30 years.


[Europe]
Page last updated at 09:51 GMT, Wednesday, 21 October 2009 10:51 UK
Hostages freed after French siege
A French hostage siege is over, local media say, several hours after armed men took six people captive at a supermarket in the suburbs of Paris.

Police said a gang of men attacked the Lidl discount store in Sevran, north of the capital, at around 0800 (0600 GMT).

Police surrounded the scene and made contact with the hostage-takers. The captives were released gradually over the following few hours.

Two hostage-takers were arrested, AFP news agency said.

The agency said two suspects were seen emerging from the store with their hands in the air, before being handcuffed and taken away by police.

It is not known what the motive of the armed men was.

Witnesses said all surrounding roads were closed off and the scene was swarming with police.


[Middle East]
Page last updated at 22:40 GMT, Tuesday, 20 October 2009 23:40 UK
Iran nuclear talks 'going slowly'
{Mohamed ElBaradei said the talks will continue on Wednesday morning}
Talks between Iran and world powers on a uranium enrichment deal are making slower-than-expected progress, the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog has said.

Mohamed ElBaradei said "many technical issues" had to be analysed, but insisted they were "moving forward".

The negotiations were stalled for most of Tuesday after Iran said it did not want France to be part of the deal, but briefly resumed late in the evening.

Iran is considering a proposal to send uranium abroad for further enrichment.

This is seen as a way for Iran to get the fuel it needs, while giving guarantees to the West that it will not be used for nuclear weapons.

'Complex process'

Tuesday's talks in Vienna - involving Iran and three of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency - faltered after the Iranians said they would curb enrichment, something seen by the Western powers as essential, and objected to France's involvement.

{{ France, based on its shortcomings to fulfil its obligations in the past, is not a trustworthy party to provide fuel for Iran}
Manouchehr Mottaki
Iranian Foreign Minister}

All sides eventually returned to the negotiating table for about an hour after the US and Iranian representatives met in Mr ElBaradei's office. Few details of the meetings were released.

Mr ElBaradei, director general of the IAEA, said the talks would resume at 1000 (0800 GMT) on Wednesday.

"I believe we are making progress. It is maybe slower than I expected. But we are moving forward," he told reporters.

He said the process was complex, and involved "many technical issues" as well as "confidence-building guarantees".

The Iranian ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, meanwhile said the consultations had been "constructive".

Earlier, Iran's Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, objected to Paris being part of the enrichment deal because it had reneged on nuclear fuel contracts in the past.

"There is Russia, America... I believe these countries are enough," he said.

"France, based on its shortcomings to fulfil its obligations in the past, is not a trustworthy party to provide fuel for Iran."

Mr Mottaki also reiterated any agreement would not mean the suspension of Tehran's enrichment activities.

"Iran will continue its uranium enrichment. It is not linked to buying fuel from abroad," he said.

"The meetings with world powers, and their behaviour, shows that Iran's right to have peaceful nuclear technology has been accepted by them."

Compromise

The proposed scheme hinges on an arrangement in principle that Western negotiators announced after talks in Geneva earlier this month.

Under it, Russia and France would treat most of Iran's low-enriched uranium and turn it into fuel rods for a research reactor in Tehran.

Diplomats say a compromise is being considered under which Iran would sign a contract with Russia, which would then sub-contract work to France.

Correspondents say the deal would see Iran get the fuel it needs, tacit acknowledgement of its right to enrich uranium, and no new sanctions.

The West would meanwhile get a guarantee that Iran's existing stockpile will not be diverted to make nuclear bombs, they add.

Last month, the revelation of a second uranium enrichment plant in Iran further raised Western fears that Iran was trying to develop nuclear weapons. A nuclear bomb requires highly enriched uranium.

The Iranian government has said it will allow IAEA inspectors into the site, thought to be near the holy city of Qom.

news20091021bbc3

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

[Asia-Pacific]
Many 'missing' after China riots
{The riots in July were the worst ethnic unrest in decades}
Dozens of ethnic Uighurs have disappeared since being detained in the wake of the riots in China's Xinjiang region, a human rights group has said.
By Michael Bristow
BBC News, Beijing

Human Rights Watch said the 43 men and teenaged boys were taken in police sweeps of Uighur districts of Urumqi, and had since vanished without a trace.

The riots and protests in the city in early July left nearly 200 people dead.

China's central government declined to answer questions about those detained by the authorities in Xinjiang.

It referred questions about the ethnic unrest to the regional government, which also did not respond to enquiries from the BBC.

