news20100119jt

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010
Ozawa scandal dogs start of Diet session
LDP wants explanations; Hatoyama on defensive
By ALEX MARTIN
Staff writer

The 150-day regular Diet session convened Monday with the money scandals embroiling Democratic Party of Japan Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa and Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama expected to snarl efforts by the ruling bloc to pass budget and other bills.

The 174th regular session, the four-month-old administration's first marathon Diet faceoff with the opposition, kicked off just days after three former Ozawa aides were arrested over a political donations scandal already starting to hit voter support.

Speaking to reporters in the morning, Hatoyama said that while he intends to stand firmly behind Ozawa, he also believes the DPJ kingpin owes the public an explanation.

Ozawa's former aides were arrested for failing to declare in his political funding report \400 million that was used to buy a Tokyo property in 2004. Prosecutors suspect part of the money came from illegal donations possibly paid by general contractors.

"He said he will continue to fight (the allegations). I believe this also implies he intends to give the public an explanation," Hatoyama said.

His warning to Ozawa came after Hatoyama was rebuked for remarks he made at a DPJ convention Saturday that appeared to defend Ozawa, who last spring stepped down as party president, also over a money scandal.

Critics said Hatoyama "went too far" and "lacked fairness" by encouraging Ozawa to fight on, notwithstanding the prime minister's role as the country's chief law enforcement officer and head of the Public Prosecutor's Office.

Hatoyama rejected that charge and said his remarks were not meant as criticism toward prosecutors. He is embroiled in a scandal of his own, centered around falsified entries by his political fund-management body to allegedly disguise more than \1 billion provided by his mother, heiress to the Bridgestone tire empire.

To deal with the recession, the government on Monday submitted a secondary budget for fiscal 2009 to fund stimulus measures, which it aims to get passed by the end of the month. It will also work to pass the fiscal 2010 budget by the end of March so it can address other key policies.

"We need to implement policies that protect the livelihood of our people, especially considering our current economic situation," Hatoyama said.

Later during a meeting of DPJ lawmakers, he stressed the importance of party unity.

"This is going to be a difficult Diet session — a challenging one," he said. Ozawa was absent from the meeting.

The opposition, led by the Liberal Democratic Party, is planning a strong front against the ruling bloc, vowing to pursue the scandal linked to Ozawa as well as Hatoyama's alleged misdeeds.

The opposition wants Ozawa, the people involved in both his and the Hatoyama scandals, including Hatoyama's mother, to give a full account in testimony before the Diet.

"The supplementary budget is important, but to restore political credibility we ask that intense deliberations be conducted on the issue of politics and money," LDP Diet Affairs Chief Jiro Kawasaki said.

At a meeting of LDP lawmakers, party President Sadakazu Tanigaki expressed his strong intention to go after the DPJ scandals.

"It is deeply alarming to watch the parade of arrests and indictments befalling those close to the prime minister and the secretary general of the ruling party," Tanigaki said. "I will stand at the helm of the battle for the good of the nation."

The ruling bloc responded by offering to host a debate between Hatoyama and other party leaders in return for the opposition's cooperation in passing the secondary budget by the end of the month.

Following the Diet's opening ceremony, Deputy Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who recently took over as finance minister from Hirohisa Fujii, delivered a fiscal policy speech.

Hatoyama plans to deliver an administrative policy speech after the secondary budget clears the Diet.

Kan said lawmakers should pass the budget without delay to combat falling prices and unemployment.

Information from Bloomberg added


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010
Irked by whaling flap, lawmakers question Aussie military accord
Kyodo News

Ruling party lawmakers on Monday questioned Japan's plan to sign a defense logistics agreement with Australia that would enable the two countries to share food, fuel and other supplies and services, Senior Vice Defense Minister Kazuya Shimba said.

The government is considering submitting a bill during the current Diet session on the acquisition and cross-servicing agreement, and some members of the Democratic Party of Japan and its coalition partners sought "careful handling" of the proposed legislation in view of Australia's antiwhaling policy.

A vessel of the antiwhaling group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and a Japanese whaling vessel collided in Antarctic waters earlier this month.

Shimba said the lawmakers pressed the government to further assert Japan's policy on whaling.

The Defense Ministry told the lawmakers that it believes the pact would be an important boost for military confidence between the two countries regardless of diplomatic problems, according to Shimba.

The only country that Japan currently maintains this type of logistics arrangement with is the United States.

A similar agreement with Australia would likely help expand the Self-Defense Forces' scope of international cooperation.

The agreement would allow the two countries to share transport of supplies as well as repair and other services for joint drills, U.N. peacekeeping operations and international humanitarian operations.

The SDF cooperated with the Australian military in the wake of the major earthquake off Sumatra, Indonesia, in 2004.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010
Jobless leave Tokyo temporary shelter
Kyodo News

About 200 jobless people left a temporary shelter in Tokyo on Monday, marking the end of a metropolitan government project to provide meals, accommodations and job counseling during the holiday period.

Under the project, some 830 people stayed at the National Olympics Memorial Youth Center in Shibuya Ward, which opened as a shelter Dec. 28, and 562 people moved to a dormitory for the poor in Ota Ward on Jan. 5 after they failed to find alternative accommodations or jobs.

Of the 562 people, 419 have applied for welfare, 28 left the dormitory and 111 jumped ship, the metropolitan government said.

It set up the shelter to avoid the situation the previous year when about 500 people without jobs and homes flocked to a tent village built by antipoverty campaigners in Hibiya Park.

The action by the campaigners shed light on the problem of dispatch workers housed in company dormitories losing their accommodations when their employment contracts are terminated, a phenomenon that intensified during the financial crisis that started in fall 2008.

It also raised public concerns over the government's lack of preparation to deal with the problem.

The Tokyo jobless shelter had problems, however.

Some of the people bolted after receiving monetary assistance, including 46 who left after they were given ¥20,000.

news20100119lat

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

[Environment > U.S. & World]
By Chris Kraul
January 19, 2010
Colombian blacks' gold-dredging victory comes at a price
A community leader is watching his back after a legal fight ousted a fleet of river-chewing illegal dredges from Paimado village.

Reporting from Paimado, Colombia - When something goes bump in the night, Benedesmo Palacios not only jumps but also reaches for his revolver.

Who could blame him? The Afro-Colombian father of eight led his riverfront community's successful effort to remove a fleet of polluting vessels that dredged for gold, and now he fears he's a marked man.

"My nerves are on edge. I'm afraid of people following me and I trust no one," said Palacios, who is Paimado's community council leader. "I've heard there are two contracts out to kill me. But I've left it in the hands of God."

