news20100118jt

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

[BUSINESS NEWS]
Monday, Jan. 18, 2010
JAL set to join SkyTeam alliance
Kyodo News

Japan Airlines Corp. will tie up with Delta Air Lines Inc. and leave the oneworld alliance for SkyTeam in April 2011, sources close to the matter said Sunday.

A formal decision on the deal will be made by the end of the month, they said.

Although President Haruka Nishimatsu will step down after JAL files for bankruptcy protection Tuesday, other board members will remain to formalize the deal with Delta, the sources said.

The Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp. of Japan, the state-backed entity sponsoring the rehabilitation, believes teaming up with America's largest carrier will produce a ¥17.2 billion windfall each year for money-losing JAL.

That's three times more than the ¥5.4 billion in benefits projected from the tieup proposed with American Airlines Inc., JAL's current partner in oneworld, they said.

JAL and Delta are expected to file for antitrust immunity with the U.S. Department of Transportation by Feb. 15 so they can jointly operate trans-Pacific services, the sources said.

Delta has offered to shoulder up to ¥30 billion of the expenses JAL would incur for exiting oneworld and switching to the SkyTeam alliance.

JAL will likely switch partners for European services to the Air France-KLM Group, another member of SkyTeam.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Monday, Jan. 18, 2010
Kobe marks anniversary of deadly 1995 quake

KOBE (Kyodo) Kobe and nearby cities devastated in the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake commemorated on Sunday the 15th anniversary of the disaster that claimed 6,434 lives.

People gathered before dawn in a park in the center of Kobe to light thousands of bamboo lanterns in the shape of "1995" and "1.17" and offered silent prayers at 5:46 a.m., the time the magnitude 7.3 quake struck.

Kiyomi Mabuchi, 53, whose husband and in-laws were killed when their house collapsed, came from Tokushima Prefecture to mourn at Higashi-Yuenchi Park, while her 30-year-old son, whose birthday is on the quake anniversary, stayed at home.

"People say it's been 15 years, but whether it's 15 or 20 years, our feelings do not change," she said.

Wearing a necklace that her husband was wearing at the time of his death, Mabuchi said, "My heart may never recover."

Some knelt before lanterns and prayed while others stood and cried in the crowded park.

The powerful temblor that hit Haiti last week was also a focus of attention at the memorial events, with members of the Imperial family, government officials and relatives of people who died in the 1995 quake expressing their concern for the devastated Caribbean country.

"Marking the 15th anniversary of the Great Hanshin Earthquake, I would like to express my deep condolences for the around 6,400 people that were killed," Crown Prince Naruhito said at a ceremony hosted by Hyogo Prefecture in a prefectural guesthouse. Turning to the Haiti quake, he said, "I would like to express my sympathy for the victims and their families and hope they will recover from the disaster soon."

The Crown Prince was accompanied by Crown Princess Masako, who was making her first official trip outside the capital involving an overnight stay since January 2008.

"Politics play a big role in protecting human lives," Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said at the ceremony.

He promised to "implement further comprehensive disaster management measures and put full efforts into enabling the Japanese people to lead their lives feeling secure."

Kobe Mayor Tatsuo Yada offered condolences at a municipal ceremony held in Higashi-Yuenchi Park for the families of those killed in the disaster and mentioned the continuous threat that the nation faces from earthquakes.

"Overseas, just a few days ago, a powerful earthquake struck Haiti and serious disasters have occurred in other regions as well, forcing us to realize that we always face the danger of disasters," Yada said.

At one of the memorial ceremonies hosted by the Kobe government, gospel singer Yuri Mori, who lost her younger brother in the quake, sang a song wishing for the recovery of the city.

Mori said earlier she would sing the song "Shiawase Hakoberu yo ni" ("To Carry Happiness") so she could bring happiness not just to her deceased brother, Wataru, a 22-year-old university student, but to all of the victims and survivors.

The anniversary also highlighted a number of unresolved issues, including seriously injured survivors who later became handicapped.

A group of disabled people, including a man who developed crush syndrome and a girl who suffered brain damage, said they were unable to express their suffering for a long time because they were considered lucky to survive and were overlooked as existing support systems were deemed sufficient to meet their needs.

Haiti loss lamented
KOBE — People who lost their parents in the Great Hanshin Earthquake ran a fundraising drive in Kobe on Sunday to help those affected by Tuesday's powerful earthquake in Haiti.

Yuri Fukui, a 19-year-old college student who lost her mother in the 1995 quake, offered a few words of advice for bereaved children in Haiti.

"At the moment, they won't understand what has happened and will not be able to admit that their parents are dead," she said. "But I wish I could tell them that there are people in Japan who've been in a similar situation."


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Monday, Jan. 18, 2010
Okada warns China on gas-drilling pact
Kyodo News

Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada told his Chinese counterpart Sunday that Japan will "take action" if Beijing violates a 2008 agreement over disputed gas exploration projects.

In talks with Yang Jiechi, Okada also urged Beijing to start discussing the details of jointly developing the projects in the East China Sea, according to a Japanese diplomat who declined to be named.

"If China violates the agreement, Japan will have to take certain action," Okada said in talks on the sidelines of the Forum for East Asia-Latin America Cooperation in Tokyo.

Yang expressed strong opposition after Okada suggested that Japan may start development on its own in the area, according to a ministry source.

Japan and China, Asia's two top energy consumers, said in 2008 they would share the potentially lucrative gas resources in the East China Sea, an agreement that took years of negotiations to reach.

But China has reportedly built a drilling platform in the area and appears ready to start extracting gas.

In response, Yang was quoted as telling Okada: "China will firmly stand by the 2008 agreement. We wish to continue unofficial, working-level exchanges to further enhance mutual understanding."