'Not global leadership'

"The cases we documented are likely just the tip of the iceberg," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

The rights group is calling for the Chinese government to give details of everyone it is holding in detention.

In a report on the disappeared people, HRW said the police had searched two Uighur areas of Urumqi immediately after the riots. At least 43 people were taken away and had not been heard of since.

"According to witnesses, the security forces sealed off entire neighbourhoods, searching for young Uighur men," the group said.

{{The cases we documented are likely just the tip of the iceberg}
Brad Adams
Human Rights Watch}

HRW said most of those taken away were young Uighur men in their 20s. The youngest are reported to have been 12 and 14.

In many cases, families had been unable to find out what had happened to their relatives, said Human Rights Watch, whose report was based on interviews with local people.

"China should only use official places of detention so that everyone being held can contact family members and legal counsel," said Mr Adams.

"Disappearing people is not the behaviour of countries aspiring to global leadership."

Ethnic Uighurs, the original inhabitants of Xinjiang, went on the rampage after reports of Uighur deaths in southern China.

They mainly targeted Urumqi's Han Chinese community - a group that has moved into the western region more recently - killing scores of people.

Uighurs say their culture has been undermined since the arrival of millions of Han people from other parts of China.

Two months after the riots by Uighurs, Hans staged their own protests.

Afterwards, a confused pictured emerged about exactly how many people had been arrested, partly due to a reluctance by the authorities to provide detailed figures.

At one point the authorities said more than 1,500 people were in detention, but so far only a handful have been prosecuted.

The first trials began last week. A total of nine people have been sentenced to death for their involvement in the riots.

Critics say the trials do not meet international standards.


[Africa]
Page last updated at 08:37 GMT, Wednesday, 21 October 2009 09:37 UK
Violent clashes in Algiers slums
{Protesters set up barricades in Algiers}
People living in a shanty town in the Algerian capital have clashed with police for a second night in a row over housing conditions.

At least nine officers were injured as protesters in the Diar Echams suburb threw stones and fire bombs at them.

Clashes first erupted on Monday, as residents of the district demanded that the city authorities include them on a list of those eligible for re-housing.

A large security presence in Algiers means such violent unrest is rare.

Protesters on high ground above the suburb threw missiles on police in riot gear as they attempted to enter the area late on Tuesday.

On Monday, about 400 police officers used tear gas and water canon to break up the demonstration.

Residents said they were protesting against squalid conditions in the working class suburb and calling for the city authorities to provide them with new homes.

One man, who gave his name as Hichem, said up to 14 people were living in some homes, with not enough room for everyone to sleep at the same time.

"Some young boys spend all the night outside taking drugs so that their brothers and sisters can sleep. We will not stop the riot," he said.

Algiers has high levels of unemployment and poverty, but the strong security presence in place because of an ongoing Islamist insurgency means social unrest is usually contained.


[Middle East]
Page last updated at 10:01 GMT, Wednesday, 21 October 2009 11:01 UK
Israel joins US for defence drill
{The US, Turkey and Israel took part in a similar lower-scale exercise last year}
Israel and the US are due to begin a two-week military defence exercise, thought to be the largest of its kind in Israel's history.

The exercise will focus on providing a joint defence against a simulated co-ordinated missile attack on Israel.

Up to 2,000 joint military personnel are believed to be taking part, along with at least 15 American ships.

The Israeli army said the exercise was not a "response to any world events" but had been planned for a while.

It is thought that a highly sophisticated new American radar, based in the Israeli desert, will be central to the exercise.

Two-fold significance

The simulation will involve elements such as barrage of missiles fired on Israel from all points south, east and north.

The BBC's Middle East correspondent Tim Franks said many observers inside Israel believed the exercise carried a two-fold significance.

This included sending a message of deterrence to any would-be attackers of Israel - whether they were in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria or Iran.

It was also possibly an attempt to reassure Israel's people that the US took the country's security seriously - especially at a time when the US has expressed increasing concern about Iran's nuclear programme, although Tehran insists it is purely peaceful.

Analysts say use the manoeuvres could also serve to make Israel feel more secure, and therefore encourage a return to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Last week, Turkey, one of the few Muslim countries with whom Israel has had good contacts, cancelled a joint air force exercise with Israel.
Israel, Turkey and the US countries took part in a joint exercise in the Mediterranean Sea, off Haifa last year.

Tim Franks said Turkish-Israeli relations have become strained this year, since Turkey heavily criticised Israel's war in Gaza.

The exercise, which is entitled Juniper Cobra, is due to finish on 5 November.