Three years of appeals to the government to expel the illegal dredges from the stretch of Rio Quito fronting this isolated village in northwestern Colombia finally brought results last May, when police swooped in and confiscated the fleet of 16 ore processors.

The seizures were a red-letter date in the struggle of Afro-Colombian communities here to exercise the territorial rights they were granted in the early 1990s and which they are finally wielding, thanks in part to legal empowerment programs financed by international aid agencies.

For the majority of poor blacks in Paimado, the expulsion was a milestone, ridding the town of equipment that scarred the environment and altered the course of a river carved over centuries.

But others say that mining is the only economic stimulus going in desperately poor Choco state and that the dredges should stay. Several owners of confiscated machinery have initiated legal action in a bid to resume operations this month.

The box-shaped vessels suck up tons of ore a day by chewing up river bottoms and banks. In Paimado, they caused the collapse of seven houses and extensive loss of crops, said Jose Romana, city clerk of Rio Quito township, of which Paimado is a part. He fears that spills of mercury used in refining and the blockage of feeder streams have killed off fishing grounds.

"The dredges brought no benefit to us, only erosion, armed groups, prostitution and discord within the community," Luis Carlos Romana, 27, said as he delivered ice in the sweltering town of 2,000.

But the owner of one of the seized dredges said that each vessel extracted up to 12 ounces of gold a day, generating $6,000 in profit -- much of which circulated through the local economy.

He disputed the charges of illegality, saying the dredges are "informal," a classification commonly used in Latin America to describe businesses that, although not strictly permitted, are allowed by authorities to function.

The man, who declined to give his name so as not to alert authorities, said local officials don't hesitate to register gold sales and collect a 4% tax.

"Illegal mining would be something obscure or hidden," the owner said. "We operate in the light of day, under open skies."

But legal experts within the Afro-Colombian community disagree.

"The dredges operate without licenses, have no oversight and so areillegal on the face of them," said attorney Carlos Rivas, a Choco native who practices in Bogota, the Colombian capital.

The 1991 constitution and a subsequent law carved out semi-sovereign status for more than 120 black communities in Choco. But those rights, including autonomy over 2 million acres, are hardly protected, said attorney Richard Moreno. He is legal advisor to Cocomacia, a council that represents the 120 communities.

"It's been an evolutionary process slowed down by ignorance of the law," said an official with the Pan American Development Foundation, an arm of the Organization of American States that has administered legal and economic aid in Choco since 2006.

"But we are seeing small signs of progress in the recognition by the authorities of the right of these communities to territorial control and by Afro-Colombians themselves," said the official, who requested anonymity for security reasons.

In the last three years, as global gold prices skyrocketed, dredges appeared in many parts of Choco, where rivers are the main mode of transport. Dredges are built illegally in the state capital, Quibdo, under the noses of local authorities paid to look the other way, aid agency officials say.

Asked whether he could provide the names of officials or politicians who would endorse dredge mining as beneficial to Choco, the anonymous owner said, "Yes, but they're both in jail" for alleged support of paramilitary groups.

Although he denied any knowledge of threats against Palacios, he said the seizure of the dredges has made Palacios and other community leaders powerful enemies.

"The politics here are such that whoever is against mining is against progress," said Father Ulrich Kollwitz, a priest with the Quibdo diocese.
Palacios is accompanied by a police bodyguard when he goes to Quibdo. "One guy was filming me last week and I had to pull my gun on him to stop," he said.

But he has no intention of giving up his struggle, which he sees as one that pits economic interests against justice and the environment. He said he has refused bribes of $2,500 per dredge to allow the mining to continue.

"The money is not important," Palacios said. "The real question is what we are leaving to our children and our children's children."

Kraul is a special correspondent.


[Environment > Business]
By Jerry Hirsch
January 19, 2010
Fisker Automotive raises $115.3 million
The private equity funds allow the start-up Irvine firm to tap $528.7 million in federal loans for development of its plug-in hybrid Karma.

Fisker Automotive Inc., the Irvine developer of electric cars, said it had raised an additional $115.3 million in private equity funding to develop plug-in hybrid cars.

The money from three firms allows Fisker, founded by Danish design guru Henrik Fisker, to satisfy a U.S. Department of Energy condition to gain access to $528.7 million in federal loans. The agency's money is part of a $25-billion fund approved by Congress in 2007 to spur automakers to build electric and fuel-efficient vehicles.

The funds will help Fisker develop its Karma, the company's first plug-in hybrid.

The company said it was glad it could obtain the private funding "at a time when capital is scarce, the auto industry is struggling and the global economy is just beginning to rebound."

Fisker said development of the $87,900 Karma would pave the way for a lower-cost plug-in hybrid that the company is calling Project Nina.

Project Nina is expected to be built in Wilmington, Del., at a former General Motors assembly plant starting in 2012.

"Raising $115 million in these times speaks volumes about the value of our business model and the vast potential of plug-in hybrids," said Fisker, who is the company's chief executive and known for designing the BMW Z8 as well as Aston Martin's DB9 and V8 Vantage.

The Karma will be assembled in Finland, using mostly U.S. parts, and production will start late next year, with a target of 15,000 vehicles annually.

Project Nina will be a "family oriented" plug-in hybrid sedan that will cost $47,400 (less a $7,500 federal tax credit). It has a production target of 100,000 vehicles a year.

Fisker, a start-up company, is about to face increased competition from mainstream automakers. Toyota Motor Corp. is testing a plug-in version of its Prius hybrid. Ford Motor Co. announced that it would build an electric version of its new-generation Focus.

Nissan Motor Co. plans to start selling its Leaf electric car later this year for about $30,000 and General Motors Co. plans the first sales of its $40,000 Volt electric vehicle this fall.

news20100119gdn1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Waste]
Food waste should have 'mandatory collection', say MPs
> Call for separate food waste collection and composting at home
> Reduction of landfill also targets public buildings and industry
Press Association
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19 January 2010 00.05 GMT Article history

The government should bring in "mandatory collection" of food waste from homes and a ban on leftovers going to landfill to help reduce the amount of rubbish dumped in England, according to a report by MPs which is released today.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) committee said the government should set targets for separate collection of food waste for composting or producing energy, while councils should support households to compost at home.

And schools, hospitals and groups of restaurants – including those in parliament – should be encouraged to take part in local composting schemes.

The committee said it supported a ban on certain types of rubbish, such as food waste, going to landfill.