China started drilling in the Chunxiao gas field, known as Shirakaba in Japan, in 2003, inflaming tensions with Japan, which voiced worries that Beijing would be siphoning off gas from a large deposit that straddles what Japan considers to be its own territory.

The 2008 agreement stipulated that talks would continue over other gas fields, but China has since insisted it has the right to develop them.

Turning to North Korea, Okada asked China to work toward bringing Pyongyang back to the six-party denuclearization talks "unconditionally." Yang was quoted as telling him China will try to get the multilateral negotiations resumed soon.

On Jan. 11, North Korea proposed talks with countries involved in the 1950-1953 Korean War to replace the armistice that ended the conflict with a peace treaty, while saying that the peace talks could be held within the six-party framework if sanctions against Pyongyang were lifted.

The six-party negotiations involve the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

Tongue-tied nurses
Kyodo News
Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada told his Indonesian and Filipino counterparts in Tokyo Sunday that he would like to address the hardships their nurses are facing in passing the national language exams, the Foreign Ministry said.

Japan, a rapidly aging society, began accepting foreign nurses and caregivers from 2008 under bilateral economic partnership agreements aimed at easing labor shortages in medical and nursing services.

The caregivers are required to return to their countries if they fail to pass the exam within four years of their arrival. Nurses must do the same in three years.

But because the exams use Chinese characters, the foreign nurses are believed to be struggling.

Some are demanding that "furigana" superscripts be provided for the kanji so they can recognize the words the characters represent.

news20100118lat

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

[Haihi Earthqauke]
By Tracy Wilkinson and Joe Mozingo and Ken Ellingwood
January 18, 2010
Quake victims seek comfort in prayers
With churches in ruins, many hold prayers in the streets, as priests offer solace and courage. Aid efforts pick up, reaching deeper into the city, as U.S. troops coordinate, with an eye on security.

Reporting from Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, and Mexico City -- Haitians bereft of homes and loved ones held Sunday prayers in the streets of their earthquake-ravaged capital while rescue workers continued digging in the ruins for something like a miracle.

In front of the broken churches, which in some cases still harbored bodies, worshipers looked to powers beyond their grasp for help. "Don't pray for the dead," boomed Joel St. Amour, preaching outside the Evangelical Baptist Church. "Pray for the living."

Before him, 30 worshipers gathered on folding metal chairs under bougainvillea and mimosa trees and sang "How Great Thou Art." The air carried the sickly scent of death.

On a day of prayer, earthly concerns such as food, water and security remained at the forefront.

Hungry residents jostled for rations that were fitfully making their way into the devastated capital, Port-au-Prince. There were scattered reports of looting in the city, but U.S. military officials said the streets were largely calm and that American troops who had been delivering goods were warmly received.

Security "is a concern and we are going to have to address it and we are going to have to provide a safe and secure environment in order to be successful with our humanitarian assistance mission," U.S. Army Lt. Gen. P.K. Keen said during an interview Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union with John King."

There were more signs Sunday that aid, which began to get to victims in any meaningful way only a day earlier, was reaching residents deeper into the city, despite a logjam of cargo at the Port-au-Prince airport. The U.N. peacekeeping mission, the World Food Program, Oxfam and International Committee of the Red Cross were all more visible than they had been in recent days.

At a tent city at the prime minister's mansion between Port-au-Prince and suburban Petionville, the Red Cross delivered water, a Chinese team of medics offered first aid, and the United Nations handed out hygiene kits.

Downtown, excavators began clearing out the mountains of wreckage. The U.S. Army secured the General Hospital during the afternoon, as doctors came in with aid groups and on their own.

"We're so short of alcohol we had to use vodka to clean our instruments," said George Boutin, an orthopedic surgeon from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "It's all crush injuries. Amputations. That's all I'm doing."

Still, the scene was very different from two days ago, when at least 2,000 bodies lay in the parking lot of the hospital, which also holds the morgue, and the dying lay unattended outside.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon traveled to Port-au-Prince to assess damage and discuss the organization's response to the quake, which by some early estimates has left more than 100,000 people dead and affected 3 million residents. At least 36 U.N. workers, including mission chief Hedi Annabi, were among the dead.

U.N. officials said Sunday that the organization has provided food for 60,000 people so far in Port-au-Prince.

Former President Clinton, the U.N. special envoy for Haiti, was expected to arrive in Port-au-Prince today for an inspection tour.

The earthquake, which hit the most densely populated corner of a deeply impoverished and troubled nation, has challenged the world's capacity to provide help quickly and effectively.

Despite the flow of aid and U.S. troops, hundreds of thousands of residents were still waiting for food, water and medical attention. The influx of relief supplies and rescue workers has stretched the Port-au-Prince airport, with one runway, and rubble-blocked roads have slowed delivery of supplies to neighborhoods in the greatest need.

Lt. Gen. Keen on CNN said that 1,000 U.S. troops were on the ground in Haiti and 3,600 more were working from naval vessels, including the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, equipped with 19 helicopters that were being used to shuttle goods and equipment. The number of U.S. forces in or near Haiti is expected to increase to more than 12,000 by today.

Paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division had delivered more than 80,000 bottles of water and 130,000 food rations, he said.

"We had a very good day yesterday," he said Sunday. About 600,000 rations are to arrive in coming days.

USAID Director Rajiv Shah said on the same program that officials had brought three water-purification units capable of producing nearly 26,500 gallons a day, with at least seven others on the way. He said bulldozers had cleared some roads and that more military heavy equipment would arrive in coming days.

"We have been doing everything we can to get as many assets on the ground as possible and get them deployed quickly," Shah said.

