news20091128jt1

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, Nov. 28, 2009
'Politically binding' budget screening over
By TAKAHIRO FUKADA
Staff writer

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's waste-cutting panel finished its nine-day review of allocations Friday for 447 public works projects in the government's record-high ¥95 trillion budget for fiscal 2010.

By Friday, the panel had recommended budget cuts totaling nearly \750 billion, and demanded the return of a further ¥1.05 trillion in reserve funds to the government's general account.

Hatoyama said he needs to consider those recommendations "very seriously," although he might have to make political decisions on some parts of the proposed cuts.

It is still unclear what impact the recommendations by the Government Revitalization Unit will have on the final budget, as they are nonbinding, and many of the suggestions drew fire from supporters of public spending amid the weak economy. One professor who oversaw the effort said the outcome would be "politically binding."

Hatoyama's administration aims to trim the 2010 budget by ¥3 trillion or more.

Under the microscope were budget requests for U.S. forces stationed in Japan, health care, local government subsidies, large-scale research and development projects, and administrative agencies. Lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and experts from the private sector spent an hour on each item on the list, grilling related officials.

Even projects spared the chop faced budget freezes, cuts and reviews.

In one example, the panel sought to freeze a supercomputer project with a proposed budget of ¥26.8 billion. A body under the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry is working with universities to develop the world's best supercomputer. But members of the panel questioned the practicality of the project.

It also recommended that the ministry's ¥5.8 billion budget request for the experimental GX rocket project be delayed.

While noting some problems with the panel's review, experts largely welcomed it as a new way to cut government spending that was open to the public.

"Its major significance is that the budget (compilation process), which had been invisible to the public, has become visible," said Jun Iio, a professor of politics at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.

People were allowed into a Tokyo gym to see the panel at work; the proceedings were also streamed on the Internet.

With the introduction of the new process, Iio noted, the government officials have realized they need to clarify the objectives of public projects to get funding.

But he pointed out that the budget screeners were largely unprepared for the review. Their comments weren't all convincing, either, he said.

Because the panel's recommendations aren't binding, the review won't free up new funding. Lawmakers should therefore take responsibility for drawing up the final budget, Iio said.

"This budgetary request screening is not a magic bullet. Although it can refer to this (review), the government can still just decide on the budget based on its own view."

A government official said that how the reviews are reflected in the budget will not be known until the Finance Ministry's draft is compiled around late December, adding it will have "various discussions" with other ministries before the final draft is made.

Iio said the government will still need to clearly explain to the public its final budget decisions, where they differ from the panel's recommendations.

Tomoaki Iwai, a professor of political science at Nihon University, praised the budget-cutting effort. "I think very highly of the aspect that increased transparency, and that (the review) can be seen" by the people, he said.

When the budget review was conducted behind closed doors, people never knew what was going on. But under the new process, "what kind of budget will be necessary . . . and what the DPJ administration has in mind will at least be obvious, and that is good," Iwai said.

While noting the criteria of the panel's review are not clear, Iwai said nothing is perfect to start with.

But "by opening the process to the public, people can voice support and opposition" on items under review, Iwai said. "It is an important first step."

In the meantime, the government should make its goals and priorities clear so it can develop clear-cut criteria for the reviews, Iwai said, adding that the government cannot completely ignore the panel's recommendations, because they are "politically binding."

Information from Kyodo added


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Saturday, Nov. 28, 2009
Jobless rate declined to 5.1% in October
Fall due to shrinking employment market: analysts
Kyodo News

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell for the third straight month in October, offering some hope that the worst may be over for the job market, government data showed Friday.

The rate stood at a better-than-expected 5.1 percent, down from 5.3 percent the previous month, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said in a preliminary report.

Amid increasing exports and industrial output, the nation's jobless rate returned to the lowest level since April and stepped away from the postwar record of 5.7 percent registered in July.

It was lower than the 5.4 percent projected on average by economists surveyed.

"On the surface, it may look better. But it is not a healthy fall in the jobless rate," said Kyohei Morita, chief economist at Barclays Capital Japan Ltd.

Morita said the rate fell because the size of the job market is shrinking as more and more people give up trying to find jobs.

The ratio of job offers to job seekers was at a seasonally adjusted 0.44, up from 0.43 in September, according to data released by the labor ministry. The ratio, improving for the second straight month, means there were 44 jobs available for every 100 job seekers.

The number of job offers rose 0.9 percent from the previous month for the third straight monthly increase, while that of job seekers dropped 1.6 percent, down for the second month running, according to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.

The jobless rate for men fell 0.3 percentage point from the previous month to 5.3 percent, and that for women declined 0.1 point to 4.8 percent.

Still, the internal affairs ministry warned that the environment surrounding the job market remains severe, noting that the number of jobless people rose by 890,000 from a year earlier to 3.44 million for the 12th straight monthly expansion.

Of the total, 1.16 million lost their jobs involuntarily due to the decisions of their employers, up 550,000 from a year before, the ministry said.

The number of jobholders stood at 62.71 million, down 1.17 million from a year earlier, marking the 21st straight month of decline.

The labor figures were released a week after the government said the economy has slipped back into deflation.

Despite improvements in the figures, it is becoming increasingly uncertain whether Japan can achieve a solid recovery in the near future, amid falling consumer prices and adverse effects of the rising yen on the nation's export-driven economy, economists said.

"The rise of the yen would not have an immediate impact on the labor market. But if the rise continues, it will drive up the country's unemployment rate in the months ahead," Morita said.

The number of jobholders in the manufacturing sector fell by 880,000, larger than a contraction of 810,000 in September, from a year earlier to 10.05 million.

In the services sector, jobholders fell by 340,000 to 4.69 million, compared with a decline of 200,000 the previous month.

Jobless temps on rise
A labor ministry survey showed Friday that 246,847 nonregular workers have lost or are expected to lose their jobs in the period from October last year through next month.

The figure grew by 2,539 from the previous survey in October, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said.

In this month alone, the number of nonregular workers who lost or are expected to lose their jobs stood at 1,688.

Although the number of nonregular workers who are expected to lose their jobs in December stands at a smaller 750, a ministry official said the developments need to be closely watched as more companies tend to terminate contracts at the end of a calendar year.

By prefecture, Aichi, the home of Japan's auto industry, where Toyota Motor Corp. and affiliated parts suppliers are based, topped the list with 41,145 nonregular workers who lost or are expected to lose their jobs, followed by Tokyo with 11,000.

The ministry compiled the survey by tabulating figures as of Nov. 18.

news20091128jt2

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, Nov. 28, 2009
Prosecutors to quiz Hatoyama's mom on funds
Kyodo News

Prosecutors are considering questioning Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's 87-year-old mother over the political donations scandal her son is embroiled in, sources said Friday.

It has been reported that Hatoyama received a total of \900 million in "loans" from his mother over five years to 2008 and some of the money may have been recorded under fictitious donors in his political funds reports.

A special squad of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office is believed to have decided to ask her how she started giving the funds to the prime minister, the sources said.

Meanwhile, the prosecutors have questioned a former policy secretary of Hatoyama on a voluntary basis over the shady funds, the sources said.

The former secretary, who resigned in June, served as treasurer of Hatoyama's fund-management organization, according to the sources. The aide was not identified.

The special squad is examining the source of more than \300 million that it believes was falsely declared in Hatoyama's political funds reports.

The former secretary has denied his involvement in the alleged falsification. He said earlier: "The accounting of the fund-management body was controlled by a former state-paid secretary. There are so many mysteries" in Hatoyama's accounting.

Under the the Political Funds Control Law, the former policy secretary could be punished even if he is not directly involved in altering the reports.

Criminal complaints have been filed by a Tokyo group against the ex-aide and a former state-paid secretary as well as Hatoyama.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, Nov. 28, 2009
Probe to view Venus atmosphere
Kyodo News

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency showed to the media Friday the planetary probe Akatsuki, which will attempt to travel to Venus to examine its climate.

JAXA plans to launch the rectangular probe — 2.1 meters in height, 1.45 meters in width and 1.05 meters in depth — next year from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture.

With observation instruments, antennas and most other devices already installed, the probe will undergo a thermal vacuum test in January.

The climate of Venus is very different from that of Earth, having a massive carbon dioxide atmosphere that is extremely hot due to the greenhouse effect and is covered by sulfuric acid clouds, JAXA said.

The probe will also attempt to explore why the atmosphere of Venus rotates much faster than the planet's rotation.

Akatsuki will observe the atmosphere, cloud movements and whether thunder occurs, using five instruments, including ones to measure near-infrared rays and ultraviolet rays, while on an elliptical orbit ranging from 300 km to 80,000 km.

news20091128jt3

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, Nov. 28, 2009
ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE
Japan water, solar tech high, global share low
By HIROKO NAKATA
Staff writer
Third in a series

{{Learning through osmosis: This water desalination plant in southern Spain uses Nitto Denko Corp.'s reverse osmosis membrane filtration technology.}
COURTESY OF NITTO DENKO CORP.}

One afternoon in October, bureaucrats and industry experts gathered at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in Tokyo to discuss a national strategy to counter the overseas "water majors."

Their move reflects the realization that domestic water manufacturers lag far behind their overseas counterparts in terms of overall market share in the water management business, despite their top-level technologies.

Though Japanese technologies play a key role in desalinating seawater, this is only a small part of the overall business, and state-backed foreign firms, particularly French companies, remain the major global players, experts say.

"We aim to create a business environment to help Japanese companies become competitive enough to compete with the world water majors," said Koichi Sato, deputy director for METI's water industry and infrastructure systems promotion office.

Sato's sense of urgency also applies to other environment-friendly technologies Japan boasts.

Many, including solar panels, have gained excellent reputations as top-level products that can drastically slash carbon dioxide emissions, but Japan has yet to become globally competitive in their sectors.

The business potential in the freshwater market is considered huge, as global demand is expected to surge at least for the next two decades.

Despite the growing demand, there is only a limited amount of fresh water on the planet. Natural resources, including rivers, lakes, swamps and groundwater account for a mere 0.01 percent of overall water on the globe, most of which is seawater.

"About 70 percent of desalination technologies are those by Japanese makers," said Kazunari Yoshimura, who represents the consulting firm Global Water Japan.

As for reverse osmosis membrane filtration, which is widely believed to be the most efficient technology to desalinate water without emitting much carbon dioxide, two Japanese makers — Nitto Denko Corp. and Toray Industries Inc. — together dominate almost half of the global market share.