[South Asia]
Page last updated at 08:22 GMT, Wednesday, 21 October 2009 09:22 UK
India trains collision kills 22
{Rescue teams search the train for survivors}
Two passenger trains have collided near the city of Mathura in northern India, killing at least 22 people.

One of the trains, the Mewar Express, was stopped at a red signal when the Goa Express rammed into it from behind, a railway official said.

Rescuers used gas cutters to enter the train. About 22 people were wounded and taken to hospital.

Officials say the rescue operation is now over and all the passengers have been accounted for.

The crash took place just before 5am local time (2330 GMT).

'Massive jolt'

"The Goa Express train rammed into the Mewar Express train from behind, this is the situation. A coach of the Mewar Express was damaged, whereas, there has been damage in the pantry car of the Goa Express," the Reuters news agency quoted railway official RD Tripathi as saying.

"We felt a massive jolt," Ramesh Charan, a passenger aboard the Mewar Express told Reuters.

"Some people sleeping on upper berths fell to the coach floor by the impact of the collision," he said.

Army teams joined civil authorities to carry on rescue operations at the site of the collision. Railways Minister Mamata Bannerji has announced an inquiry into the collision.

A railway spokesman told the BBC that buses and a relief train had been arranged to bring the rescued passengers to the capital, Delhi.

The state-owned Indian railways form an immense network connecting every corner of the vast country.

It operates 9,000 passenger trains and carries 18 million passengers every day.

news20091021bbc4

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

[Technology]
Page last updated at 07:19 GMT, Wednesday, 21 October 2009 08:19 UK
Microsoft unleashes new Windows
{The BBC's Jason Palmer investigates Windows 7's pros and cons}
Personal computers are about to get a makeover with the launch of the latest Windows operating system.

Microsoft is hoping the successor to Vista will be more of a hit with users when it launches on 22 October.

Many of the features take into account multimedia applications and the fact that users are beginning to store their data on the internet.

In the UK some computer stores are due to open at midnight so keen PC users can get their hands on the software.

Microsoft has also encouraged people to hold Windows 7 launch parties and has gone as far as to prepare party packs for those willing to get their friends together to mark the release.

Low key

{Rick Munday from computer manufacturer Medion on touch screen features}

PC World said it would open its flagship store on London's Tottenham Court Road at midnight on 21 October to sell the operating system.

Tech support staff will be on hand to answer queries about installing the software.

Despite this, the launch of Windows 7 is likely to be a low key event compared to launches of earlier incarnations of Windows. In the past Microsoft has called on the Rolling Stones and comedian Jerry Seinfeld to help launch its new operating system.

The formal launch will take place over several days in New York at a series of events that will see appearances by Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer and other senior executives. Many PC firms are expected to unveil Windows 7 machines on launch day.

Microsoft has partnered with Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy, to produce a Windows 7 themed TV show that will air on 8 November.

The launch of Windows 7 also coincides with the opening of the first Microsoft retail store in Scottsdale Arizona that will showcase and sell Microsoft compatible goods. A second store is planned for a mall called Mission Viejo in California.

Six editions

Windows through the decades
Windows 7, formerly codenamed Blackcomb and Vienna, is being released less than three years after the launch of Vista.

The operating system will be released in six separate editions. The versions PC users are most likely to see on shop shelves are the Home Premium and Professional editions.

Other versions are aimed at users in developing nations and corporate customers. All but the most basic edition of the software will be available in 32 and 64 bit versions.

Those buying a family pack of Windows 7 will be able to install the software on up to three PCs.

A Home Premium edition of the software will cost £79.99 until 1 January 2010, at which point it will go up to £99.99.

While Microsoft claims Vista has been a success, in that it has sold more than its predecessor Windows XP, analysts have levelled many criticisms at the software including the heavy demands it puts on PC resources.

By contrast Windows 7 boots up more quickly and is designed to work on low cost portable machines known as netbooks.

Vista runs poorly on such machines. Sales of small network-centred machines have boomed over the past few years.

Windows 7 has greater support for multi-touch interfaces, handwriting recognition and improvements to its ability to work with multi-core processors. Changes have also been made to the familiar taskbar that most users have at the bottom of the screen.

Some of the features will be familiar to Apple Mac users as similar functions have been rolled out in Mac operating systems.

While Windows 7 has won praise in its beta, or trial, versions, some experts cautioned against rushing out and buying it.

John Bogue, from Which? Computing, said: "Software bugs are par the course for newly released programs, and operating systems are no exception. Unless you like downloading patches and updates, we recommend waiting a year."