U.S. officials said they had made strides toward creating order at the Port-au-Prince airport since taking over air traffic control and the handling of goods that are arriving around the clock. But they said the facility's limited capacity and torrent of aid flights have complicated the job.

"It's a matter of balance between getting relief supplies on the ground, getting the people on the ground that are necessary to get those relief supplies distributed, and getting the logistical capability on the ground to continue that, and the vehicles so we can get it out by ground as well as by air," Keen said.

Even as the aid mission ramped up, U.S. officials said rescue efforts were still underway, despite a shrinking likelihood of finding anyone alive in the rubble.

As the sun went down, U.S. and French rescue crews worked feverishly to pull out people still trapped downtown. Guided by floodlights, the rescue teams worked together to try to free a woman from a collapsed building on the Grand Rue, a once-fashionable street of 19th century French-style buildings.

The French team found her pinned between two slabs of concrete. The Americans came to help.

After 4 1/2 hours, she remained trapped and rescuers were fast approaching a hard choice. "Our doctors are going in the hole with her," said Richard Yuras, a specialist with Virginia Task Force One from Fairfax County. "The last resort is amputation. If it's life versus limb, we go with life."

A team from the United States pulled a woman from a fallen university building where she had been trapped for 97 hours, the Associated Press reported. Another woman was pulled from the rubble of the Montana Hotel, the news service reported, while a separate team was able to provide water to three people heard shouting from beneath the ruins of a supermarket.

Amid the struggles to find and provide for survivors, anger and frustration were evident in the city. Scuffles broke out in long lines at gas stations. Many other people hauled luggage through the street as they made their way toward the countryside, out of the city's hellish landscape. Countless Haitians remained outdoors, homeless or afraid to go inside. Looters hit a strip of stores, grabbing shampoo and anything else. Police shot one to death, witnesses said.

Yet in some pockets, tiny signs of recovery peeked like sprouts. Garbage trucks hauled away rubble. Women selling fruit and vegetables were back on the street. Cellphones began to flicker back to life.

At the St. Louis Roman Catholic Church, Father Rams Lapommeray held services at dawn for 200 or so people who assembled in the driveway and on the lawn of the church compound, where a body wrapped in sheets lay outside the gate.

Lapommeray read from Isaiah in an effort to give hope to his flock. He told them not to be afraid because God does not abandon his followers.

"People need hope to continue to walk in this hard life," Lapommeray said later. "Before this, many lived in misery and sadness. This situation is pushing them down. . . . They have to have hope."

Residents who had fled the neighborhood's flattened homes milled on the lawn or sat, looking dejected, on wooden pews that had been salvaged from the church. In the back of the compound, next to a shrine of the Virgin Mary, a lone doctor tried to treat dozens of wounded people. His patient at the moment was a 2 1/2 -year-old boy with a ghastly foot injury. The child shrieked and wailed. The doctor had no painkillers.

"Just because this happens doesn't mean God doesn't love you," said Mary Marthe Joseph, combing the hair of a 4-year-old girl she didn't know. "He will help us go on. I have no idea if the foreigners will help. I haven't seen anything here yet."

news20100118gdn1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[News > UK news > Police]
Chief constable accused of undermining power station protest
Documents reveal head of Kent police urged owner of Kingsnorth to do more to disrupt environmental activists
Rob Evans and Paul Lewis
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 17 January 2010 16.42 GMT Article history

A chief constable was tonight accused of undermining the public's right to protest after documents revealed he urged the owner of a power station to do more to disrupt environmental demonstrators.

Mike Fuller, the chief constable of Kent police, told E.ON it was "grossly inappropriate" for taxpayers to be paying extra for policing of protests at Kingsnorth, and the energy firm should "intervene" beforehand to prevent them taking place.

He has been accused of straying from his duty under human rights ­legislation that requires the police to neutrally facilitate peaceful protest. Senior officers have repeatedly denied claims that they encourage corporations to scupper environmental activists through the use of high court injunctions. But in a private letter to the head of UK security at E.ON, Fuller urged the German-owned firm to seek "legal remedies" against activists, and suggested using injunctions.

Documents obtained by the Guardian show that he was particularly critical of E.ON for not taking quicker action against Greenpeace activists who had scaled a 200-metre chimney at Kingsnorth in protest against a proposed coal-fired station, which has since been suspended. A jury cleared the six protesters of causing £30,000 of criminal damage in 2008, after they argued the action was legally justified because they were trying to prevent climate change causing greater damage.

Fuller said the protest had required "a significant number of police resources", adding: "There is more that E.ON needs to do to protect their own interests."

The chief constable said his "counter-terrorism security advisors" could assist E.ON in improving security around the site. He wrote that he was "surprised" that E.ON had not already used injunctions to "restrain" protesters and said it should in future take legal action "in advance of protests, where possible, and if not as soon as possible after" they start. He added: "Any potential shortcoming on E.ON's part may be converted into an additional financial burden on the police, paid for by the council tax payers of Kent. This seems grossly inappropriate in the circumstances."

Ben Stewart, one of the six activists acquitted, said: "The kind of injunction the police suggested could have resulted in thousands of Greenpeace members being banned from taking part in peaceful protests anywhere near Kingsnorth."

Fuller said he had "never strayed from his duty to remain impartial when policing protests". He said he wrote the letter after the incursion by protesters onto E.ON's property when thousands of pounds of damage had been caused.

"My concern was that E.ON should improve their own site security, which if neglected could cause unnecessary costs for the policing of protests, not that individuals who wished to protest should be prevented from doing so." But Kent police has been criticised in official reviews of its handling of the Climate Camp protest at Kingsnorth in 2008, particularly over the use of stop and search. Last week, Fuller told the high court that his force had illegally stop and searched 11-year-old twins and others.