By filtering seawater with layers of reverse osmosis membrane filters, made of synthetic resin, water molecules are separated from salt and other impurities.

"The desalination ratio of our products is the highest in the world at 99.8 percent," said Nitto Denko spokesman Kazuhito Kono. The material maker accounts for slightly less than 30 percent of the reverse osmosis membrane market, the second-largest share after U.S. chemical manufacturer Dow Chemical Co., which has more than 30 percent. Toray has the third-largest share, with around 13 percent.

The latest desalination technology is gaining attention now, as it also helps to reduce greenhouse gases.

In the past, industrial plants desalinated seawater by boiling and evaporating it. But that method consumed a lot of oil and emitted carbon dioxide. Reverse osmosis membrane technology, which was initially developed in the U.S., has improved and gradually replaced the old method since 2001, experts said.

By using reverse osmosis membrane filtration, the amount of emissions was halved compared with evaporating seawater, Global Water's Yoshimura said.

Despite their high-level technologies, however, the Japanese membrane filter makers are failing to benefit from the expanding water market because their filters are just a component of desalination plants. Construction of such plants is a part of the overall water supply services dominated by the majors.

France's Veolia Water and Suez Environment, backed by the French government, handle almost everything from designing water filtration systems and constructing and operating plants to charging the water they supply, experts said.

Other foreign companies are also emerging. Hyflux of Singapore and Doosan of South Korea have been receiving orders for big water plants around the world, after their governments actively invested in technology in the sector.

The global water market is expected to reach over \80 trillion by 2025, more than double the size in 2007, according to METI. In particular, the demand in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa is expected to grow by more than 10 percent annually, it said.

Currently, Veolia and Suez account for about \2.5 trillion worth of sales in the roughly \3 trillion privatized, as opposed to state-run, portion of the global water business.

Filter makers, including Japanese firms, are under heavy pressure to slash the prices of their products amid intensifying price competition.

"Japanese makers develop the world's top-level technologies for parts. But to make them successful, a government vision is necessary," Global Water Japan's Yoshimura said. "The government needs to establish a social structure for such (new) business."

A similar example is the solar panel business, which has drawn attention as one of the major renewable energies capable of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Despite Japanese panel makers' cutting-edge technologies for transforming solar power into electricity, their market share fell to 25 percent in 2007 from 47 percent in 2005, partly due to a lack of government support, experts said.

"The government's termination of financial aid and the emergence of Chinese and Taiwanese makers are the two main reasons," said Hiroyuki Okamoto, general manager at Sanyo Electric Co.'s global communications department, explaining why Japanese solar panel makers' share, which dominated the market in the 1990s, has dropped in the past decade.

In fiscal 2005, the government stopped financial aid to homes setting up solar panels. Under the scheme, a household received \900,000 per kw of its solar panel's output in 1994. The aid was gradually cut to \20,000 per kw in 2005.

Germany meanwhile introduced a feed-in-tariff system, in which electric utilities buy renewable energy, including solar power, at fixed prices.

As a result of the rapid growth of the German market, Q-Cells SE of Germany in 2007 overtook Sharp Corp. as the world's top solar panel maker. Prior to this, Sharp had enjoyed the top market share for seven consecutive years from 2000.

As of 2008, Q-Cells had the leading market share, with 8.4 percent, followed by 7.4 percent for First Solar Inc. of the United States, 7.3 percent for Suntech Power of China, Sharp's 6.9 percent and Kyocera Corp.'s 4.3 percent. Sanyo had a 3.3 percent share, the 11th largest.

Alarmed by the situation in the global market, the government finally resumed in January financial aid for each household that introduced solar power by paying \70,000 per kw of its panel output.

The government also started Nov. 1 buying electricity generated by solar panels at home, after households consume their necessary electricity, at \48 per kw, double the previous price.

"Growth in the domestic market would benefit domestic solar panel makers. But it does not necessarily bring about larger global shares for us," said Sanyo's Okamoto. "We are also making efforts to increase our shares in Europe and the United States by developing technologies and sales networks."

As for the global water management business, the METI expert panel has so far met three times and discussed the need for Japanese filter makers, engineering firms and trading companies to cooperate with each other so that domestic manufacturers can better compete with the global water majors.

Japanese firms also lack enough experience in the water supply business to join bids for water plant projects, as such business in Japan is usually handled by local governments and not by companies, according to the panel.

"We hope we can support the Japanese makers so that they can be qualified as bidders of big overseas projects," said METI's Sato.

To become major players, domestic makers would need to either set up a joint venture with experienced foreign partners, acquire such companies, or cooperate with local governments that have much experience in the water supply business, Sato said.

"Japan has to make policies to help such businesses gain profits overseas, and to do that it has to help domestic firms become more globally competitive," Yoshimura said.

news20091128lat1

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

[Business > Toyota]
A TIMES INVESTIGATION
Motorists, experts say throttles, not floor mats, to blame for sudden acceleration in Toyota, Lexus models
Amid widening concern over acceleration events, Toyota has cited 'floor mat entrapment.' But reports point to another potential cause: the electronic throttles that have replaced mechanical systems.
By Ken Bensinger Ralph Vartabedian
November 29, 2009

Eric Weiss was stopped at a busy Long Beach intersection last month when he said his 2008 Toyota Tacoma pickup unexpectedly started accelerating, forcing him to stand on the brakes to keep the bucking truck from plowing into oncoming cars.

Toyota Motor Corp. says the gas pedal design in Weiss' truck and more than 4 million other Toyota and Lexus vehicles makes them vulnerable to being trapped open by floor mats, and on Wednesday announced a costly recall to fix the problem.

But Weiss is convinced his incident wasn't caused by a floor mat. He said he removed the mats in his truck months earlier on the advice of his Toyota dealer after his truck suddenly accelerated and rear-ended a BMW.

"The brakes squealed and the engine roared," the 52-year-old cabinet maker said of the most recent episode. "I don't want to drive the truck anymore, but I don't want anyone else to, either."

Amid widening concern over unintended acceleration events, including an Aug. 28 crash near San Diego that killed a California Highway Patrol officer and his family, Toyota has repeatedly pointed to "floor mat entrapment" as the problem.

But accounts from motorists such as Weiss, interviews with auto safety experts and a Times review of thousands of federal traffic safety incident reports all point to another potential cause: the electronic throttles that have replaced mechanical systems in recent years.

The Times found that complaints of sudden acceleration in many Toyota and Lexus vehicles shot up almost immediately after the automaker adopted the so-called drive-by-wire system over the last decade. That system uses sensors, microprocessors and electric motors to connect the driver's foot to the engine, rather than a traditional link such as a steel cable.

For some Toyota models, reports of unintended acceleration increased more than five-fold after drive-by-wire systems were adopted, according to the review of thousands of consumer complaints filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Toyota first installed electronic throttles in 2002 model year Lexus ES and Camry sedans. Total complaints of sudden acceleration for the Lexus and Camry in the 2002-04 model years averaged 132 a year. That's up from an average of 26 annually for the 1999-2001 models, the Times review found.

The average number of sudden acceleration complaints involving the Tacoma jumped more than 20 times, on average, in the three years after Toyota's introduction of drive-by-wire in these trucks in 2005. Increases were also found on the hybrid Prius, among other models.

Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons said the automaker could not explain the trend. But Toyota has consistently held that electronic control systems, including drive-by-wire, are not to blame.

"Six times in the past six years NHTSA has undertaken an exhaustive review of allegations of unintended acceleration on Toyota and Lexus vehicles," Toyota said in a statement earlier this month. "Six times the agency closed the investigation without finding any electronic engine control system malfunction to be the cause of unintended acceleration."

NHTSA officials have consistently said they have not found any electronic defects. "In the high-speed incidents, which are the type of crashes in which death or serious injury is most likely, the only pattern NHTSA has found to explain at least some of them are pedal entrapment by floor mats," a spokeswoman said in a written statement.

Toyota has been under a spotlight since the San Diego crash, in which the driver's desperate efforts to stop the car were recorded on a 911 emergency call made by a passenger. After that incident, The Times reported that sudden acceleration events involving Toyota vehicles have resulted in at least 19 deaths since the introduction of the 2002 model year. By comparison, NHTSA says all other automakers combined had 11 fatalities related to sudden acceleration in the same period.

Independent electronics and engineering experts say the drive-by-wire systems differ from automaker to automaker and that the potential for electronic throttle control systems to malfunction may have been dismissed too quickly by both Toyota and federal safety officials.

Unlike mechanical systems, electronic throttles -- which have the look and feel of traditional gas pedals -- are vulnerable to software glitches, manufacturing defects and electronic interference that could cause sudden acceleration, they say.

Ask the computer

"With the electronic throttle, the driver is not really in control of the engine," said Antony Anderson, a UK-based electrical engineering consultant who investigates electrical failures and has testified in sudden-acceleration lawsuits. "You are telling the computer, will you please move the throttle to a certain level and the computer decides if it will obey you."

Although Toyota says it knows of no electronic defects that would cause a vehicle to surge out of control, it has issued at least three technical service bulletins to its dealers warning of problems with the new electronic throttles in the 2002 and 2003 Camry.

The throttle systems on six-cylinder engines can cause the vehicle to "exhibit a surging during light throttle input at speeds between 38 mph and 42 mph," according to one of the bulletins that was published by Alldata, a vehicle information company. The solution provided to dealers was to reprogram the engine control module.

NHTSA, the nation's primary agency for auto safety, has conducted a total of eight investigations of unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles since 2003, prompted by defect petitions from motorists and its own examination of complaints. But the agency has tested electronic throttle systems only twice in those probes, its records show.

Three years ago, the agency asked Toyota to test an electronic throttle component from a 2006 Camry, a task the company delegated to the Japanese supplier that manufactured the part. The supplier exonerated the throttle, and then NHTSA allowed Toyota to keep virtually the entire 74-page report almost entirely confidential. The report, posted on the agency's website, has dozens of redacted pages.

The other test, conducted at a NHTSA laboratory in Massachusetts, found that a Toyota throttle exhibited unusual behavior when researchers applied a magnetic field to the device's sensitive electronics. Engine speed surged by 1,000 revolutions per minute, according to a 2008 report by the agency's Vehicle Research and Test Center.