The report from the committee urged the government, which is planning to consult next month on a landfill ban being introduced by 2020, to bring forward a "more ambitious timescale" to stop certain rubbish going into the ground by 2015. Yesterday, mayor of London Boris Johnson outlined plans to cut the amount of rubbish going to landfill sites to zero within 15 years.

The committee also said retailers should help reduce the amount of clothes that end up in landfill under the so-called "Primark effect" – with people throwing away cheap clothing.

The committee's chairman, Michael Jack, said: "We take the view, throughout the whole report, that waste is actually a resource.

"Food waste has got two key opportunities to be used – either in energy from waste and the other is to home compost.

"We should stop throwing it away into landfill when we have these two alternatives."

But with less than 10% of England's total waste mountain – which stands at some 330m tonnes a year – coming from homes, the committee also demanded more action to cut rubbish from retailers and industry, construction, demolition and mining activities.

For example, retailers with a turnover of more than £50m should be required to publish details of their recycling levels and the steps they are taking to cut their waste.

And food retailers and manufacturers should be required to publish annual figures for the amount of food waste they produce.

In addition, "benchmarks" are needed for industrial and commercial waste, similar to targets which have been set for domestic rubbish, to make it clear if companies are doing their bit to cut waste and boost recycling.

The Efra committee, which was reporting on its investigation into the environment department's (Defra) waste strategy for England 2007, praised householders for boosting average recycling levels to almost 37%.

But it said the government should set tougher targets for the future – to see recycling raised to 50% of household waste by 2015 and 60% by 2020.


[Business > BAA]
BAA plans for third Heathrow runway delayed — but is it too late for Sipson?
Airports group will not press ahead with application until after the general election
Peter Walker and Dan Milmo
guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 January 2010 14.35 GMT Article history

BAA will not take the next step towards building a third runway at Heathrow until after the general election, it has said.

BAA secured government approval a year ago for its controversial plans to expand Britain's largest airport resulting in renewed protests from green groups and local residents. For the last seven years, a loose coalition of Sipson villagers, more seasoned environmental campaigners and celebrities have been battling BAA's plans to expand northwards. The company says Heathrow – and Britain – are greatly hampered by a main airport with only two runways – Charles de Gaulle in Paris has four, while Amsterdam's Schiphol has six.

But now, BAA has confirmed it will not launch a public consultation on a planning application until after a general election. With expansion strongly opposed by the Conservatives, who are ahead in the polls, any planning proposal could be quashed by a Tory administration.

The airports operator told the Guardian in a statement that it was still working on its application. However, it admitted that the process will be interrupted by the election: "We expect to be in a position to consult with local residents and all other interested parties in the second half of 2010." BAA denied that efforts had ceased altogether, saying the delay was caused only by discussions with the government's new infrastructure planning commission (IPC), set up last year. "The timing of any planning application and its component parts are not influenced by anything other than the requirements of the IPC and the volume of work to put together a compelling application," a spokesman said.

But with only Labour committed to the runway, the statement would nonetheless appear to mean that 700 homes in Sipson – the village that would have been flattened to build the runway – along with its handful of pubs, restaurants and other businesses, may be saved.

It would seem a moment of celebration for the No Third Runway Action Group, but members remain cautious.

Firstly, they say, even if the Conservatives win power they could change their mind in the face of relentless lobbying from BAA and British Airways. The latter's chief executive, Willie Walsh, called the runway decision the party's "biggest mistake ever".

Equally pertinent, they stress, is that the fabric of the village is, slowly but surely, collapsing around them.

"It's like a slow death for Sipson," said Jim Doyle, 47, who has raised a family in what remains a clearly defined ­village ­nestled in acres of green belt fields, despite sitting only a few hundred metres from Heathrow's northern perimeter and not much further south of the M4.

"I can't remember the last time a family bought here. To do what they've done to a community, with no timescale, no schedule, is an absolute disgrace."

Sitting in the 400-year-old William IV pub, like the rest of Sipson affected surprisingly little by aircraft noise thanks to the orientation of runways, Doyle describes how the threat hanging over the village means the only home buyers are speculative landlords who install short-term tenants, many from eastern Europe, with no real stake in the community's future.

"It's a very different place from how it used to be," he said.

BAA has already offered to buy up hundreds of homes in Sipson and an estimated 75 householders have agreed. Such an exodus, believes Sean Walters, the pub's landlord, would mean the end: "No one wants to be next door to an empty house, so they'll move on as well. That's how BAA will get the runway anyway – who'll want to live in a ghost village?"

Others are hopeful they can extract a long-term commitment from the Conservatives. David Cameron has not only backed their cause but sponsors an apple tree on land in Sipson bought by protesters and planted as an orchard. "If Cameron reneges on his promise, it would be so bad I won't ever vote again in this country in my life," said Linda ­McCutcheon, 64, who has lived in ­Sipson for more than forty years. "He said it, so he needs to take action. We'll work from there to get a definite no." Any minister

planning to send the bulldozers to Sipson will be aware that within ­minutes of their arrival, several sexagenarians would be lying down in their path. Many locals have promised direct action and are supported by younger, more experienced green campaigners through an innovative "adopt a resident" scheme.

The seemingly unlikely alliance began in August 2007 when the annual Climate Camp protest based itself around ­Sipson. "When they came we told them, 'Oh, you'll forget about us, you'll go on to something else.' But they said they wouldn't and they've kept to their word," McCutcheon said.

Her optimism is tinged by an ever-present sadness at the thought of what is at stake: "My children were born in the village, at the cottage hospital, which has now gone. They were christened in the local church and went to school here. It's an entire life, and it would all be under concrete. It's a terrible thought."

news20100119gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Recycling]
Sainsbury's to switch tomato packaging from tins to Tetra
Sainsbury's says its new tomato cartons will reduce packaging and carbon emissions, but critics warn the move may also increase landfill
Rebecca Smithers
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19 January 2010 11.51 GMT Article history

Tinned tomatoes are one of the most popular staple ingredients in our store cupboards, handy for whipping up spaghetti bolognaise or adding to soups and stews. But now Sainsbury's supermarket is to switch its "Basics" range of tomatoes from tins to cardboard cartons, in a move that it claims will cut half a million kilos of packaging every year.

The tomatoes are the most popular non-fresh item in its stores, with around 22m tins sold every year. Sainsbury's started selling food in such "Tetra Recart" packaging in 2007, but says this is the first time cartons have been used for tinned items in such large volumes.

The switch will go some way towards helping the supermarket achieve its target of reducing packaging by a third by 2015. This move alone will reduce carbon emissions by 156 tonnes per year.