Correspondence previously obtained by the Guardian showed the force also put pressure on the local council to assist with automatic number plate recognition cameras to track protesters. When the council voiced objections, officials were told that senior officers were "less than impressed, given the importance of this operation as the new power station build is likely to create a considerable number of jobs".

More recently, Fuller is understood to have filed last minute objections to drafts of a national review into policing of protest, produced by the chief inspector of constabulary, Denis O'Connor. His report led to a current review of public order tactics, and the home secretary, Alan Johnson, has told police that they must help to maintain Britain's "open democratic society".


[News> Politics > Boris Johnson]
Boris Johnson acts to boost London's recycle rates
London mayor, Boris Johnson, backs US scheme Recycle Bank which gives people shopping vouchers to value of recycling
Hélène Mullholland
guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 January 2010 00.05 GMT Article history

The mayor of London Boris Johnson will today outline plans for a scheme that rewards recycling households as he aims to cut the amount of rubbish going to landfill sites.

Johnson is backing a London-based trial of an American scheme called Recycle Bank, which gives householders shopping vouchers or donations to charity to the value of how much they recycle.

Johnson estimates a typical London household would make £14 a month under the scheme, one of a series of proposals contained in a draft municipal waste strategy.

Figures show the capital's recycling rates lagging behind both the rest of the UK and other international cities.

Johnson, who chairs the London Waste and Recycling Board, wants to save £90m per year through more recycling, better co-ordination and greater investment in less polluting technologies.

Just 25% of the four million tonnes of household waste generated each year by Londoners is recycled, with half going to landfill sites. The remainder goes to incinerators. Johnson is writing to all London borough leaders to ask them to redouble their efforts in recycling and, reminding them of pressure on future council tax bills if they fail to act.


[Business > Royal Dutch Shell]
Shell faces shareholder revolt over Canadian tar sands project
> Investors call for review of oil production in Alberta
> Tar sands deliver less than 2.5% of total oil and gas production
Terry Macalister
The Guardian, Monday 18 January 2010 Article history

Shell chief executive Peter Voser will be forced to defend the company's controversial investment in Canada's tar sands at his first annual general meeting, after calls from shareholders that the project be put under further scrutiny.

A coalition of institutional investors has forced a resolution onto the agenda calling for the Anglo-Dutch group's audit committee to undertake a special review of the risks attached to the carbon-heavy oil production at Athabasca in Alberta.

Co-operative Asset Management and 141 other institutional and individual shareholders raise "concerns for the long-term success of the company arising from the risks associated with oil sands."

Shell, which will hold its AGM in May, has been one of the lead companies in moves to develop oil reserves that are either mined or sucked out of the ground using expensive and energy-intensive techniques. BP and Total of France are also engaged in the sector.

Shell has insisted that "unconventional" hydrocarbon sources such as tar sands are all justified to ensure that the world does not run out of oil too soon.

But environmentalists have ­condemned their exploitation as "the biggest environmental crime in history" and said it must be stopped before it tips the planet over into runaway climate change.

Al Gore, former US vice-president and Naomi Klein, the author and campaigner, urged the Canadian government to abandon its support for tar sands at the climate change talks in Copenhagen.

Shell disputes the scale of the pollution but also says it will use carbon, capture and storage techniques to mitigate any negative impact. This argument has not stopped environmentalists – or shareholders – from opposing the plans.

"Given Shell's level of commitment to oil sands there is a greater obligation to shareholders to reassure how it would cope under a number of scenarios," said Niall O'Shea, head of responsible investing at Co-operative Asset Management.

"What if carbon capture and storage proves too costly in the oil sands? What if sustained high oil prices and carbon regulation lead to switching away from marginal, high-cost, high-carbon sources? And then there's the cost of cleaning up the locality. Companies must be more rigorous and transparent with their investors," he added.

John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK said he was pleased that the Co-op and other investors were putting the oil company on the spot.

"The exploitation of the tar sands is an environmental scandal on a massive scale, and is set to become a campaign battleground for years to come," he said.

But Shell played down the significance of the shareholder rebellion over tar sands and pointed out this unconventional source represented less than 2.5% of total oil and gas production.

"The resolution is basically a request for further information around the economics and other aspects of our oil sands operations. The resolution is submitted by shareholders representing some 0.15% of our total outstanding shares," it said in a formal response.

But Catherine Howarth, chief executive of FairPensions, which has ­coordinated shareholder opposition to the tar sands investments, described the move as ­historic. "All (shareholders) are united in ­registering concern with the risks involved in Canadian oil sands. We expect that Shell's 2010 AGM could prove a ­watershed in the history of corporate accountability," she said.

news20100118gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[News > World news > India]
Indian judge to rule on UK activist arrested for carrying satellite phone
Andy Pag was driving bus powered by chip fat to raise awareness of biofuel when detained by Indian police
Vikram Dodd
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 17 January 2010 19.03 GMT Article history

A British environmental campaigner who was arrested in India during a crackdown on terrorism for carrying a satellite phone without permission will tomorrow hear if he will be released after a week in custody.

Andy Pag, 35, was driving in an old school bus fuelled by chip fat when he was arrested by Indian police following a tipoff from the army.

Pag set off from London three-and-a-half months ago on a trip powered only by biofuel. He was arrested last week in Pushkar after entering India from its border with Pakistan.

Tomorrow an Indian judge will rule whether Pag will be granted bail. He is currently being held in prison in Ajmer, Rajasthan, having been charged under a section of the information technology act that requires permission to carry a satellite phone.

Speaking from his prison cell, Pag told the Times of India: "I was picked up from my van on Sunday night by security men in plain clothes. They took me to the police station for interrogation because I had a satellite phone."