No explanation

Nonetheless, the lab concluded that the system "showed no vulnerabilities to electric signal activities." The details of the experiment were not explained in the lab report and the agency never explained the apparent contradiction.

The electronic throttle was first introduced by BMW in 1988.Like a conventional throttle system, it controls the flow of air into the engine. Today, every new Toyota vehicle sold in the U.S. uses drive-by-wire. The systems cost less to install on the assembly line and increase the efficiency of the vehicle.

To run these advanced throttle systems, each automaker develops its own electronic control modules and proprietary software that has unique control logic. The operations of the systems are opaque to consumers, as are potential failures.

In a worst-case scenario, consultant Anderson says, stray electrical voltages, electromagnetic signals or bad sensor readings could cause an undetectable error within the car's network of up to 70 microprocessors, setting off an unpredictable chain of reactions. One of those, he said, could be a command to completely open the throttle.

The auto industry has battled allegations of electronic defects in sudden-acceleration lawsuits for more than two decades, arguing that they are not caused by any vehicle defect.

Richard Schmidt, a former UCLA psychology professor and consultant specializing in human motor skills, said the problem almost always lies with drivers who step on the wrong pedal.

"When the driver says they have their foot on the brake, they are just plain wrong," Schmidt said. "The human motor system is not perfect and it doesn't always do what it is told."

To be sure, the complaints by Toyota and Lexus owners about sudden acceleration involve a tiny share of the company's vehicles on the road.

But runaway acceleration represents a high proportion of the complaints filed by consumers about Toyota in federal databases. For the 2007 Lexus ES sedan, for example, 74 of 132 complaints filed with NTHSA alleged sudden acceleration.

And independent experts say that the number of complaints actually filed is only a tiny fraction of all potential problems, since most people don't bother filing a report.

Critics say NHTSA hasn't kept pace with technological changes.

The auto industry has undergone a technological revolution in the last decade, and today about 25% of a vehicle's price reflects its electronics content. Nonetheless, NHTSA has adopted few, if any, standards for designing or testing vehicle electronics, according to industry officials. Indeed, the agency's two-page safety standard for accelerators was adopted in 1973.

CONTINUED TO newslat2

news20091128lat2

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

[Business > Toyota]
A TIMES INVESTIGATION
Motorists, experts say throttles, not floor mats, to blame for sudden acceleration in Toyota, Lexus models
Amid widening concern over acceleration events, Toyota has cited 'floor mat entrapment.' But reports point to another potential cause: the electronic throttles that have replaced mechanical systems.
By Ken Bensinger Ralph Vartabedian
November 29, 2009

CONTINUED FROM newslat1

Dale Kardos, who runs a consulting firm that helps automakers with regulatory issues, said that manufacturers have repeatedly tried to get that standard updated because they fear they can no longer comply. "The industry would like to see standards written to reflect modern technology," Kardos said.

Instead, independent organizations and the industry itself are setting standards and developing safety policies. The International Organization for Standardization, a nongovernment group that sets industrial standards, recently introduced a new standard for automakers to protect vehicle electronics.

Supplier TRW Automotive Holdings Corp., which makes computerized controls for brakes and airbags, said its systems have multiple layers of redundancy to make sure electronic faults are detected and isolated.

"Manufacturers' standards are far above the regulatory standards," said Ian Harvey, TRW's executive lead for electromechanical compatibility. "You wouldn't want somebody to make a cellphone call and the air bag goes off. That potentially could happen if you didn't take the proper precautions."

Despite the huge increase in complexity, when NHTSA investigators conduct field tests of alleged malfunctions of Toyota throttle systems, they rarely have done more than drive suspect vehicles for a few miles, test the brakes and plug a diagnostic tool into their onboard computers to look for error codes, investigation records show.

Michael Pecht, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland who has studied sudden acceleration for 10 years, said it's nearly impossible to replicate an electronic control system fault simply by driving a short distance. "These are not things that occur every day. If it occurred a lot, you could track it down. If it occurs once in 10,000 trips, then it is difficult to find," he said.

What's more, said Huei Peng, director of the University of Michigan's automotive engineering program and a specialist in vehicle control systems, many of the kinds of electronic errors that a modern car is susceptible to are not detectable by the car's fault detection system.

"When there's no error code, it doesn't mean there's no error," Peng said.

Despite the potential risks associated with electronic systems, NHTSA's own reports indicate it often does not test them while investigating unintended acceleration.

In a 2005 probe of Lexus ES vehicles, NHTSA reported that its investigator reviewed two vehicles that had allegedly surged out of control, but that "no interrogation or communication with the electronic systems was performed" before giving them a clean bill of health.

Texas resident Thomas Ritter, who has a mechanical engineering degree and spent 15 years as an engineer at General Motors, Chrysler and other auto and truck makers as well as 25 years designing oil exploration equipment, believes Toyota's acceleration problem lies in the electronics.

Last July, his wife was driving her 2006 Lexus ES 330 with four grandchildren near Houston when it accelerated out of control. To avoid a wreck, she crossed four lanes of traffic before smashing into a masonry sign, totaling the car and deploying the airbags. No one was seriously injured.

"When you think about a machine operated by computers, almost anything can go wrong," said Ritter.

A 'smart pedal'

Toyota announced Wednesday that it had developed a series of fixes to prevent floor mats from causing sudden acceleration. In 4.26 million vehicles in the U.S. and Canada, Toyota said it would cut off a segment of the accelerator pedal and then later install a newly designed pedal. It also will add a so-called smart pedal, software that cuts engine power any time both the accelerator pedal and brake pedal are depressed at the same time.

Such software has already been adopted as a safety feature by a number of automakers, including Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, BMW, Nissan and Chrysler, the companies said.

Independent auto safety experts said that while all of Toyota's fixes will help reduce the problem, it has not gotten to the root cause.

"These incidents are coming in left and right where you can't blame the floor mats," said Sean Kane, president of the consulting firm Safety Research and Strategies. "So, they are chipping away at a problem that is widespread and complicated without having to unravel a root cause that could be very expensive."


[Business > A new 14-year low of 84.81 yen]
Dubai debt fears remain focus in world markets
Associated Press
November 27, 2009 | 8:03 a.m.

European stock markets regained their poise Friday after Wall Street didn't fall as much as feared on the news earlier this week that Dubai is having trouble handling its debt.

Because U.S. markets were closed for Thanksgiving Day on Thursday, they are only reacting now to the fears that Dubai's debt problems may affect the wider financial system.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was up 41.30 points, or 0.8%, at 5,235.43 while Germany's DAX rose 50 points, or 0.9%, at 5,669.84. The CAC-40 in France was 36.85 points, or 1%, higher at 3,716.08.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 162.71 points, or 1.6%, at 10,301.69 soon after the open while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 19.33 points, or 1.7%, at 1,091.30.

Though hefty, the losses in the U.S. paled in comparison to those posted earlier in Asia, when indexes in Hong Kong and South Korea tumbled 5% in response to the previous day's Dubai-related losses in Europe.

Confidence about the world economy has been hit hard by the news that Dubai World, a government investment company with around $60 billion worth of debt, has asked creditors if it can postpone forthcoming payments until May. Investors are wondering whether the current uncertainty surrounding the emirate has brought the eight-month equities bull run to an end.

Analysts said more clarity about the long-term impact of Dubai's troubles would likely emerge next week, when Wall Street is back to normal trading hours following the Thanksgiving Day holiday. U.S. markets are only open for half the day Friday.

"It is likely to take at least a few days before the implications of the impact of a possible default from Dubai are properly digested but for the present it seems that the market is seeing this negative news as a blow to the global recovery but not one that will push it off course," said Jane Foley, research director at Forex.com.

Investors were also keeping a close eye on associated developments in the currency markets after the dollar slid to a new 14-year low of 84.81 yen.

However, the dollar climbed back off its lows to 86.74 yen amid mounting expectations that the Bank of Japan may intervene in the markets by buying dollars or selling yen after Japan's finance minister Hirohisa Fujii said he was "extremely nervous" about the movements in the yen and that the "market had moved too far in one direction."

On Thursday, the Swiss National Bank reportedly intervened to buy dollars to prevent the export-sapping appreciation of the Swiss franc. That seems to have worked -- for now, at least -- as the dollar has moved back above parity, trading 0.9% higher at 1.0118 Swiss francs.

The British pound has also been battered amid fears about the exposure of Britain's banks to the region. The pound was down nearly one% earlier but recovered some ground to be trading only 0.3% lower at $1.6475.

Another currency struggling somewhat in the current climate was the euro, which fell 0.5% to $1.4943 -- in times of uncertainty the dollar is considered to be more of a safe haven currency. Investors are also concerned about the exposure of European banks to Dubai.

Earlier, Asian stocks were particularly badly hit as they played catch-up following the big losses in Europe in the previous session. Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed 1,075.91 points, or 4.8%, lower at 21,134.50, while South Korea's benchmark plummeted 4.7% to 1,524.50.

Elsewhere in Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average fell 3.2% to 9,081.52 while Australia's index dropped 2.9%. China's main Shanghai stock measure was off 2.4%.

Indexes in emerging markets have so far avoided a second day of heavy losses, with Russia and Brazil down about 1%.

Oil, meanwhile, tracked developments in stock markets and benchmark crude for January delivery fell $3.30 to $74.66 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

news20091128nyt1

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

[Global business]
Dollar Hits a 14-Year Low Versus the Yen
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Published: November 26, 2009

TOKYO — The dollar tumbled to a 14-year low against the yen on Thursday, reinforcing concern in Tokyo that America’s already-strapped consumers would buy even fewer Japanese cars and gadgets.

The move was part of a wide, multiyear decline in the dollar, set off by worries about the American economy and its swelling debt — and more recently, a belief that the United States was unlikely to raise interest rates soon.

In early trading in Tokyo on Friday, the dollar briefly fell below 85 yen, its lowest level against the Japanese currency since hitting 79.75 yen in April 1995.

The dollar traded at $1.5057 against the euro on Thursday, strengthening slightly from $1.5134 the day before, when the dollar hit its weakest level against the common currency since August 2008.

Many analysts say the dollar has further to fall, a prospect that may be good news for the United States because it will make its goods and services more competitive.

The dollar’s weakness is causing jitters in countries like Japan, however. Earlier this decade, Japan frequently intervened in currency markets to weaken its currency, thereby keeping its exports affordable for overseas markets.