Stuart Lendrum, Sainsbury's head of packaging, said: "This type of carton is a strong challenger to the traditional tin can in many ways, and may well pose a threat to its dominance over the coming years. As they can be packed more tightly, more will fit onto a lorry meaning fewer journeys are required to move them around the country."

While cartons are lighter than tin cans and can be recycled with over two-thirds of UK councils, the Metal Packaging Manufacturers' Association questioned Sainsbury's latest move, claiming that waste to landfill could rise as a result. In a statement it said: "Cans have the highest recycling rate of any packaging material in Europe. In the UK two-thirds of food cans avoid landfill completely and are recycled. What's more, metal is infinitely recyclable – it can be reused again and again with no loss of quality."


[Environment > Wildlife]
Biologist prepares to film black bear giving birth in wild for the first time
Lynn Rogers sets up camera outside den in Minnesota woods to film Lily the bear give birth to her first cub
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 January 2010 00.05 GMT Article history

For a bear living deep in the woods in Minnesota, Lily is about to have a very public delivery of her first cub.

Lynn Rogers of the Wildlife Research Institute has rigged up a webcam at the entrance of the bear's den, ready to capture the first footage of a bear giving birth in the wild.

Anticipation of the happy event — which could occur any day now — had already gained Lily the bear more than 18,000 friends on her Facebook page by Friday morning.

The project, undertaken with documentary maker Doug Hajicek, marks the culmination of Rogers' years spent trying to get close to black bear in their native habitats and observe their behaviour.

In Lily's case, it was almost natural to have Rogers at the birth.

She is the daughter of Rogers's most trusting research subject – June – and he has watched her since her own birth. A BBC film about Rogers' work last year, Bearwalker of the North Woods, showed the bear patting Rogers. "We have known Lily since she was a cub. When the litter was born I spent many hours with a videocamera to the entrance of her den."

Lily is now three years old – the normal age for a bear to first give birth. It is not entirely certain she is, or was ever, pregnant.

But Rogers – who visited Lily in her den on January 11 and has been watching her on the webcam – says there are some suggestions she might be in the advanced stages of pregnancy.

"What I am seeing is a lot of re-arranging of the bedding, a lot of licking of her nipples and her genitals," he said. "Yesterday she was intensely licking the bedding."

However, he was equally concerned about a pregnancy loss. Bear pregnancies are delicate events, and he feared Lily's den might have been disturbed by fishermen.

Whatever happens, years spent trying to gain Lily's confidence means that it will likely be captured on the webcam.

The familiarity helped Rogers and Hajicek rig up equipment at the entrance to Lily's den. "The camera is right here," he said. "Between putting the big clunky camera in and the cameraman standing behind me, it scared Lily. She got up and left the den."

The pair moved away, and Lily eventually returned. "Another bear would have left the den and taken off through the woods," Rogers said.

He said he hopes the publicity will help cure the public of their distrust of black bears. "A lot of people are falling in love with her."


[Environment > Wildlife]
Asia's greed for ivory puts African elephant at risk
Slaughter by poachers intensifies as governments seek to increase legal sales
Robin McKie
The Observer, Sunday 17 January 2010 Article history

There has been a massive surge in illegal ivory trading, researchers warned last week. They have found that more than 14,000 products made from the tusks and other body parts of elephants were seized in 2009, an increase of more than 2,000 on their previous analysis in 2007.

Details of this disturbing rise have been revealed on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the world ivory trading ban. Implemented on 18 January 1990, it was at first credited with halting the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of elephants.

But the recent growth in the far east's appetite for ivory – a status symbol for the middle classes of the region's newly industrialised economies – has sent ivory prices soaring from £150 a kilogram in 2004 to more than £4,000.

At the same time, scientists estimate that between 8% and 10% of Africa's elephants are now being killed each year to meet the demand. The world's largest land animal is again threatened with widespread slaughter.

"It is a really worrying situation," said Richard Thomas, director of Traffic, the group that monitors trade in wildlife. "However, it is not absolutely clear what should be done." Indeed, the issue is so confused that a conflict over the ivory trade is expected at March's meeting of Cites, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

A key source of contention will be the future of legitimate stockpile sales of ivory that have been permitted by international agreement. Killing elephants for their tusks is illegal, but selling ivory from animals that have died of natural causes has been permitted on occasions. In 2008 a stockpile of tusks – from Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe – was bought by dealers from China and Japan. The sale, of 105,000 kilograms of ivory, raised more than £15m.

But now countries including Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo are to call for a ban of these stockpile sales at the Cites meeting. They say such trade – albeit sporadic – only increases demand for ivory goods and is responsible for triggering the recent rise in illegal trade and the killing of thousands of elephants across Africa.

This point is backed by shadow environment secretary Nick Herbert, who recently returned from a visit to study the impact of ivory poaching in India. "On the 20th anniversary of the international ban on the ivory trade, we should be taking a stand," he said last week. "Instead of flooding the market with more ivory and legitimising the trade, we should be choking demand, not stoking it."

But countries such as Tanzania and Zambia, which have some of the worst poaching records in Africa, want a relaxation of ivory trade regulations at Cites so they can hold their own stockpile sales. They say the tens of millions of pounds that can be raised will help them fund rangers who can protect their elephants.

"Unfortunately the evidence is not clear whether stockpile sales increase demand for ivory or help to control it," said Heather Sohl of the WWF. "We have had recent stockpile sales of ivory – and poaching has increased dramatically. But other factors may be involved. Many African countries are suffering terrible drought and local people are desperate. Killing elephants brings money, alas."

Killing for tusks is a particularly gruesome trade. Elephants are intelligent animals whose sophisticated social ties are exploited by poachers. They will often shoot young elephants to draw in a grieving parent, which is then killed for its ivory. Estimates suggest more than 38,000 elephants were killed this way in 2006: the death rate is higher today.

news20100119nn

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 18 January 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.19
News
Mystery of the brown giant panda deepens
Rare sighting of brown-and-white panda sparks conservation debate.
Henry Nicholls

Pandas are increasingly endangered in the wild, and the sighting of one with extremely rare brown-and-white fur is now raising fears that the species may be suffering from inbreeding.

In November 2009, a staff member at the Foping Nature Reserve in China's Qinling Mountains — one of the panda's last remaining strongholds — spotted a panda with the unusual colouring. It was estimated to weigh around 2 kilograms, which would suggest it was less than 2 months old at the time.

This is only the seventh such animal spotted in the region over the past 25 years, says Tiejun Wang, a spatial ecologist in the Department of Natural Resources at the University of Twente in Enschede, the Netherlands, who has worked in Foping for two decades. But the explanation for this unusual variety remains a mystery. "It's time we had a debate about what is causing this because it could be telling us something very important," he says.