He was questioned last Sunday evening and Monday about the phone and the countries he had been travelling through, which included Iran and Pakistan.

Pag said he did not know he needed permission to have a satellite phone: "I was never asked anywhere while filling the visa forms about my satellite phone. Also, the officials at the Wagah border checked me and my van thoroughly and were aware of the phone but didn't question me or ask for details.

"I am on my way to China and I know that I am not allowed to keep the satellite phone there and have made arrangements to send it back home. Here, I was clueless about the rules."

Ever since the Mumbai attacks in 2008 there has been heightened sensitivity about terrorism in India, with more stringent security measures introduced.

But concern about the role of foreigners increased after an American passport holder, David Hedley, was charged in the US with carrying out reconnaisance missions ahead of the Mumbai attack.

Indian police chief Hari Prasad said: "We got an input from the military intelligence and we acted on it. Also, he has been through Pakistan using the same phone and in two days' time, Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina will be in Ajmer, and we can't ignore any tipoff from intelligence."


[Money > Buying property abroad]
Ski property faces meltdown as global warming chills the market
Rental income will melt away if scientists are right about low-lying resorts in the Alps
Graham Norwood
The Observer, Sunday 17 January 2010 Article history

There may be a global freeze on at the moment but Britons who own and let flats and chalets at ski resorts could face a threat to their investments – thanks to a long-term shortage of snow.

Recent weeks have seen huge snowfalls in the UK, on mainland Europe and across North America, but research by Unesco's environment programme suggests long-term global warming will push the snowline up worldwide in years to come.

European ski resorts range from very low-lying ones, such as Lillehammer in Norway which is just 180 metres above sea level, to a few approaching 4,000 metres at Chamonix in the French Alps. In North America resorts are generally higher, ranging from 1,500 to 4,000 metres, especially in the most mountainous areas like Colorado.

If scientists are correct, Austria might see the most spectacular change; its snowline will rise a startling 300 metres by 2050. Sooner than that, the French Snow Research Centre says a 1.8C rise in temperature will shorten France's snow cover above 1,500 metres from 170 days to 135. Switzerland's Association of Winter Sports Resorts says its annual season has been cut by 12 days, just since 1995.

There are no authoritative figures on the international ownership of ski homes but between 2004 and 2007, around 70% of all flats and chalets sold in one large resort in the French Alps were bought by Britons, and dozens of British estate agents market ski properties in Europe and North America. Now they – and the developers behind the resorts – are trying to avoid this lucrative market being consigned to history.

"Many ski towns have been trying to ensure that they're 'year round' to attract visitors in the summer as well as the winter," says Andrew Hawkins of Chesterton Humberts estate agency.

For example, Morillon, near the Swiss-French border, is only 700 metres above sea level and has introduced climbing, walking and biking trails, as well as fishing and boating lake. It even has a snow-making machine. Other resorts have built golf courses at the foot of mountains to attract tourists in summer.

"We're witnessing an increase of demand for property in European year-round resorts such as Morzine, Les Gets, Chamonix, Serre Chevalier and Deux Alpes," says a spokeswoman for the British specialist ski estate agency, Erna Low Property.

Britons are also looking at less obvious locations for chalets and apartments in a bid to guarantee snow for their own use and to maximise their lettings seasons.

"North American resorts tend to be purpose-built at high altitudes, as opposed to European resorts that often expand from – but are restricted by – their rural village roots," says Sean Collins of Pure International, a UK-based estate agency selling ski properties on both continents. He says Canada has a ski season stretching from November to May, contrasting with December to April in the Alps.

Italy, until recently the poor relation of European ski destinations, is enjoying a resurgence with British buyers because its newer resorts are at a high altitude. Cervinia, about 80 minutes from Turin, has skiing up to 3,000 metres.

"A couple of years ago, following poor snow conditions in many resorts, buyers would only consider high altitude resorts or were hesitant to invest at all," says Gemma Bruce of GK Italian Property, a British agency selling homes in Italy. "Given the excellent snow in the Alps in the last two seasons, pressure on agents and developers for very high altitude properties has lessened. But buyers are more discerning than ever, only considering resorts at high altitudes with large ski areas – more than 150km of runs – and summer activities," she says.

Unlikely as it seems, the Moroccan ski resort of Oukaimeden – about a two-hour drive from Marrakech with skiing in winter months between 2,600 and 3,200 metres – is expanding rapidly to accommodate increased business, and boasts of its "snow-assured" status in comparison to more established but low-altitude resorts in Europe.

In addition to the threat of climate change, property sales to Britons in many ski resorts have tumbled because of the recession and weak pound.

In parts of the French and Swiss Alps, "prices of virtually new, top-end properties have plummeted, although this crash is not expected to last," says Joanna Yellowlees-Bound, who runs Erna Low Property. She is selling flats in the Arc 1950 resort in France for as much as 30% below their 2007 levels, and says she has never seen such reductions in 30 years of selling ski properties.

Rents are also low for some ski homes because of reduced demand from Britons thanks to the strong euro and dollar, and worries over snowfall at low-lying resorts. Ski holiday websites such as sara-residences.com are offering up to 35% off rental costs, plus free ski passes, at resorts in the Alps this month.

Many sites advertise rental prices at Bulgaria's Bansko, Borovets and Pamporovo resorts – where thousands of new apartments have flooded the market in recent years - from just €21 per night. But another website, ski-direct.co.uk, warns that "Bulgarian resorts are at a relatively low altitude; their snow record, early and late season, can be patchy."

One country where ski chalet owners and resort operators have seen fortunes rise over the past few weeks is Scotland. The best conditions for more than a decade have sparked a boom at Aviemore, Scotland's biggest resort, where more than 20,000 skiers have taken to the slopes, four times as many as at this time last year. Tourist officials report that ski accommodation bookings are up 500%.