But Japan has held back from similar moves amid increasing signals from Washington that Asia’s export-driven economies should no longer count on American consumers to keep them afloat.

On a recent trip to the region, President Obama urged countries like Japan and China to cultivate domestic demand instead, while allowing their currencies to appreciate against the dollar.

Mr. Obama is concerned by what economists call a global imbalance: a huge trade and current-account deficit in the United States and trade surpluses in the rest of the world. The president said Americans must spend less on imported goods — and increase their household savings — while consumers in Asia must spend more.

“It was just two weeks ago that U.S. President Obama stressed the necessity for the United States to reduce its trade deficit, and for Asian countries to grow domestic demand,” Osamu Takashima, an analyst at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, wrote in a note to clients. “International circumstances make it difficult for the Japanese government to halt the yen’s rise by intervening in currency markets.”

The slump in the dollar, so soon after Mr. Obama’s visit, is putting the Japanese government to the test, however. Japan has not meddled in currency markets since 2004, but the recent trend upward had prompted speculation that an intervention might be imminent.

“It’s not desirable for the currency to move so rapidly,” Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama told reporters Thursday. “The most important thing is we must handle economic management properly. Immediate steps will be needed to avoid falling back into recession.”

A weak dollar hurts Japanese exporters because American consumers must pay more to purchase the same Japanese cars and gadgets — making them less competitive alongside products made in the United States or by other exporters with weaker currencies. Any profit earned in American dollars will also be worth less when converted into yen, hurting companies’ bottom lines.

Automakers like Toyota Motor, which still makes many of its cars in Japan to ship overseas, could be hit if the dollar remains weak. Toyota, the world’s biggest automaker, estimates that a 1-yen fall in the dollar shaves 30 billion yen off its operating profit.

Japanese exporters have already been battered in the global economic crisis, which decimated demand worldwide. Meanwhile, a dark outlook for the country’s export sector could in turn depress share prices and business sentiment, worsen deflation and weigh on the wider economy — just as Japan has been showing signs of recovery.

“If the situation continues to worsen at export companies, it could nip the Japanese economy’s green shoots in the bud,” said Mr. Takashima, the bank analyst.

The last time the dollar fell so low against the yen was in 1995, amid the lingering effect of the agreement known as the Plaza Accord a decade earlier, when the world’s leading economies agreed on a common policy to weaken the dollar and tackle America’s trade deficit.

But near-zero interest rates set by the Japanese government for much of this decade encouraged the rise of the so-called yen carry trade, where investors borrowed money in Japan to invest in countries with higher yields.

Those carry-trade bets helped keep the yen cheap against other currencies, including the dollar. Exports boomed, and Japan racked up a huge trade surplus.

The carry trade started to unravel in 2007 as subprime worries spread in the United States, causing panicked investors to pull their money from riskier investments and pay off their yen loans.

Meanwhile, the United States Federal Reserve has lowered interest rates to below those of Japan, and analysts see little prospect of a rate increase soon, making the dollar a less attractive currency to hold. A dollar carry trade is also in the making, analysts say.

Tomoko Fujii, a currency strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said she saw an increased chance that Japan would intervene in currency markets if the dollar dipped below 85 yen.

Despite the dollar’s slide against the yen on Thursday, it rose against 14 of the 16 most-traded currencies tracked by Bloomberg, after Dubai’s attempt to reschedule its debt caused investors to flee to the dollar from some other currencies.

The government of Dubai said Wednesday that it had asked its banks for a six-month stay on its schedule of debt repayments, in a blunt acknowledgment of the once-booming Middle Eastern emirate’s financial woes.

Bettina Wassener contributed reporting from Hong Kong.

news20091128nyt2

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

[Global business]
Japan Shows Concern as Dollar Slides
By BETTINA WASSENER and HIROKO TABUCHI
Published: November 26, 2009

HONG KONG — Japanese policy makers on Friday became increasingly vocal about the strength of the yen after the Japanese currency hit a 14-year high against the dollar, fueling speculation that the government may step into the market to artificially weaken the currency.

The dollar briefly fell to 84.82 yen — surpassing Thursday’s low and prompting the country’s finance minister, Hirohisa Fujii, to tell reporters in Tokyo Friday that he was “extremely nervous and watching the market carefully.”

“There’s no doubt the market has moved too far in one direction,” Mr. Fujii said. “Moves right now are extreme, and it would be possible to take appropriate measures.”

Although he did not explicitly say that the government might intervene in the foreign exchange markets — by buying dollars for yen — such comments are often interpreted as “verbal intervention,” in which comments from top policy makers can swing market expectations and thus influence currency levels.

By mid-morning in Tokyo, the dollar gained somewhat, to 85.90 yen, but it remains weak in comparison to earlier this year. In April, it took $1 bought 101 yen, and at the start of 2008, $1 bought nearly 110 yen.

The dollar’s slump against the yen, and against many of the world’s major currencies, is part of a wide, multiyear decline, set off by worries about the U.S. economy and its swelling debt — and more recently, a belief that the United States was unlikely to raise interest rates soon.

The dollar’s weakness is especially causing jitters in Japan, whose economy is still struggling to emerge from a deep recession. A strong yen — which makes exporters’ good more expensive for consumers in the United States — is something Japan’s export-oriented economy can ill afford.

The Nikkei 225 stock index in Tokyo dropped 1.8 percent on Friday morning, led by exporting giants like Sony, Toshiba, Toyota, Nissan and Honda.

Earlier this decade, Japan frequently intervened in currency markets to weaken its currency, thereby keeping its exports affordable for overseas markets.

But Japan has held back from similar moves amid increasing signals from Washington that Asia’s export-driven economies should no longer count on American consumers to keep them afloat.

In a research note on Friday, Patrick Bennett, a strategist at Société Générale in Hong Kong said he still expected “some ratcheting higher in tone before physical action is taken.”

On a recent trip to the region, President Obama urged countries like Japan and China to cultivate domestic demand instead, while allowing their currencies to appreciate against the dollar.

Mr. Obama is concerned by what economists call a global imbalance: a huge trade and current-account deficit in the United States and trade surpluses in the rest of the world. The president said Americans must spend less on imported goods — and increase their household savings — while consumers in Asia must spend more.

“It was just two weeks ago that U.S. President Obama stressed the necessity for the United States to reduce its trade deficit, and for Asian countries to grow domestic demand,” Osamu Takashima, an analyst at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, wrote in a note to clients. “International circumstances make it difficult for the Japanese government to halt the yen’s rise by intervening in currency markets.”

The slump in the dollar, so soon after Mr. Obama’s visit, is putting the Japanese government to the test, however. Japan has not meddled in currency markets since 2004, but the recent trend upward had prompted speculation that an intervention might be imminent.

“It’s not desirable for the currency to move so rapidly,” Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama told reporters Thursday. “The most important thing is we must handle economic management properly. Immediate steps will be needed to avoid falling back into recession.”

A weak dollar hurts Japanese exporters because American consumers must pay more to purchase the same Japanese cars and gadgets — making them less competitive alongside products made in the United States or by other exporters with weaker currencies. Any profit earned in American dollars will also be worth less when converted into yen, hurting companies’ bottom lines.

Automakers like Toyota Motor, which still makes many of its cars in Japan to ship overseas, could be hit if the dollar remains weak. Toyota, the world’s biggest automaker, estimates that a 1-yen fall in the dollar shaves 30 billion yen off its operating profit.

Japanese exporters have already been battered in the global economic crisis, which decimated demand worldwide. Meanwhile, a dark outlook for the country’s export sector could in turn depress share prices and business sentiment, worsen deflation and weigh on the wider economy — just as Japan has been showing signs of recovery.

“If the situation continues to worsen at export companies, it could nip the Japanese economy’s green shoots in the bud,” said Mr. Takashima, the bank analyst.

The last time the dollar fell so low against the yen was in 1995, amid the lingering effect of the agreement known as the Plaza Accord a decade earlier, when the world’s leading economies agreed on a common policy to weaken the dollar and tackle America’s trade deficit.

But near-zero interest rates set by the Japanese government for much of this decade encouraged the rise of the so-called yen carry trade, where investors borrowed money in Japan to invest in countries with higher yields.

Those carry-trade bets helped keep the yen cheap against other currencies, including the dollar. Exports boomed, and Japan racked up a huge trade surplus.

The carry trade started to unravel in 2007 as subprime worries spread in the United States, causing panicked investors to pull their money from riskier investments and pay off their yen loans.

Meanwhile, the United States Federal Reserve has lowered interest rates to below those of Japan, and analysts see little prospect of a rate increase soon, making the dollar a less attractive currency to hold. A dollar carry trade is also in the making, analysts say.

Tomoko Fujii, a currency strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said she saw an increased chance that Japan would intervene in currency markets if the dollar dipped below 85 yen.

Hiroko Tabuchi reported from Tokyo.

news20091128gdn1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Climate change]
Gordon Brown unveils fund to tackle 'climate emergency'
> Poorer countries to receive fast-tracked support
> Prime minister pledges £800m from Britain
Nicholas Watt in Port of Spain
guardian.co.uk, Friday 27 November 2009 21.57 GMT Article history

Gordon Brown has unveiled a $22bn (£13.3bn) global fund to respond to the world's "climate emergency" by fast-tracking funds to poorer countries from next year.

In an intensification of preparations for the Copenhagen summit, which starts on 7 December, the prime minister announced the spending pledge to halt deforestation, build flood defences and boost renewable supplies in the developing world.

The initiative, supported by the US and EU leaders, would involve the use of satellites to ensure that commitments to stop deforestation were being met.

Brown outlined the plan, which is designed to fast-track support before a €100bn commitment to be built up from 2013, on the opening day of the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Trinidad and Tobago.

The prime minister said Britain would contribute £800m to the Copenhagen Launch Fund. "Together, the collective power of the Commonwealth must be brought together to tackle a new historic injustice, that of climate change. We face a climate emergency: we cannot wait until 2013 to begin taking action," he said.

The fund, which would start in the new year, would be worth $10bn a year by 2012, he said, and would be worth $22bn by the time the €100bn fund kicks in from 2013. The new fund will be split two ways:

> Adaptation, in which countries such as Bangladesh will receive upfront help for coastal flood defences as they adapt to climate change.