Wang and his Twente colleague Andrew Skidmore are concerned that the brown-and-white form indicates that breeding between closely related pandas is becoming more common.

Each panda has two versions, or alleles, of each of its genes, one inherited from its mother and one from its father. Wang suggests that the Qinling pandas carry a dominant gene for black fur and a recessive gene for brown fur. This means that pandas with brown-and-white fur are only possible when they inherit the recessive brown gene from both mother and father.

The chances that both parents have the brown allele are ordinarily very low, suggests Wang. But the coincidence would be much more likely if the pandas were closely related. "The habitat in the Qinling Mountains is seriously fragmented and the population density is very high," says Wang. "The brown pandas could be an indication of local inbreeding."

Conservationists worry about such inbreeding because it means that more animals rely on the same set of genetic defences to overcome environmental threats, increasing their risk of extinction.

Genetic analysis
According to Wang, brown-and-white pandas have only been seen in the Qinling population, one of five mountain regions where pandas still live in the wild. Qinling is home to around 300 animals, roughly one-sixth of the total panda population in the wild.

The first recorded brown-and-white panda — a female called Dan-Dan — was discovered in 1985. She was taken into captivity, mated with a black-and-white animal and gave birth to a normal black-and-white male. A few years later, another brown-and-white panda was seen in the wild, together with its black-and-white mother. "These anecdotal observations strongly suggest the presence of a recessive gene or genes," says Wang.

The idea is worth investigating, says Sheng-guo Fang, a researcher at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, who has studied the morphology and genetics of the Qinling pandas. But there could be other factors at play, he cautions.

Fang and colleagues have found that, although most of the Qinling pandas appear to be normal black-and-white animals, many of the region's pandas do have touches of brown in their chest fur¹. This suggests that there could be something specific to Qinling, such as the climate or a particular environmental chemical, that affects one or more pigmentation genes, says Fang. "The Qinling Mountains have shaped brown subspecies of other mammals, such as the golden takin," he notes.

The idea of inbreeding in Qinling is also at odds with the most recent genetic analyses, which show that despite a dramatic contraction of the panda's range over the past few thousand years, the remaining giant panda populations seem to have retained a lot of genetic diversity². "The evidence that giant pandas in general, and in the Qinling Mountains in particular, are of low genetic variation is at best equivocal," says Mike Bruford, a molecular ecologist at Cardiff University, UK, who worked on that study2.

The giant panda genome, which was published online in Nature last monthue³ , also revealed little sign of inbreeding, says Jun Wang of the Beijing Genomics Institute in Shenzhen, China. But the genome is likely to prove invaluable for solving the mystery of the brown pandas of Qinling. "There are over 125 genes known to affect pigmentation in mice," says Hopi Hoekstra, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and an expert on pigmentation in mammals. "There are definitely a good handful of candidate genes you could sequence in the two morphs and look for differences," she says.

Jun Wang and his colleagues are already on the case. So far, they have studied the sequence of some 50 genes known to be involved in pigmentation. A comparison of brown and black pandas at Qinling and other sites should shed light on the genetic basis of this rare variety, he says.

References
1. Wan, Q.-H., Wu, H. & Fang, S.-G. J. Mammal. 86, 397-402 (2005). | Article
2. Zhang, B. et al. Mol. Biol. Evol. 24, 1801-1810 (2007). | Article | ChemPort |
3. Li, R. et al. Nature advance online publication doi:10.1038/nature08696 (2009).


[naturenews]
Published online 18 January 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/463283a
News
Bulgarian science reform attacked
Researchers say law wouldn't fix nation's higher-education system.
Alison Abbott

Three years after it joined the European Union, Bulgaria is working to improve its ranking as one of the region's lowest overall performers in science. But a proposed law meant to improve research and universities is meeting protests from the scientists themselves.

The law would dismantle the central Higher Attestation Commission, which awards advanced degrees and oversees academic appointments. Instead, universities would be responsible for awarding their own higher degrees, as happens elsewhere in Europe.

{“This centralized system is archaic; universities should be independent.”}

Some researchers charge that the move would eliminate quality control of PhD and postdoctoral work, particularly in the universities that have sprung up recently. Bulgaria had just four universities in 1990, plus a handful of medical and engineering schools. Now there are 53 universities, serving a population of 7.5 million.

Last week, an action group called the Civil Movement for Support of Bulgarian Science and Education presented parliament with a list of demands for changes to the proposed law. They include setting up a system to govern university accreditation before allowing the institutions to award their own higher degrees.

"We agree that this centralized system is archaic, and that universities should be independent," says Oleg Yordanov, a physicist at the Institute of Electronics in Sofia who is involved with the group. "But the commission needs to be replaced with a system that guarantees a minimum quality of academic achievement."

The University of Sofia and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, which together account for 90% of peer-reviewed publications in Bulgaria, have also registered concerns with the government. Bulgaria's minister of science and education, Sergey Ignatov, an Egyptologist, declined to comment.

Mathematician Emil Horozov of the University of Sofia says that it would be an "enormous problem" if universities were to give out their own higher degrees, as the agency that accredited the new universities is part of a system that brought "our country to ruin". Horozov took over this month as head of Bulgaria's granting agency, the National Research Funds, and he says that he intends to introduce reforms there as well, such as involving foreign reviewers and making the granting procedures fully transparent.

The law passed its first reading in parliament on 18 December and will go through a second round of discussion and a vote in the next few weeks.

news20100119bbc

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

[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 23:35 GMT, Monday, 18 January 2010
By Mark Kinver
Science and environment reporter, BBC News
Exxon Valdez oil trapped by beach gravel, says study
{Oil from the Exxon Valdez spill was found just inches below the surface}
Large quantities of oil spilled during the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster can still be found beneath gravel beaches in Alaska, a study has discovered.

Writing in Nature Geoscience, a team of scientists found that oil just a few inches down was dissipating up to 1,000 times slower than oil on the surface.

They suggested that a lack of oxygen and nutrients in the gravel was slowing the dispersal of the remaining oil.

The results could have implications for cleaning up future spills, they added.

Considered to be one of the worst environmental disasters of its kind, the Exxon Valdez tanker spilled 38,000 tonnes of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound after the vessel hit a reef.

As a result, more than 2,000km (1,250 miles) of coastline was affected, killing thousands of seabirds and having a serious impact on the region's fishing industry.

In the five years after the disaster, the oil was shown to be dispersing at a rate of about 70% each year.