Whatever this winter brings (ski clubs expect perfect conditions because of the widespread snow), the long-term prospects for chalet owners are worrying. Unless, that is, they head for the hills.

news20100118nn1

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 17 January 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.16
News
Why oil from the Exxon Valdez lingers
Rocky beaches may have locked oil away in airtight pores.
Naomi Lubick

{{Oil from the Exxon Valdez — not gone or forgotten.}
EXXON VALDEZ Oil Spill Trustee Council}

Oil dumped in the Gulf of Alaska by the Exxon Valdez remains beneath the beaches of the area more than 20 years on because a porous layer of rock helps to lock the oil away from the air, researchers think.

Experts have puzzled over how such pockets of oil remained buried over the years. Shortly after the Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William Sound in March 1989, researchers calculated that the oil would dissipate within years or even months. Some suggested that natural processes such as microbial degradation would take care of most of the spill; others that the oil would get washed away from shorelines by waves or by high-pressure hoses. But pockets of oil have remained, buried half a metre below the surface of some beaches, including Eleanor Island, which received a substantial slug of the contaminant.

Eleanor Island has a 40-metre stretch of gravelly beach that is dotted with small boulders and rocks, left behind by waves that winnowed away finer sediments. Gaps between these pebbles and rocks are large enough to allow water and oil to seep through. Below them, slightly finer sediments and rocks got compacted together over time. These geological processes eventually resulted in two layers, with the top layer hundreds of times more permeable than the one below, according to research by Michel Boufadel and his postdoctoral fellow Hailong Li at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Going with the flow

Boufadel and Li measured how water flowed through the rocky sediments using several wells sunk in two sections perpendicular to the shore and tracked the salinity of the water table as it changed with incoming tides and as freshwater flowed down to the sea through the beach. They also looked at 'stagnant' areas of the water table that were untouched by tides.

{{Oil filtered through rocks until it became trapped underground.}
Center for Natural Resources Development and Protection}

The researchers determined that in sections where freshwater flowed, the oil-containing groundwater was more likely to be carried out to sea through the pore-filled sediment layer. But where the water table was stagnant, oil would percolate into the less-permeable rock layer below. That layer also contains less oxygen, according to their measurements. Once trapped in the low-permeability layer by capillary action, the lack of oxygen may prevent the oil from breaking down chemically, or stop microbes from munching on the hydrocarbons that remained.

The beach's underground plumbing "is very important", says Boufadel. "It is the major mechanism for predicting how the oil would move over time." He suggests surveying other beaches with coarse glacial sediments in places such as Norway, to see whether they behave the same way to help to plan for potential oil spills.

Boufadel and Li, who is now at China University of Geosciences in Wuhan, suggest that such Arctic glacial areas, where shipping and oil drilling is likely to become more common as the climate changes, could end up as deep-sediment traps for oil spills. The study is one of several projects funded by the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, and could support the council's efforts to acquire more money from Exxon for remediation. The work is published online today by Nature Geosciences¹.

Rare bird?

Jeff Short, Pacific Science Director for the non-profit environment group Oceana in Juneau, Alsaka, says that the research clearly illustrates how pockets of oil could be preserved for decades in buried sediment. Researchers had assumed that beaches with such highly permeable surface rocks would be washed clean, but in 2001, Short and his colleagues reported that pockets of oil were more common than previously thought². Their findings raised concerns over oil's lingering effects on animals such as sea otters, which dig deep to find clams and other food³.

But other researchers say that the aged oil is not a threat to animals. They are unlikely to be exposed to it because it is buried so deep, says Paul Boehm, principal scientist for consulting firm Exponent, which was hired by Exxon to examine many of the beaches in the affected area. Boehm also says that the Eleanor Island beach is "a rare bird", and that very few beaches have the same geological conditions, even in Prince William Sound.

"The beaches are so heterogeneous [and] the features where oil is sequestered are very patchy," Boehm says. He adds that if the question is remediation, it might be better to leave the oil where it is, rather than exhuming it and exposing the ecosystem to even more residue.

References
1. Hailong, L. & Boufadel, M. C. Nature Geosci. advance online publication doi:10.1038/ngeo749 (2010).
2. Short, J. W. et al. Environ. Sci. Technol. 38, 19-25 (2004). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
3. Peterson, C. H. et al. Science 302, 2082-2086 (2003). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |

news20100118nn2

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 17 January 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.15
News
Robotic roach creates order from chaos
Chaos theory eases the path of autonomous robots.
Zeeya Merali

{{A touch of chaos could help robots get around.}
P. Manoonpong et al}

.Chaotic cockroaches may sound like the stuff of nightmares, but they could be key to making robots more adaptable. The application of chaos theory to the mobility of robotic insects may also help biologists to understand animal motion and could have medical applications.

Autonomous robots designed to venture into hostile environments where humans cannot safely or easily tread must be able to adapt their motion to their surroundings — the rocky terrain of another planet, or a war zone, for instance. But at the moment adding new behavioural patterns, such as a new walking gait, to a robot's repertoire is cumbersome, says Marc Timme, a physicist at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Göttingen, Germany. "Each new gait requires the addition of new hardware for a new controller to govern that behaviour," explains Timme. Any decision-making process then requires all controllers to co-ordinate their information, making the robot less efficient and versatile.

By contrast, in nature even primitive creatures such as cockroaches can control complicated motion quickly and with ease, despite having relatively few neurons, says Timme. Inspired by the cockroach's abilities, Timme and his colleagues have built a six-legged robot, named AMOS (Advanced MObility Sensor driven), with 18 motors controlling leg movement and 18 sensors providing information about heat, light and contact with the ground. The team's aim was to fit AMOS with a single controlling processor that would allow it to adjust its walking pattern quickly and automatically in response to changes in its environment (see Nature's video).