> Payment by results, in which countries will take action to reduce future carbon emissions by cutting back on deforestation and building up renewable supplies. Deforestation will be monitored by satellites to ensure illegal loggers do not break government commitments.

Brown said it was crucial to win over poorer countries. "While the major cause of high emissions is the activities of the richest countries over many, many years, 90% of future growth in emissions will come from developing countries," the prime minister said. "Therefore, we have got to have a plan to make sure their emissions can come down."

Britain believes that agreement on climate financing among Commonwealth leaders would be highly symbolic ahead of Copenhagen. Preparations for the summit in the Danish capital have been soured by divisions between developed and developing countries.

"From London to Trinidad and Tobago to Copenhagen may seem a roundabout journey, but this is one of the routes to Copenhagen to make sure we can get an agreement that will work," Brown said. Britain sees the Commonwealth as a microcosm of the 193 countries invited to Copenhagen. It includes rich countries, such as Britain and Australia; emerging nations, such as India and South Africa; some of the world's poorest nations, such as Malawi; rainforest nations, including Guyana; and island nations such as the Maldives.

Brown said: "There will be no Copenhagen agreement unless we find a solution on finance. The financial issues resolve the ability of poor countries to be part of a climate initiative. If they do not have the money to transfer their energies into doing pro-carbon reduction matters, they will not be able to do them. If we are able to help them to do it, then they will be able to make big changes."

Brown believes there is strong support in the developed world for the $10bn fund. Nicolas Sarkozy threw his weight behind the plan today when he became the first French president to attend a Commonwealth heads of government meeting. The US president, Barack Obama, has indicated that he supports the proposal.

The fund has been strengthened since EU leaders agreed at a Brussels summit at the end of October that a global €100bn-a-year fund should be established by 2020. This will be provided in three ways:

> Developing nations such as China and, to a slightly lesser extent, Brazil, will fund their own carbon reduction.

> Developed nations will contribute public funds.

> Private funds will be provided through the carbon market.EU leaders agreed that an earlier $10bn fund – the basis of yesterday's announcement – should be fast tracked from next year. This is entirely public funds.

The EU summit in October was seen as a significant moment which encouraged key developing nations to make key commitments to cut emissions. Brazil will cut emissions by 36-39% by 2020 over what is known as "business as usual" – the emissions level if no action were taken. South Korea will cut by 30% and Indonesia will cut by 26-41%. "These are serious and ambitious offers," Brown said.

Earlier, the Queen told the opening ceremony: "The threat to our environment is not a new concern. But it is now a global challenge which will continue to affect the security and stability of millions for years to come.

"Many of those affected are among the most vulnerable, and many of the people least well able to withstand the adverse effects of climate change live in the Commonwealth."


[Environment > Carbon footprints]
Football to footprints: World Cup's carbon impact
South Africa tournament's emissions to be eight times amount in Germany the last time around
David Smith in Johannesburg
guardian.co.uk, Friday 27 November 2009 18.41 GMT Article history

Africa's first football World Cup will generate 2.75m tonnes of carbon emissions, one of the biggest environmental impacts of any sporting event in history, a study has found.

The finals in South Africa next year are expected to have a carbon footprint eight times that of the 2006 World Cup in Germany, even before long-haul international travel is taken into account.

The main reasons for the discrepancy are the vast distances between South Africa's host cities and the lack of a green transport infrastructure.

The estimated output from South Africa is 896,661 tonnes of carbon dioxide, according to the optimistically entitled Feasibility Study for a Carbon Neutral 2010 Fifa World Cup, commissioned jointly by the South African and Norwegian governments. Another 1,856,589 tonnes will result from fans travelling from around the world, making the World Cup's footprint the biggest of any major event aiming to be "climate neutral", the report said.

It cites the geography of South Africa as the main culprit, forcing players, officials and supporters to travel great distances between the 64 matches spread across nine host cities. South Africa is five times the size of the UK. The distance from Cape Town to Johannesburg is 880 miles, the same as London to Warsaw, and it would take about 17 hours to drive.

South Africa's transport systems are also less eco-friendly than in many countries. "For inter-city transport … distances between matches in South Africa are much greater than in Germany, and the lack of high-speed rail links means that most visitors will fly multiple times between matches, leading to much higher transport emissions," the report said. Within cities, they will use hired cars or buses, because there is no underground or light railway alternative.

But getting there will be the biggest contributor to the total of 2,753,250 tonnes of carbon. International transport represents 67.4% of emissions, intercity transport 17.6%, intracity transport 1.4%, stadium construction and materials 0.6%, stadium and precinct energy use 0.5%, and energy use in accommodation 12.4%.

The report said carbon offset programmes to counter the World Cup's impact would cost between $5.4m and $9m (£3.3m to £5.4m).

It called for the early implementation of carbon offset programmes from football's governing body, Fifa, the local organising committee and the South African government. These should be visible during the event to "maximise the contribution to public awareness".

The local organising committee responded this week with a "green goal" initiative. It said the construction of Soccer City stadium, the venue for the opening ceremony and the first and final matches, used thousands of tonnes of builders' rubble from the demolition of parts of the old FNB stadium.

Waterless urinals will be used in the stadium and the pitch will be irrigated exclusively with non-drinkable water, the organising committee said. Waste reduction will be pursued, with reusable cups and limited use of food containers.

Buyelwa Sonjica, South Africa's environmental affairs minister, told parliament this week: "Some progress has been conducted toward processes for offsetting the footprint. However, even the footprint on its own is huge in comparison to the 2006 Fifa World Cup footprint. At least three of the nine host cities have considered the implementation of bicycle lanes."

news20091128gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Climate change]
Climate email hackers had access for more than a month
Email sent to weatherman suggests hackers had access to Climatic Research Unit's systems for longer than first suspected
Matthew Taylor and Charles Arthur
guardian.co.uk, Friday 27 November 2009 18.34 GMT Article history

Computer hackers who broke into the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) server at the University of East Anglia had access to its systems for more than a month.

The full data – covering 1,000 emails and 3,000 documents in which the most recent document and email is dated 12 November – came to wider notice when a copy was posted on a web server in Russia on 19 November.

But a month earlier a BBC weatherman who had expressed doubts about climate change on his blog was sent a sample of the email exchanges, suggesting the hackers already had access to the private system.

The university declined to answer questions about the setup and security of the computers used by CRU scientists, but security experts say there are only three tenable explanations for how the server was hacked: a determined break-in by an external hacker; that one of the CRU or university systems was accidentally "compromised" by a computer virus or other "malware"; or it was an "inside job" by a disaffected member of university staff. The latter is viewed as the least likely.

Climate change deniers have seized on the disclosures, claiming they proved that the scientists had colluded to manipulate climate data and that they called into question the evidence for human-driven global warming.

Leading scientific bodies and governments have dismissed the charges, insisting there is clear evidence that humans are to blame for global warming.

The first leak occurred after 9 October, when one of the BBC's regional weathermen, Paul Hudson, wrote an article arguing that for the last 11 years there had not been an increase in global temperatures. On 12 October he was forwarded a "chain of emails", including some which subsequently appeared in the hacked documents. Last night the BBC confirmed Hudson had been forwarded emails written by two of the scientists, but refused to disclose the source.

"Paul spotted that these few e-mails were among thousands published on the internet following the alleged hacking of the UEA computer system," said a BBC spokesman.

After sending Hudson the sample, nothing more emerged from the hackers for a month. Then early on 17 November someone hacked into the RealClimate website, used by climate scientists to explain their work. Using a computer in Turkey, they uploaded a zip file containing all 4,000 emails and documents. But within a couple of minutes Gavin Schmidt, the website's co-founder, realised something was wrong and shut down the site. The file had been online for 25 minutes but had not been picked up.

On 19 November the hackers used a computer in Saudi Arabia to post a link on The Air Vent – a website popular with climate change sceptics – pointing to a fresh copy of the zip file, this time stored on a Russian web server. At that point it was finally picked up by blogs and news organisations around the world.

news20091128nn

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 27 November 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1111
News
Dirty pigs are healthy pigs
Study finds link between outdoor living and immune health.
Natasha Gilbert

Living like a pig could be good for you. Research has shown how dirty piglets obtain 'friendly' bacteria that help them to develop healthy immune systems later in life.

The results, published online in BMC Biology¹, provide the first direct link between dirty living, immune health and genetic expression. They also indicate that manipulating gut bacteria early in life might reduce allergies and other autoimmune diseases, says Denise Kelly, a gut immunologist at the University of Aberdeen, UK and one of the study's authors.

Researchers began with 54 piglets and divided them equally between an outdoor environment, an indoor environment, and an isolated environment where they were fed antibiotics on a daily basis. The scientists then killed piglets on days 5 (neonatal stage), 28 (weaning age), and 56 (nearing maturity) to study their gut tissue and faeces.

The study found that 90% of bacteria in the guts of the outdoor piglets came from the phylum Firmicutes. Most of these were lactobacillaceae, known for their health-promoting effects, and for their ability to limit intestinal pathogens such as Escherichia coli and Salmonella. In contrast, the Firmicutes bacteria made up less than 70% and just more than 50% of the gut flora in indoor and isolated bred pigs respectively. The pigs also had much smaller proportions of bacteria from the lactobacillaceae family.
Wallowing benefits

The team also found that the differences in gut microbial communities affected the expression of genes associated with the piglets' immune system. Animals raised in the isolated environment expressed more genes involved in inflammatory immune responses and cholesterol synthesis, whereas genes associated with T cells were expressed in the outdoor-reared pigs.

Kelly says that until now, the link between living environment and immune response had been circumstantial. "There has been a lot of hearsay around gut microbiota and how it influences immune function and susceptibility to diseases and allergies," she says. The latest work establishes a strong causal link.

Glenn Gibson, a food microbiologist at the University of Reading, UK, agrees that previous studies have "shown by implication" that immune responses are linked to organisms in the gut. "This study takes a step forwards by tallying the gene expression response into this," he says.

However, he adds that because the study was carried out in pigs, there is no way to be certain that the results are relevant to humans.

Kelly argues that the similarities between the organisms found in human and pig guts and their comparable size in organs, makes pigs a good model animal to study. In future studies, she hopes to further identify the types of organisms that are associated with health.

References
1. Mulder, I. E. et al. BMC Biol. 7, 79 (2009).