Most clean-up operations in the area ended in 1992 because the remaining oil was expected to disperse within a few years.

Lingering legacy

A later study discovered that the oil was disappearing at a rate of just 4% each year, and that an estimated 20,000 gallons remained in the beaches.

{The spill was one of the worst environmental disasters of its kind}

Researchers led by Professor Michel Boufadel from Temple University in Philadelphia, US, carried out a three-year study on a number of beaches to find out the cause behind the lingering deposits.

Prof Boufadel, director of the university's Center for Natural Resources Development and Protection, said the gravel beaches they examined were made up of two layers: a top level that was highly permeable, and a lower level that had very low permeability.

While the two layers were made from the same material, he said the lower level had become compacted as a result of tidal movements, limiting the volume of seawater that was able to penetrate the gravel.

In their paper, the team observed that the upper layer temporarily stored the oil, while it slowly and continuously filled the lower layer.

"You have a high amount of oxygen in the seawater, so you would think that the oxygen would diffuse in the beach and get down 2-4 inches (5-10cm) into the lower layer and get to the oil," said Prof Boufadel.

"But the outward movement of [fresh groundwater] in the lower level is blocking the oxygen from spreading down into that lower level."

{Scientists carried out the study to find out why the oil was "locked" in beaches}

He explained that oxygen and nutrients were needed to sustain micro-organisms that "ate" the oil.

However, without the necessary supply of the key ingredients reaching the lower level, the biodegradation of the oil was occurring at a much slower rate.

"We suggest that similar dynamics could operate on tidal gravel beaches around the world, which are particularly common in mid- and high-latitude regions," the team wrote in their paper.

"Thus, our findings are of direct application for the susceptibility of beaches worldwide to long-term oil contamination and provide guidelines for remediating oil-polluted beaches."

They added that climate change was reducing ice cover, "exposing the Arctic to oil exploitation and shipping" and increasing the risk of oil spills in the future.

Professor Boufadel and his team are now exploring ways to deliver the necessary levels of oxygen and nutrients to affected areas to accelerate the dissipation of the remaining oil.


[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 22:53 GMT, Monday, 18 January 2010
By Doreen Walton
Science reporter, BBC News
Malignant malaria found in apes
{The malaria parasite was found in a sample from the cross river gorillla}
The parasite which causes malignant malaria in humans has been identified in gorillas for the first time.

Researchers analysed faeces from wild gorillas in Cameroon and blood samples from a captive animal from Gabon.

The study says increasing contact between humans and primates due to logging and deforestation raises the risk of transmission of new pathogens.

The research findings are published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

New genetic sampling techniques allowed scientists from France, Cameroon, Gabon and the US to examine evidence of malaria parasites in the faecal matter of wild gorillas and chimpanzees in Cameroon.

"Sampling malaria parasites from apes in the wild has until now been very difficult", said Dr Francisco Ayala from the University of California, Irvine.

The team also took blood samples from wild born, pet animals in Gabon.

DNA evidence of Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes malignant malaria in humans, was found in faecal samples from two gorilla subspecies, the highly endangered cross-river gorilla and the western lowland gorilla.

{{Even if it were eradicated in humans we would still have the problem that it's present in apes}
Dr Francisco Ayala, University of California, Irvine}

The parasite was identified in a blood sample from a captive gorilla.

Malaria parasites were first identified in chimpanzees and gorillas in Africa by scientists working in the 1920s.

But this new technology has allowed scientists to confirm the presence of P. falciparum.

Disease reservoir

P. falciparum is the most deadly type of malaria infection.

It is most common in Africa, south of the Sahara, where the World Health Organization says it accounts for a large part of the extremely high mortality in the region.

The study says that human destruction of the natural forest habitat means more contact with primates and greater chances of pathogen transmission between the two, including from humans to the endangered great apes.

Dr Ayala said the findings underline the danger of contact between the two. "Even if it were eradicated in humans we would still have the problem that it's present in apes and therefore they would be a reservoir for the disease.

"It's not clear what we can do with respect to this problem other than trying to decrease contact."

Endemic?

Dr Ian Hastings, senior lecturer at the Liverpool School of Medicine said it would help to know more about the spread of the parasite in gorillas.

"Mosquitoes often bite different species. Often they have a preference but if they can't find what they want to bite they'll just go and bite something else," he said.

"The question is whether this is just sporadic infection that's come from humans after the mosquito bit an infected person and passed it on to gorillas or whether it's endemic and is passed from gorilla to gorilla."

Dr Ayala acknowledges that Plasmodium parasites are much less malignant for apes than humans because primates have been exposed to them for so long.

"They have had P. reichenowi and perhaps other species for thousands or millions of generations, so one expects less malignancy to have taken place over time."

news20100119reut1

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Pete Harrison
SEVILLE, Spain
Mon Jan 18, 2010 10:19am EST
Tories could hurt British climate clout: minister
SEVILLE, Spain (Reuters) - Britain might lose its influence in global climate negotiations if the opposition Conservatives win upcoming elections and pull back from Europe, Environment Minister Ed Miliband warned.

Britain's opposition Conservative party is widely expected to win an election to be held before June. The party's leaders have pledged to claw back powers from the European Union if they are victorious.

But Miliband said they underestimated the importance of the EU in global climate change negotiations, which he hopes will lead to a legally binding agreement on reducing C02 emissions by the end of the year.

"It's really important for the UK to work within Europe, because that's what makes us stronger," he told Reuters ahead of a meeting of EU environment ministers in Seville, Spain.

"Inevitably, when you have a party that wants to be on the sidelines in Europe, it doesn't help the strength of our position," he added.

Britain worked closely with Brussels on climate last year, giving firm backing to a European Commission idea to channel $100 billion a year from rich to poor countries by 2020 to help them tackle climate change.

Global climate talks ended in failure at a meeting in Copenhagen in December, and ministers are trying to come up with a new strategy for 2010 in Seville.

Miliband said the weak deal agreed in Copenhagen needed to be broadened beyond the current 50 or so signatories, deepened in terms of the emissions cuts pledged, and strengthened in terms of its legal weight.

"We will be working hard to get the maximum commitment from other countries. We need to broaden the agreement to as many countries as possible."

He welcomed India and China's pledges ahead of Copenhagen to slow down their emissions growth and said he would seek ways to get their backing for a legally-binding U.N. agreement.

"We want to talk with them about how we can allay their fears that their growth and development will be constrained," he said.