Chaos control

To do so, the team turned to chaos theory, which describes how small changes in the input to a system can create a huge range of markedly different outputs — some of which are stable, others of which are not. The team's new processor, which is built from a circuit of just two 'neurons', uses a chaotic algorithm to generate and sort through possible output patterns on the basis of AMOS's sensor-input data. The processor quickly rejects unstable options before settling on a stable walking pattern. "Chaos is not usually thought to be a good thing, but we have turned it upside down, using it constructively to stabilize motion," says Timme.

Thanks to this chaos-control technique, AMOS can negotiate rough terrain, run away from predators (see video) and choose an energy-saving gait when walking uphill (video here) . AMOS also uses chaos directly when it loses its footing (see video). "When one of its feet loses contact with the ground, chaotic behaviour takes over and it goes crazy", trying out random combinations of gaits until it scrambles out, explains Timme. The team has published its results online today in Nature Physics¹.

The idea can also be easily implemented in other existing systems. "One can immediately use the same set-up for the single central pattern generator and its control in other robots," says Timme.

In the mind

"The team has successfully handled multiple inputs from many sensors to generate extremely complex stable behaviour," says Eckehard Schöll, an expert on chaos control at the Technical University of Berlin.

The application of the technique to control autonomous robots by a simple neural circuit demonstrates that it could have many cross-disciplinary uses, including stabilizing harmful neuronal activity in people with epilepsy, Parkinson's disease or migraines, says Schöll. He and his colleagues are currently investigating excitation waves that are triggered in the brain prior to the onset of migraine². "It's our hypothesis that in healthy individuals there are feedback loops in the brain that suppress such waves," says Schöll. If so, it may be possible to use chaos control to suppress the waves by varying the intensity of light that patients are exposed to in a particular way.

Ansgar Büschges, a zoologist at the University of Cologne in Germany, is studying whether chaotic control could also be at play in real animals when they walk.³ "One of the most prominent questions in neuroscience is how animals can do many things at once — for humans, walking, talking and carrying things," he says. The cockroach robot provides a specific model that biologists can test. "We could now use neuronal imaging to see if a similar pattern of activity is seen in moving animals," says Büschges.

References
1. Steingrube, S., Timme, M., Wörgötter, F. & Manoonpong, P. Nature Phys. doi:10.1038/NPHYS1508 (2010).
2. Dahlem, M. A., Schneider, F. M. & Schöll, E. Chaos 18, 026110 (2008). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
3.Von Uckermann, G. & Büschges, A. J. Neurophysiol. 102, 1956-1975 (2009). | Article | PubMed

news20100118reut1

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
ABU DHABI
Sun Jan 17, 2010 2:02pm EST
Iran plans new renewable energy plants: minister
ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Opec member Iran plans to develop new renewable energy power plants over the next five years with capacity totaling 2,000 megawatts (MW) to meet energy demand, its deputy minister for electricity said on Sunday.

Abbas Aliabadi said Iran already has 8500 MW hydro power plants in operation and has installed 130 MW of wind turbines.

"Iran, though an oil exporting country, is determined to be an important partner in global efforts of human societies to achieve sustainable energy systems," he told a preparatory meeting of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) where even Israel was participating.

"The government of Iran has paved the way for private sector participation in developing renewable energy systems," he said.

The private sector has already signed contracts to install wind turbines as well as biomass systems with capacity of 600 MW and the ministry of energy is implementing 500 MW wind converters in the country, he said without naming any company.

(Reporting by Stanley Carvalho, editing by Jason Benham)


[Green Business]
LONDON
Sun Jan 17, 2010 10:39am EST
Solar power firm Engyco mulls IPO to raise funds
LONDON (Reuters) - Newly founded solar firm Engyco is considering a stock market listing as it seeks to raise cash to invest in solar parks in Europe, as a slew of other companies mull flotations on the London stock market.

Engyco, whose executive vice-chairman is Alexander Voigt, the founder of German solar firms Solon and Q-Cells, said it was considering a number of options for raising finance.

"This may include a listing of the company's shares on a recognized stock exchange," the firm, which is run from the Channel Island of Jersey, said on Sunday.

It has appointed Numis Securities and Ambrian Partners as advisers.

The Independent on Sunday reported Engyco was hoping to raise up to 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion). The company says on its website it is aiming to acquire 3 billion euros of assets within three years.

Meanwhile, in a sign that plans for initial public offerings on the London market are catching up with a recent flurry of IPO activity elsewhere, newspapers reported that travel firm Travelport, Sugar Puffs owner Big Bear Group and The Priory, the health clinic favored by celebrities, are all considering listings. The Sunday Times said hotel and airline reservations company Travelport would this week announce plans for a 1.8 billion pound ($2.94 billion) flotation to pay down debt taken on by owner, private equity group Blackstone.

New York-based Travelport, which posted third-quarter revenue of $570 million, declined to comment.

(Reporting by Victoria Bryan; Editing by Erica Billingham)

($1=.6931 Euro)

($1=.6120 Pound)


[Green Business]
Mon Jan 18, 2010 3:29am EST
Camco to focus on expanding U.S. emission reduction ops
(Reuters) - UK-based carbon offset firm Camco International Ltd said it traded successfully in the three months ended December 2009 and that it would expand its U.S. emission reduction operations in the new year.

The company, which sells carbon offsets under the Kyoto Clean Development Mechanism, said it saw carbon issuance increasing in the coming months as the number of projects -- including coal-mine methane, waste-heat recovery and combined-cycle power plant projects -- that got first verification rose 80 percent since September.