[naturenews]
Published online 27 November 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1112
News
Birdsongs provide population clues
Microphone array improves estimate of ovenbird density.
Emma Marris

{{Scientists recorded the ovenbird's repetitive song.}
M. Efford}

As any birder will tell you, most birds in the forest are easier heard than seen. Now two scientists have figured out a way to estimate bird population densities by recording their songs with an array of microphones.

The method offers an alternative to a common way to estimate population densities: the human ear. Humans listeners are often used in bird studies, but people are far from perfect, says Murray Efford of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. In particular, "we aren't good at telling how far away sounds are," he says.

Efford and Deanna Dawson of the United States Geological Survey in Laurel, Maryland, have come up with a method that uses multiple microphones scattered through the woods. By recording in several places simultaneously, researchers can estimate each bird's acoustic 'footprint' — the area around it where it can be heard.

The size of the footprint depends on parameters such as the loudness of the birds and the acoustic properties of the forest. So Efford and Dawson must try different values for such parameters until they find a good match with the data recorded by the microphones. When all is done, the duo can estimate bird density without knowing the birds' locations or the size of the forest.

Twitter tweet!

They tried out their method on ovenbirds (Seiurus aurocapilla) at the Patuxent Research Refuge near Laurel, Maryland. Only male ovenbirds sing, and the technique estimated their density at around one male bird per every five hectares (click here to hear the ovenbird's song). The findings matched well with estimates gleaned from catching the little songbirds in nets. What's more, the researchers found that the new technique was more precise than estimates based on netting. The work is published online in the Journal of Applied Ecology¹.

The researchers say that the method could be used to estimate densities of other hard-to-spot animals, including whales and dolphins. Len Thomas, a statistical ecologist at the University of St Andrews, UK, for instance, is already using a similar method as part of an effort to monitor Minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) by their sounds. Sightings of these whales in the Pacific can be counted on one hand, but males make a distinctive "boy-yoy-yoing" sound, so hydrophones can measure their song footprints, just like the ovenbirds.

However, Thomas says that Efford and Dawson's method only provides part of the picture for Minke populations. The method estimates only the densities of sounds, not of animals, and in the case of the whales, uncertainty about what percentage of males call and how often they do so make it hard to extrapolate to an estimation of the population density.

Efford adds that the new technique will work best with animals that make repetitive sounds at constant loudness. That means it could be especially useful for estimating population densities of other kinds of birds. "A lot of birds are blurting out the same thing over and over again, persistently and monotonously," he says.

The monotony may have gotten to Efford, after listening to ovenbird songs over and over for the study. "It is a particularly irritating and insistent call," he admits.

References
1. Dawson, D. K. & Efford, M. G. J. Appl. Ecol. 46, 1201-1209 (2009).

news20091128bbc3

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

[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 04:55 GMT, Saturday, 28 November 2009
UN chief urges leaders to 'seal deal' on climate change
Ban Ki-moon: "The momentum for success is growing"
The United Nations chief has urged world leaders to "seal a deal" on climate change when they meet in Copenhagen next month.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he believed an agreement was in sight, with recent moves by some countries a positive step to cutting emissions.

Danish PM Lars Lokke Rasmussen said he hoped to see "money on the table" at the UN conference he will host.

Both spoke at a Commonwealth meeting also focusing on climate change.

The Copenhagen summit, from 7-18 December, will see more than 85 national leaders gather to discuss climate change.

"Our common goal is to achieve a firm foundation for a legally binding climate treaty as early as possible in 2010," Mr Ban told the Commonwealth leaders at their summit in Trinidad and Tobago where he was a guest.

{{ ANALYSIS}
James Robbins, BBC diplomatic correspondent
It's a highly unorthodox summit, which may be just what the Commonwealth needed to counter charges it is an irrelevant relic of Britain's imperial past.
This time, key leaders from outside the Commonwealth were invited to the first day - given over entirely to the dominant world issue: climate change.
The UN secretary-general, the French president, and Denmark's prime minister seized the chance of the last major political gathering before December's crucial global negotiations to urge the heads of more than 50 nations here to lead by example and ease deadlocks between the developed and developing world.
If the Commonwealth is a microcosm of the wider world, spanning giant India, rich Britain, Australia and Canada, as well as some of the smallest and most vulnerable island states like the Maldives, then where better to argue that all leaders should prepare to make bold concessions to achieve a better outcome in Copenhagen?
Judging whether or not this Summit really makes a difference may be impossible, but it has certainly raised the Commonwealth's profile, and reminded the world beyond the Commonwealth that, at the very least, huge amounts of political effort are being expended to try to maximise success in Copenhagen.}

"An agreement is within reach.

"We must seal a deal in Copenhagen," he said.

Mr Rasmussen urged developed countries to "put figures on the table" to help poor nations combat climate change.

"The need for money on the table - that is what we want to achieve in Copenhagen," he said.

Their comments came after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, also a guest at the Commonwealth meeting, proposed a multi-billion-dollar fund to help developing nations deal with climate change.

Mr Brown said the $10bn (£6bn) fund should also be used to help developing nations cut greenhouse gas emissions.

"We face a climate emergency: we cannot wait until 2013 to begin taking action," Mr Brown said.

Many Commonwealth members are island states threatened by rising sea levels.

Mr Rasmussen was optimistic about a deal being struck at Copenhagen, saying the summit was "capable of delivering the turning point we all want".

The climate treaty, now expected to be adopted as a final text only next year, will replace the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012.

Mr Brown said half of the $10bn fund should go towards helping developing nations reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and the other half towards helping them adapt to climate change.

The first cash would be made available next year, he said, before any emissions deal could take effect.

He is offering $800m from the UK over three years, money that has already been budgeted for.

{{THE COMMONWEALTH}
> Made up of former British colonies, dependencies and other territories, plus Mozambique
> Founded in 1931
> Currently 53 members, with combined population of 1.8 billion
> Headed by British monarch, but no allegiance to Crown since 1947
>Heads of government meet every two years}

"What I feel the developing countries need to know is that we are absolutely serious that we would start now," he said, quoted by Reuters news agency.

In separate remarks quoted by AFP news agency, Mr Sarkozy proposed a funding programme of $10bn a year in the years 2010-12, and an "ambitious mechanism" for payments beyond those years.

He did not indicate how much France was prepared to contribute.

The Commonwealth's 53 nations comprise nearly two billion people, a third of the planet's population.


[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 23:58 GMT, Friday, 27 November 2009
Cell discovery clues to body clock and beating jet lag
The discovery could hold the key to solving body clock mysteries
New discoveries into how the body clock works could provide clues to help combat jet lag, research suggests.
By Dave Lee
Health Check, BBC World Service

A University of Manchester team studied special cells which they say play an important role in regulating a person's body clock.

The cells had been thought to be inactive during the day - but their research found the opposite is true.

It is hoped the findings may also pave the way to combating sleep disorders triggered by body clock malfunctions.

Professor Hugh Piggins, an expert in neuroscience at the university, said the research will allow a new approach to being able to tune our daily clock.

Two cells

The Manchester research turns on its head the idea that the brain keeps the body clock on track by firing more cells during daylight and very few during the night.

{{There's a lot of interest in the pharmaceutical industry, obviously, to try to develop chemical treatments to reset your daily clock}
Professor Hugh Piggins}

"The traditional model said the clock and the brain communicated to the rest of the brain via the number of electrical impulses that the brain cells were producing," Prof Piggins told the BBC World Service's Health Check programme.

"These impulses would travel around the brain, telling it what time of day it is.

"What we've found is in fact that there are at least two types of cells in this part of the brain."

These brain cells behave unlike any other cell seen so far, and contain a key gene - per1 - which allows them to sustain unusually high levels of "excitability".

The cells becoming so "excited" that they seem quiet or even dead; but then later they calm down, recover and become normally active again.

It is this activity which tells the human body when to be awake.

Sleep dysfunction

{{HEALTH CHECK}
> Health Check is the weekly health programme broadcast from the BBC World Service
> It is broadcast on Monday at 1032GMT and repeated at 1532GMT, 2032GMT and on Tuesday at 0132GMT
> It is also available as a podcast}

Prof Piggins added: "There's a lot of interest in the pharmaceutical industry, obviously, to try to develop chemical treatments to reset your daily clock to help counteract things like jetlag.

"Or, perhaps more importantly, different kind of sleep disorders for which dysfunctions in this clock are often involved."

This study marks the first time these "quiet" cells have been studied.

"This may mean that elsewhere in the brain there are cells like this that can also survive these very unusual conditions."

news20091128bbc4

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

[Technology]
Page last updated at 13:54 GMT, Friday, 27 November 2009
Lawyers target thousands of 'illegal' file-sharers
{Software is used to track down the suspected pirates}
Around 15,000 suspected pirates may soon get legal letters accusing them of illegally sharing movies and games.
By Jonathan Fildes
Technology reporter, BBC News

ACS:Law plans to send notes to the accused in the new year offering a chance to settle out of court for "several hundreds of pounds".

A lawyer who has defended people who have received similar letters described it as a "scattergun approach" that would catch "innocent people".

ACS:Law said it was "unaware" of anyone who had been wrongly sent a letter.

Andrew Crossley of the firm told BBC News it was acting to "eradicate" sharing of its client's products.

"We give them opportunity to enter into compromise right at the start to avoid having to deal with it [in court]," said Mr Crossley.

If it went to court and the lawyers were successful, he said, damages "would run into several thousands of pounds".

But consumer group Which? said that it had heard from around 150 consumers who had been "wrongly accused" in similar cases.

"A lot are accused of downloading pornography," Jaclyn Clarabut of Which? told BBC News. "People find it distressing or embarrassing and pay up."

Others, she said, "don't want the threat of court action" hanging over them or cannot afford to pay for a lawyer and settle the claim for the lower figure.

{{We estimate that commencing in the New Year we will be despatching circa 15,000 letters in relation to these two orders}
Andrew Crossley}

She said that based on previous experience, "a lot of people will be surprised" by the latest wave of letters.

Michael Coyle, lawyer at Southampton based firm Lawdit, described the scheme as "having very little to do with protecting the rights of the copyright holder".

Instead, he said, it was "more to do with making money from alleging copyright infringements on a massive scale".

He has represented several hundred clients who have received letters from ACS: Law and other firms. None of his clients has ever been forced by a court to pay a fine, he said, although some clients had decided to settle out of court.

"This scattergun approach to the file sharing litigation will inevitably result in a large number of innocent parties being issued with a claim for copyright infringement."