(Reporting by Pete Harrison; editing by Noah Barkin)


[Green Business]
ABU DHABI
Mon Jan 18, 2010 10:18am 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
Mon Jan 18, 2010 10:05am EST
EU carbon up 2 percent on technicals
LONDON (Reuters) - European carbon prices climbed more than two percent on Monday afternoon as the benchmark futures broke through a key resistance level after trading lower through the morning on weaker energy prices, traders said.

EU Allowances for delivery in December climbed to 13.62 euros a tonne, up 28 cents or 2.1 percent on moderate volume of over 3,000 lots.

The benchmark contract had opened lower and traded down to 13.07 euros before climbing back into positive territory at 1314 GMT. Spot EUAs trading on BlueNext were up 21 cents or 1.6 percent at 13.35 euros at 1435 GMT.

"Our technicals still show bullish momentum and Thursday's breakthrough over 13 euros was enough to get us over the next key resistance at 13.50," one trader said.

EUAs hit a one-month high of 13.74 euros last Thursday, but traders last week said the move was not justified fundamentally and that the rally was overdone.

"I've been seeing a large amount of EUA trading coming off the back of volume in the German power market, implying that utilities are pushing carbon prices higher," the trader added.

Volume on EEX's German calendar 2011 baseload power contract was 1,456 lots last week, the highest level since May 2009. The contracts were down 33 cents at 49.60 euros per megawatt hour on Monday.

U.S. oil futures rallied above $78 per barrel, snapping a five-day losing streak as the dollar eased against a basket of currencies, but concern over the outlook for energy demand and economic recovery weighed on the market.

Oil prices began last week above $80, supported by colder winter weather in the northern hemisphere and an influx of fresh capital from money managers and funds wishing to allocate more cash to commodities this year.

British day-ahead gas prices lost 0.45 pence or 1.3 percent at 33.55 pence per therm.

Benchmark CERs rose by 18 cents or 1.6 percent at 11.82 euros a tonne, setting the EUA-CER spread at 1.67 euros at 1445 GMT.

UK-based carbon CER aggregator Camco International 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's CEO said it will focus on expanding operations in the U.S. in 2010 and that it was optimistic that Congress would pass a climate change bill this year.

(Reporting by Michael Szabo; Editing by Hans Peters)


[Green Business]
Krittivas Mukherjee and Himangshu Watts
NEW DELHI
Tue Jan 19, 2010 6:04am EST
India unveils rules to boost green power investment
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India has crafted rules for trading of certificates aimed at rewarding producers of clean energy, a move expected to boost the share of electricity from renewable sources in one of the world's top carbon polluters.

India's power regulator has laid out regulations on renewable energy certificates (RECs), which can be bought by companies to meet statutory obligations to purchase a minimum level of renewable energy, the government said in a statement.

"This concept seeks to address the mismatch between availability of renewable energy sources and the requirement of the obligated entities to meet their renewable purchase obligation," it said.

Renewable energy accounts for barely 8 percent of India's total capacity of about 150,000 megawatts but the government aims to double green power generation to 25,000 megawatts in four years.

The rules stipulate clean energy producers either sell their electricity at a preferential tariff fixed by provincial power regulators or sell the electricity generation and environmental attributes associated with renewable power separately.

A central agency would also administer the certificates trading among renewable power generators. The value of a certificate would be equivalent to one megawatt hour of electricity.

"It is also expected to encourage renewable energy capacity addition ... as the REC framework seeks to create a national level market for such generators to recover their cost," it said.

BOOST TO INVESTMENT

Carbon business analysts agreed.

"What it does is it gives government a tool to enforce its regulation. Those states which don't have enough natural resources to generate power could buy renewable certificates from others and meet their quota," CLSA analyst Rajesh Panjwani said.

"It will also encourage states to invest in companies or renewable capacities in states where there are renewable resources."

Ashutosh Pandey, chief executive of Emergent Ventures' carbon advisory business, said: "I feel RECs will definitely bring market-based innovations in the market to propel renewable energy development in the country."

India is one of the world's top producers of wind energy, and also generates solar energy and power from biomass. It hopes to attract about $21 billion worth of investments in renewable energy by 2012.

The country laid out in September new tariff rules for electricity from renewable energy sources, promising to provide about 19 percent pre-tax return on investment for renewable energy plants for an initial period of 10 years.

Benefits from thermal power plants, which account for about 60 percent of India's total generation, work out to about 18.4 percent, according to Indian power officials.

India offers subsidized loans to companies building alternative energy power plants and provides tax breaks and tariff subsidies to encourage development of the renewables industry.

(Additional reporting by Leonora Walet in Hong Kong; Editing by David Fogarty)

news20100119reut2

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
WELLINGTON
Mon Jan 18, 2010 10:20am EST
Antarctic wind farm reduces bases' reliance on diesel
WELLINGTON (Reuters) - The world's southernmost wind farm has been opened in Antarctica, the first in what could be a number of renewable energy projects aimed to lower the frozen continent's reliance on diesel for power.

The construction of the three-turbine Ross Island wind farm was a huge challenge in an environment where the temperature can fall as low as -57 degrees Celsius.

The wind farm will supply about 11 percent of the power to New Zealand's Scott Base and the American McMurdo Station, and will cut diesel consumption by about 463,000 liters per year.

If the wind farm proves a success it could be followed by others, with solar generation also being evaluated for potential use, said Scott Bennett, project manager with Meridian Energy, the state-owned New Zealand power company which built and runs the turbines.

"The philosophy is to get this one up and running, get it operating for a year and it can show us the way forward," Bennett said.


[Green Business]
Stanley Carvalho
ABU DHABI
Mon Jan 18, 2010 12:10pm EST
UAE's Hydrogen Power, CCS project ready in 2014
ABU DHABI (Reuters) - A joint venture hydrogen power plant and a linked carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in the UAE should be completed in 2014 even though terms have yet to be agreed, senior executives at the venture said on Monday.

The $2.2 billion Hydrogen Power project could be the world's first large-scale CCS project, in a race with a clutch of projects around the world. It is a joint venture between the United Arab Emirate's renewable energy initiative Masdar and oil major BP.

"We are fully committed to this and we are still negotiating commercial terms and agreements," said Katrina Landis, BP's head of alternative energy. "There is no change in the schedule and the cost for the plant."

The plant would split natural gas into hydrogen and the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2). The hydrogen would fire a 500 megawatt power plant, while the CO2 would be injected into oilfields. The plant itself would consume around 100 MW, leaving 400 MW to be sold into the UAE's power grid.

The injection of the gas under an oilfield would at the same time store the greenhouse gas and help boost oil output by maintaining underground pressure.