"The Copenhagen summit resulted in a number of positive outcomes for our business. Furthermore, the latest developments in the USA present substantial business opportunities for the company which we will pursue during 2010," Chief Executive Scott McGregor said in a statement.

The proposed changes to the Clean Development Mechanism processes made at the Copenhagen summit, expected to take effect in the latter half of 2010, will bring better clarity around delivery and registration as well as shorter regulatory timelines, Camco said.

The company, which is expanding its U.S. operations in the agricultural sector, said it had strong cash position with cash balance of 28 million euros ($40.18 million) at December 30, 2009.

Shares of the company were up 6.6 percent at 16 pence at 0815 GMT (3:15 a.m. EST) Monday on the London Stock Exchange.

($1=.6968 Euro)

(Reporting by Aditi Samajpati in Bangalore; Editing by Unnikrishnan Nair)


[Green Business]
JoAnne Allen
WASHINGTON
Sun Jan 17, 2010 1:01pm EST
Beaches trapping some oil from Exxon Valdez spill
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A lack of oxygen and nutrients below the surface of beaches in Alaska's Prince William Sound is slowing the dissipation of oil remaining from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.

The team conducted field studies over the past three summers using geologic information and hydraulics to try to determine why patches of oil linger on the beaches 20 years after the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

The supertanker Exxon Valdez spilled more than 11 million gallons (50 million liters) of crude oil, blackening some 1,300 miles of Alaska's coastline. An estimated 20,000 gallons (90,920 liters) remain, the researchers said.

They found that the oil remaining was trapped between two layers of beach and sheltered from the elements, according to the study posted on the journal Nature Geoscience's website (www.nature.com/ngeo/index.html)

"The oil that is in the upper layer either gets flushed out or biodegraded. In the lower layer, we found out there's not enough fresh water exchange to cause any flushing," co-author Michel Boufadel of Temple University said in a telephone interview.

Boufadel also said oxygen levels in the lower layer were not high enough for the oil to disappear through natural biodegradation.

"Microorganisms that are indigenous in beaches are capable of breaking down the oil, of eating the oil, provided that they have oxygen to breathe and nutrients such as nitrate and phosphate," Boufadel said.

He said earlier research uncovered nutrient deficiency in the area. But his team was the first to detect the low oxygen levels and the two-layer beaches.

In the first five years after the accident, the oil was vanishing at a rate of 70 percent a year and calculations showed it would be gone within a few years, the researchers said.

About eight years ago, the disappearance rate slowed to 4 percent a year.

Boufadel's team is exploring ways to deliver oxygen and nutrients to the lower layer of beach in an effort to spur biodegrading of the remaining oil.

The study was funded by the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, established in 1991 when Exxon settled civil and criminal charges filed by the Alaska and the U.S. governments.

The council has administered the $900 million that Exxon paid to settle the state and federal civil cases from the disaster.

(Editing by Eric Beech)

news20100118reut2

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Michael Szabo and Aditi Samajpati
LONDON
Mon Jan 18, 2010 6:53am EST
Cash-healthy Camco faces carbon offset shortfall
LONDON (Reuters) - UK-based carbon offset aggregator Camco International Ltd grew its cash balance to 28 million euros ($40.3 million), the firm said in a trading update on Monday, but faces a steep climb to reach its 2012 offset inventory goal.

Camco received 14.4 million euros in cash proceeds for 4.6 million tonnes of Kyoto Protocol offsets, called Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs), in two deals signed in December.

"We are very, very happy with these transactions ... we got a far greater price than the market price at the time, and the cash proceeds are non-recourse," said Yariv Cohen, Camco's chief carbon officer, adding that its CER costs remained around 8 euros a tonne.

Camco has increased its June 30, 2009 cash position of 18.3 million euros by over 50 percent. Camco shares traded up 1.5 pence or 10 percent at 16.5 pence at 1022 GMT (5:22 a.m. EST).

For the three months ended in December 2009, Camco trimmed its in specie pre-2012 portfolio of Kyoto Protocol carbon offsets, saying it expects to get 30.3 million tonnes compared 30.6 million in its last update in September 2009.

In contrast, the company has received just 0.8 million tonnes to date, or just 2.6 percent of its pre-2012 target.

"30.3 million is pretty high ... the CER yield curve is getting increasingly steep and as we get closer to 2012, the numbers are not getting as fat as they need to be, the reason being the ongoing delays at the UN," said equity analyst Agustin Hochschild at Mirabaud Securities.

"We will need to see quite a healthy upswing."

Administrative delays and carbon auditor suspensions last year dented CER supply flows at the UN's climate change secretariat.

Camco noted an 80 percent increase in the number of its carbon projects that have undergone a first verification in emissions cuts, adding that it is "expecting an increase in CER issuance in the coming months."

Hochschild called Camco's update "positive" and raised his price target to 42 pence, up from 35 pence.

Andrew Shepherd-Barron of KBC Peel Hunt raised his price target to 34 pence from 21 and increased his recommendation to a "buy" from a "hold."

Despite a disappointing outcome from UN climate talks in Copenhagen last month and mounting obstacles ahead of a U.S. climate change bill, Camco's CEO was optimistic.

"The Copenhagen summit resulted in a number of positive outcomes for our business. Furthermore, the latest developments in the USA present substantial business opportunities which we will pursue during 2010," Scott McGregor said.

"You can never predict U.S. politics but I think things there are moving very positively."

Camco said proposed reforms to Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism made in Copenhagen, expected to take effect in the latter half of 2010, will bring better clarity around delivery and registration as well as shorter regulatory timelines.

(Editing by Rupert Winchester)