ACS: Law are "currently under investigation" by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), but a spokesperson said it could not divulge any more details about the nature of the complaints. The Law Society has also received complaints.

Mr Crossley said his firm had been targeted by an "internet campaign" and was cooperating with the inquiries.

"It doesn't of itself indicate that I have done anything wrong," he said. "I have no qualms or concerns about what I am doing."

Data harvest

ACS: Law recently obtained two High Court orders that require ISPs to hand over the names and addresses of the account holders for 30,000 IP addresses, a number which can identify a computer on the internet. It is currently preparing three more.

The orders were obtained on behalf of two German clients: DigiProtect and MediaCat.

{Which? say innocent people have been caught out in similar cases}

Both firms are licensees of copyright work. They act on behalf of copyright holders, including various pornography studios, to pursue alleged copyright infringements.

They use software to monitor file sharing networks to harvest IP addresses which are then turned over to law firms to get account details.

"We state that they [the alleged file-sharers] have made available to others via peer-to-peer file-sharing networks various products that they have rights in," said Mr Crossley.

He said these included "games, films and music".

"We estimate that commencing in the New Year we will be despatching circa 15,000 letters in relation to these two orders," he said.

The letters would be used to tell the alleged "file-sharer" that they were thought to have infringed copyright.

It would also inform recipients that a claim may be made against them in court and would "invite" them "to enter into a compromise to avoid any litigation."

The amount would vary, he said, but was typically £300-500.

The money is split between the copyright holder, licensee, the firm monitoring IP addresses and ACS: Law, which operates on a no win, no fee basis.

'Spoof' address

Concerns have been raised about the technology used to identify IP addresses.

Which? has highlighted various examples of innocent people accused by firms such as DigiProtect .

"Many have never heard of peer-to-peer file sharing," said Ms Clarabut.

{{ILLEGAL FILE-SHARING}
> File-sharing is not illegal. It only becomes illegal when users are sharing content, such as music, that is protected by copyrights
> The crackdown will be aimed at people who regularly use technologies, such as BitTorrent, and websites, such as The Pirate Bay, to find and download files
> There are plenty of legitimate services which use file-sharing technology such as some on-demand TV services}

"Some are accused of downloading video games but never played a game in their life."

A study published in 2008 by Which? highlighted the case of Scottish couple Gill and Ken Murdoch, aged 54 and 66, who were accused of sharing a video game.

At the time, Mrs Murdoch told Which?: "We do not have, and have never had, any computer game or sharing software."

The letters were sent by another law firm, which no longer represents DigiProtect. Mr Crossley said the Murdochs had been identified because the ISP gave the lawyers the wrong information about the account.

Mr Crossley admitted the account holder may not be the person sharing files illegally. As a result, he said, the letter, would also invite the recipient to name the person they thought was responsible.

The growing popularity of wi-fi means many people share an internet connection. Recent studies have also shown that many people do not password protect their wi-fi connections, meaning they can be hijacked and used for nefarious means.

In addition, technology exists that can hide or "spoof" an IP address.

Mr Crossley said that "spoofing" did not apply for file sharing purposes.

Expert analysis

Mr Coyle said he also had reservations about the methods used to identify people and said they had never been challenged in court by experts.

"The last thing they want is this software being examined in a court of Law - it would shoot the goose that lays the Golden Egg," he said.

No court case has ever been fully decided from a letter sent by ACS: Law, he said.

Although Mr Crossley admitted the software had never been analysed in court, he denied it had never been scrutinised.

"Every application submitted to court is supported by an expert report," he said.

The report was compiled by "an independent expert" and confirmed that the "data being collected is accurate".

"That is the starting point for us," said Mr Crossley. "It is very important for us to be accurate. If it is not, everything that comes from that data must be flawed."

Similar concerns are currently being outlined to the UK government which recently outlined how it plans to tackle illegal file-sharers.

The Digital Economy bill recently had its first reading and includes a plan to disconnect persistent offenders.

news20091128bbc5

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

[Technology]
Page last updated at 11:30 GMT, Friday, 27 November 2009
Wikipedia denies mass exodus of editors
{The online encyclopaedia invites anyone to edit entries}
Wikipedia has disputed claims that it has lost a huge number of editors that help maintain the online encyclopaedia.

On 26 November it was reported that ten times more editors had left Wikipedia in early 2009 than during the same period in 2008.

The group overseeing the reference work said the claims on losses were not accurate, blaming a difference in what counts as an "editor".

By contrast, it said, the numbers of people editing Wikipedia were stable.

In a blog post the Wikimedia Foundation responded to the publication of a report by researcher Dr Felipe Ortega which said that 49,000 editors had departed Wikipedia in the first three months of 2009.

Dr Ortega's comparisons suggest that only about 4,900 left the site in the first few months of 2008.

Wikipedia relies on editors to keep the online reference work up to date, expand entries and make corrections.

Writing on the blog, Erik Moeller, deputy director of the Wikimedia Foundation, and Erik Zachte, one of its data analysts, said that while Dr Ortega's article comprehensively described the challenges and opportunities facing Wikipedia it mischaracterised the changes in its editing population.

The pair said that the numbers of people contributing to Wikipedia hit a high in early 2007, declined slightly and have since stabilised.

"Every month, some people stop writing, and every month, they are replaced by new people," they wrote.

The confusion arose over the differing definitions of what constitutes an editor. Dr Ortega counted everyone who made one change as an editor giving a total population of three million people.

By contrast, the Wikimedia Foundation counts only people who make five edits or more as an editor. This gives an editing population of about one million people across all languages. Of that total, the English edition of Wikipedia has about 40,000 editors.

The pair also disputed Dr Ortega's attempt to measure when Wikipedia editors start and stop.

"It's impossible to make a determination that a person has left and will never edit again, there are methodological challenges with determining the long term trend of joining and leaving," read the blog.

The Wikimedia Foundation said it was continuing to work with Dr Ortega to iron out some of the methodological difficulties and uncover long term editing trends.

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Daewoo Shipbuilding considers China wind power plant
Fri Nov 27, 2009 9:19am EST

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, the world's second-biggest shipbuilder, said on Friday that it was considering building a wind power equipment plant in China.

Leading shipyards are entering the fast-growing wind power industry, seeking new revenue sources to offset a lingering downturn in the shipmaking business.

Shipbuilders are expected to have an edge in the emerging offshore wind power sector with their expertise in marine structures.

Daewoo earlier this year bought Dewind, a wind power turbine unit of U.S. Composite Technology Corp.

A Daewoo spokesman said the company was considering building a plant to manufacture wind power equipment in China to secure a production base in the one of the world's top wind power markets.

"We are trying to move quickly before the Chinese government tightens entry rules for foreign players," he said.

The Maeil Business Newspaper said Daewoo's planned Chinese plant could begin production at the end of 2010, citing a source at the company.

Larger rival Hyundai Heavy Industries recently began production of wind power gears at its South Korean plant.

(Reporting by Rhee So-eui; Editing by Chris Lewis)


[Green Business]
New oil platforms, pipes to boost Iraq export
Fri Nov 27, 2009 9:38am EST
By Aref Mohammed

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraq aims to install four new floating oil terminals and three new undersea oil pipelines that will boost export capacity to 8 million barrels per day from a current 1.9 million bpd, a top oil official said.

Dhiya Jaafar, current chief of Iraq's South Oil Co. (SOC), which oversees the bulk of exports from the country's vast oil reserves, on Wednesday told Reuters work should be completed on the new terminals and pipelines in the second half of 2011.

"There is a plan ready and it is under execution to establish four floating platforms and three new undersea pipes ... (We aim) to finish this work in the second half of 2011," he said, adding this would boost capacity to 8 million bpd.

Iraq has a clutch of deals with global oil majors that it hopes will push it to third from eleventh place among the world's oil producers. A contract with Britain's BP and China's CNPC to develop the country's super-giant Rumaila field has already been finalized.

BP, CNPC and the SOC have agreed that current production from Rumaila is 1.05 million bpd, Jaafar said. The baseline output figure will be used to determine the foreign firms' future performance in boosting output, to which their level of remuneration is pegged.

Iraqi oil exports reached 1.868 million bpd in October, including exports from the country's northern fields. The bulk of Iraq's oil reserves, the world's third largest, are in the south, and are currently pumped through two offshore terminals.

DECREPIT INFRASTRUCTURE

Three pipelines carry oil to the Khor al-Amaya and al-Basra oil terminals, but equipment is old and decrepit after years of wars and sanctions, and the existing pipes cannot handle the pressure of a faster pumping rate.

Jaafar said Foster Wheeler and Britain's Maritime and Underwater Security Consultants, or MUSC, were giving advice, conducting surveys, or clearing the seabed, to help SOC prepare for the pipeline and terminal projects.

He added that new oil storage and pumping facilities were being built to handle the expected increase in oil production as a result of the new oilfield development deals.

A consortium led by Exxon Mobil has clinched an initial agreement to develop Iraq's West Qurna Phase One oilfield and another group headed by ENI has an agreement to develop the Zubair field.

Both deals are awaiting cabinet approval. The Rumaila, Zubair and Qurna deals would nearly triple Iraq's oil output to about 7 million bpd from around 2.5 million bpd.

A second round of tenders for lucrative contracts for 10 largely undeveloped Iraqi oilfields is scheduled for December 11-12.

(Writing by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Michael Christie)


[Green Business]
China climate goal faces test of trust
Fri Nov 27, 2009 10:41am EST
By Chris Buckley - Analysis

BEIJING (Reuters) - Three little letters could spell big trouble for global climate change negotiations even after China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, announced its first firm goals to curb emissions.

MRV, climate treaty negotiators' shorthand for "measureable, reportable and verifiable," sums up environmentalists' concern now China has taken up an emissions target. How will the world know if it is telling the truth about any emissions reductions?

China stressed on Thursday that its goal of reducing "carbon intensity" by 40 to 45 percent by 2020, compared to 2005 levels -- reducing the carbon dioxide released to generate each yuan of economic activity -- is a domestic policy, not to be picked over by foreigners as part of a new international pact. [ID:nPEK421]

Negotiators hope to agree on the basics of that pact when they meet in Copenhagen from December 7.

Trust us, was the message of Xie Zhenhua, the Chinese climate policy envoy who gave a news briefing to explain the policy.