Preliminary engineering and design was completed by Foster Wheeler last year, David Binnie, general manager of Hydrogen Power, told Reuters.

Hydrogen Power expected to tender engineering and construction contracts and look for finance this year, Binnie said.

The financing for the project would be a combination of debt and equity.

"We are looking at commercial bank financing for the debt portion," he said without elaborating.

The project could be the first of its type - separating carbon dioxide before combustion, producing power with low carbon emissions, and capturing carbon, Binnie said.

Some 1.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide would be captured per year.

Natural gas for the project would be supplied by state firm Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). The power generated would be sold to the state-run Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority (Adwea), he said.

Hydrogen Power would also have a small-scale desalination plant for the firm's own use, he said.

Abu Dhabi's Masdar owns 60 percent of the Hydrogen Power project, while BP owns 40 percent. Rio Tinto sold a 20 percent share in the project to BP in December.

The plant would be located in Shuweihat on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE.

Abu Dhabi is the world's third-largest oil exporter. Masdar is a government-funded initiative that aims to prepare the UAE for a future beyond oil.

(Additional reporting by Luke Pachymuthu; editing by Simon Webb and Amanda Cooper)


[Green Business]
MIAMI
Mon Jan 18, 2010 7:14pm EST
U.S. group sends solar-powered Bibles to Haiti
MIAMI (Reuters) - As international aid agencies rush food, water and medicine to Haiti's earthquake victims, a U.S. faith-based group is sending Bibles to Haitians in their hour of need.

Not any Bible. These are solar-powered audible Bibles that can broadcast the holy scriptures in Haitian Creole to 300 people at a time.

Called the "Proclaimer," the audio Bible delivers "digital quality" and is designed for "poor and illiterate people," the Faith Comes By Hearing group said. It added 600 of the devices were already on their way to Haiti.

The Albuquerque-based organization said it was responding to the Haitian crisis by "providing faith, hope and love through God's Word in audio."

With tens of thousands of Port-au-Prince residents living outdoors because their homes have collapsed or they fear aftershocks from Tuesday's quake, the audio Bible can bring them "hope and comfort that comes from knowing God has not forgotten them through this tragedy," the group said on its website.

"The Proclaimer is self-powered and can play the Bible in the jungle, desert or ... even on the moon!" said the website www.faithcomesbyhearing.com/.

(Writing by Anthony Boadle, editing by Pascal Fletcher)


[Green Business]
Krittivas Mukherjee
NEW DELHI
Mon Jan 18, 2010 12:50pm EST
U.N. panel re-examines Himalayan glacier thaw report
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The U.N. panel of climate scientists said Monday it was reviewing a report containing a little-known projection that Himalayan glaciers might vanish by 2035, a finding trenchantly criticized by the Indian government.

The 2007 U.N. panel report says global warming could cause the Himalaya's thousands of glaciers to vanish by 2035 if current warming rates continue.

"We are looking into the issue of the Himalayan glaciers, and will take a position on it in the next two or three days," Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told Reuters in an e-mail.

Other experts have said the 10 major Asian rivers the glaciers feed could go dry in the next five decades.

Hundreds of millions of people in India, Pakistan and China would be affected.

Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh Monday questioned the findings of the 2007 report.

"They are indeed receding and the rate is cause for great concern, Ramesh said of the glaciers, but he told reporters the 2035 forecast was "not based on an iota of scientific evidence."

Other experts have said the 2035 projection was not based on peer-reviewed science. In London, The Times newspaper said the Indian scientist who first made the Himalayan thaw projection in 1999 now acknowledged it was "speculation."

Flaws in IPCC reports can be damaging since the findings are a guide for government policy. The IPCC's core finding in 2007 was that it was more than 90 percent sure that mankind is the main cause of global warming, mainly by using fossil fuels.

Ramesh said he had been accused of "voodoo science" in questioning the IPCC findings about the Himalayas in the past.

The IPCC's 2007 report said: "Glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate."

However, the report also said of the glaciers: "Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 sq km (193,000 to 38,600 sq miles) by the year 2035."

At the Copenhagen climate summit last month, Pachauri, an Indian citizen, strongly defended the IPCC's core findings after a scandal over emails hacked from the University of East Anglia in England.

In the email scandal, climate change skeptics accused researchers of colluding to suppress others' data.

Ramesh had said in November that a paper commissioned by the Indian government had found no conclusive evidence to link the retreat of Himalayan glaciers to climate change.

He said many of India's 9,500 Himalayan glaciers are shrinking, but some are shrinking at a slower rate or even increasing.

(Additional reporting by Alister Doyle in Oslo; Editing by Paul Tait)

news20100119reut3

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Guy Faulconbridge
MOSCOW
Tue Jan 19, 2010 4:15am EST
Putin allows Lake Baikal paper mill to reopen
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has decreed that a paper mill on the shores of Siberia's Lake Baikal can restart production despite years of complaints about pollution of the world's largest freshwater lake.

Putin, in a decree published on the government's website, allowed the plant to resume making pulp, paper and cardboard in the area surrounding the lake, about 5,000 km (3,100 miles) east of Moscow.

Controlled by indebted Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska, the Soviet-era plant on the southern tip of Baikal was mothballed in 2008 amid a row over pollution of the lake.

Environmental groups have long attacked the mill, saying it threatens the lake which harbors 1,500 species of animals and plants, including a unique type of freshwater seal.

Greenpeace said it was deeply concerned by the plans and that it would ask President Dmitry Medvedev to overturn Putin's decision.

"The Baikal Pulp and Paper plant is an ecologically dangerous enterprise," Greenpeace said in a statement. "It simply has no place on the shores of the sacred lake."

Putin, after personally inspecting the bed of Baikal last year, said that scientists had told him the mill does not harm the lake, which holds one fifth of the world's total surface fresh water and is revered as sacred by Siberian tribes.

The mill employs about 2,000 people and is the main employer in the town of Baikalsk, which has a population of 17,000. It also runs the only heating station in Baikalsk, where temperatures plunge to minus 30 Celsius in the winter.

"The plant does not pose a threat to the ecology of Lake Baikal so we warmly welcome ... (Putin's) decision," Oksana Gorlova, a spokeswoman for the paper plant, said by telephone.

"Almost every family in the town was connected to this enterprise so this decision was taken for the people of Baikalsk," said Gorlova. "Production will start this year."

The plant, built in the 1960s, is controlled by LPK Continental Management, part of Deripaska's Basic Element industrial group. The other 49 percent is owned by the state.

Situated in southeast Siberia, Baikal is the world's oldest and deepest lake, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, editing by David Stamp)