"Although this is a domestic voluntary action, it is binding," said Xie. "As we've made this commitment, well, Chinese people stick to their word."

But garnering enough international trust to fix a new legally binding climate treaty will not be easy when there is so much wider Western unease about Chinese intentions on trade, security and the environment.

Another worry is the quality of data in a country that has ingrained habits of secrecy, with officials tempted to bend statistics that can decide chances of promotion and demotion.

"I think that, unfortunately, this is one of those cultural clashes that could be difficult," said Charles McElwee, an environmental and energy lawyer with Squire Sanders in Shanghai, who follows China's climate change policies.

"China has this deep-seated desire not to have other countries poking around into what it considers its internal affairs ... Westerners tend to think, 'If this is your commitment, then put your money where your mouth is'."

To get a climate bill passed into law, President Barack Obama must persuade many in the U.S. Senate that China is doing enough to curb emissions, and being held accountable, he added.

China has long rejected calls to open other areas to outside monitoring, such as legal rights and disease outbreaks.

DEAL BREAKER?

So while climate policy experts welcomed China's goal as a boost for the Copenhagen climate talks, they said governments face tough talks over how that goal will be checked and by whom.

"It certainly is a potential deal breaker on the mitigation element of the negotiations," Julian Wong, an expert on Chinese climate policy at the Center for American Progress, a think tank in Washington D.C., wrote in emailed comment. Mitigation refers to actions to eradicate or reduce the threat of global warming.

"The best way to do that is for the rest of the world to help China with important capacity-building initiatives in greenhouse gas reporting and monitoring," he wrote.

Beijing's reluctance to turn its domestic vow into a treaty obligation also reflects its own fears that rich nations will not live up to any vows to give poor nations more emissions-cutting technology and money to cope with global warming, said Zou Ji, an expert on the issue at Renmin University in Beijing.

But without that help, China will find it difficult to cut carbon intensity by 40 percent within a decade, he said.

"The further we go in reducing carbon intensity, the harder it will be," said Zou, until recently a member of China's negotiating team for the U.N. climate talks. "This path is not a level plane, it gets steeper and steeper."

Zou said he also worried that China's energy efficiency numbers reflected "padding" by officials, and carbon efficiency data could also be distorted by local governments and businesses.

"We don't want games with numbers on pieces of paper," he said. "We want to see real reductions."

MUTUAL MISTRUST

At talks leading up to Copenhagen, negotiators from rich and poor countries have wrangled over how -- and how closely -- to link their respective efforts to combat global warming.

At the core of the dispute are poor nations' worries that rich nations are trying to impose binding emissions goals by stealth that could hinder growth.

Industrialized powers say if they are making costly adjustments to their economies, big developing nations, such as China, should open their emissions books to outside scrutiny, under a deal made two years ago.

But China and other developing countries say that commitment to accept "measurement, reporting and verification" refers only to checking emissions steps made with technology or cash from rich nations, such as shutting belching power plants or encouraging cleaner vehicles.

The Copenhagen talks are likely to leave efforts to agree on bridging this forbidding "MRV" gap until after Copenhagen, which instead will seek a broad political agreement, several analysts said.

"This is still uncharted territory for the negotiators," said McElwee, the lawyer. "I don't think they have much precedent to draw on."

(Editing by Emma Graham-Harrison and David Fogarty)

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Iraq drilling firm to drill 180 wells in 2010
Fri Nov 27, 2009 9:44am EST

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - The state-run Iraq Drilling Company plans to drill 180 oil wells in 2010, and will be able to drill more than 250 new wells every year from 2011 onwards, the head of the company said.

Thirty of the new wells planned for 2010 will be in northern oilfields and 150 in the south, adding roughly 360,000 barrels of oil per day to Iraq's output capacity, Iraqi Drilling Company director Idrees al-Yassiri told Reuters in an interview.

(Reporting by Aref Mohammed; Writing by Deepa Babington; Editing by James Jukwey)


[Green Business]
Capital markets gear up for climate change
Fri Nov 27, 2009 10:43am EST
By Sarah Hills - Analysis

LONDON (Reuters) - As the world wrangles over how to fight climate change, with national leaders to meet in Copenhagen early next month, capital markets are gearing up to handle the consequences if the effort fails.

The insurance industry, including reinsurers, who distribute risk around the sector, has traditionally been the main way to hedge against hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters.

But climate change could increase the scale and frequency of these disasters so drastically in coming years that traditional insurance might become unable to handle the burden.

Much of the risk would have to be shifted into the capital markets, where financial instruments such as catastrophe bonds and hurricane futures may boom, and increasingly exotic instruments are being developed to spread the burden further.

"In a more volatile risk landscape, as might be produced by climate change, the need for risk transfer instruments quickly increases," said John Seo, managing principal at Fermat Capital Management.

"If we look 10 years ahead, we will see an acceleration of the need for newer, or at least more evolved, forms of insurance-linked securities (ILS) to manage reinsurer risks."

Nobody can predict with certainty the costs of climate change, but a consensus is building in financial markets that the insurance burden is likely to rise substantially. Even a successful meeting in Copenhagen might only slow global warming and an increase in violent weather patterns over coming decades.

Climate change could cut gross domestic product in countries at risk by up to a fifth by 2030, a study by the U.N.-backed Economics of Climate Adaption Working Group found this year. The hurricane-prone U.S. state of Florida could see weather-related costs knock 10 percent off its GDP each year.

A report by catastrophe modeling company AIR Worldwide, in partnership with the Association of British Insurers, said the general insurance industry might not be able to cope with the increased frequency and severity of floods and typhoons brought about by climate change.

CATASTROPHE BONDS

Ten years ago, a natural disaster that could be expected to occur once in a hundred years would have cost insurers $55 billion, Seo said. Ten years from now, it might cost $220 billion, he estimated.

One result may be rapid growth in issuance of catastrophe bonds. These are ILS which insurers use to pass on potential losses from natural disasters to investors; the bonds pay interest but if a disaster occurs and results in a specified amount of damage, the investors have to pay part of the cost.

An estimated $27 billion of cat bonds have been issued since the first such instrument was launched in 1994 -- a tiny part of the burden carried by traditional insurance. Issuance almost ground to a halt after last year's collapse of Lehman Brothers, which played a counterparty role in several cat bonds.

But issuance has rebounded dramatically in the past several months and is on track to total about $3-4 billion this year. It is expected easily to reach $5 billion in 2010, closing in on its record annual peak of $7 billion, hit in 2007.

The Lehman crisis may in fact have helped prepare the cat bond sector for growth by encouraging issuers to experiment with new collateral provisions aimed at reassuring investors.

This could eventually help cat bonds become mainstream investments, expanding the pool of active buyers beyond adventurous ones such as hedge funds to include diversified asset managers.

Another way to spread the risks of climate change is hurricane futures, which pay out to investors if the size of insurance losses exceeds a trigger level.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange and U.S.-British insurance futures exchange IFEX have been trading hurricane futures since 2007; IFEX had its busiest-ever month for the futures in April this year, with $41.1 million in notional trades.

In June this year, Eurex became the first continental European exchange to offer the futures. They have not yet traded because of a quiet U.S. hurricane season, but Eurex is launching new contracts for 2010, aiming to attract investors who want to diversify beyond traditional asset classes such as equities.

EXOTIC INSTRUMENTS

Demand for more exotic insurance-linked instruments may also rise in coming years. They include industry loss warranties, which are derivatives triggered by the size of losses caused by an event to the entire insurance industry, and "sidecars," which capture the risk of a sub-portfolio of an insurance or reinsurance company's business.

Other exotic products being developed include temperature futures, and catastrophe-linked instruments that bear a resemblance to equities.

Some governments and international organizations, looking ahead to the burden of climate change, are encouraging development of new financial instruments to cope with it.

One example is the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility, which the World Bank helped to set up in 2005. It is owned and operated in the Caribbean for Caribbean governments, selling windstorm and earthquake cover to them.

The facility said in October that it was developing an excess rainfall weather derivative that might eventually be repackaged into a cat bond to spread the risk through the international capital markets.

The World Bank estimates only 3 percent of potential losses from natural disasters in developing countries are insured, against 45 percent in developed countries, and says the capital markets are important to changing this.

"Societies are becoming more vulnerable as the risks they face become more interconnected," said Martin Bisping, head of non-life risk transformation at Swiss Re.

"The transfer of catastrophic risk should be a key element in the financial strategy of every disaster-prone country."


[Green Business]
UK's Brown backs $10 billion climate change fund
Fri Nov 27, 2009 11:00am EST
By Adrian Croft

PORT OF SPAIN (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called Friday for the creation of a $10 billion a year fund to help developing countries battle climate change.

Brown made the proposal as Commonwealth leaders met to try to build momentum for an agreement in global climate talks in Copenhagen next month.

Under Brown's proposal, funds could be made available to poor countries as early as next year, well before any new climate deal takes effect.

The European Union has already looked at similar proposals for "fast-start" financing but has so far been unable to agree on a figure.

"What I feel the developing countries need to know is that we are absolutely serious that we would start now" to provide financing, Brown told a news conference on the sidelines of the summit in Trinidad and Tobago.

"What I'm proposing today is a Copenhagen launch fund. It would start in 2010. It would be $10 billion per annum by 2012," he said.

The 53-nation Commonwealth brings together wealthy and developing countries.

Brown believes the fund would give the developing world greater confidence that rich countries would give them financial support and so encourage them to act to counter climate change.

The fund would run from 2010 to 2012, increasing to $10 billion in the final year, under Brown's plan. Brown aides could not say how big the fund would be in the first two years.

Britain is prepared to contribute 800 million pounds ($1.31 billion) -- already set aside in Britain's budget -- over three years to the fund, officials said.

Brown said he believed the EU and the United States would also be ready to contribute to the fund.

EU leaders said last month that developing countries will need 100 billion euros ($149 billion) a year by 2020 to battle climate change.

Brown said half of the money in his proposed launch fund should go toward helping the poorest countries adapt to climate change, by for example financing stronger sea and flood defenses.

The other half would help countries deal with deforestation and building new, cleaner energy sources.

Developing countries would have to provide part of the finance for projects to lessen the impact of climate change and payment from the fund would depend on results.

"The more carbon you reduce, the more tons of greenhouse gas saved, the more money any developing country would get from that fund," Brown said.

(Editing by Mohammad Zargham)