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[Today's Newspaper] fom [The Washington Post]

[Iran]
Crackdown In Iran Puts Mousavi in Tight Spot
Ahmadinejad, Allies Tighten Their Grip
By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 29, 2009

TEHRAN, June 28 -- With the opposition visibly weakening in Iran amid a government crackdown, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his supporters have begun to use his disputed victory in this month's election to toughen the nation's stance internationally and to consolidate control internally.

In recent days, they have vilified President Obama for what they call his "interventionist policies," have said they are ready to put opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi's advisers on trial and have threatened to execute some of the Mousavi supporters who took to the streets to protest the election result.

On Sunday, news agencies reported that the police broke up another opposition gathering -- witnesses said it numbered about 2,000 -- and detained eight British Embassy staff members, accusing them of a role in organizing the demonstrations.

The actions reflect the growing power of a small coterie of hard-line clerics and Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders, Iranian analysts say. Revolutionary Guard members, in particular, have proved instrumental to the authorities since the June 12 election, and analysts say their clout is bound to increase as the conflict drags on.

The emerging power dynamics leave Mousavi with tough choices. Confronted with increasing political pressure over what supporters of the government say is his leading role in orchestrating riots, he can either acknowledge his defeat and be embraced by his enemies or continue to fight over the election result and face imprisonment.

"Everything now depends on Mousavi," said Amir Mohebbian, a political analyst. "If he decreases the tension, politicians can manage this. If he increases pressure, the influence of the military and security forces will grow."

Should he continue to fight, other analysts say, Mousavi and many of his advisers could be jailed, which would mean the end of their political influence within Iran's ruling system. The exclusion of such a large group would end Iran's traditional power-sharing system. Authority would rest in the hands of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, and his supporters, leaving the parliament as the lone outpost of opposition voices.

On the other hand, accepting defeat might allow Mousavi to create a political party that, although unable to challenge the rule of Khamenei, could give him an opposition role during Ahmadinejad's second term. Mousavi's supporters, who are still enraged over post-election violence that they blame on the government, would be extremely disappointed by such a move.

The one possible wild card in Mousavi's favor seems to be coming from the holy city of Qom, one of the most influential centers of Shiite learning. There, several powerful grand ayatollahs have issued statements calling for a compromise and, most tellingly, have not joined Khamenei in his unequivocal support of Ahmadinejad.

"Events that happened have weakened the system," Grand Ayatollah Abdolkarim Mousavi Ardabili said during a meeting with members of the Guardian Council, the semiofficial Iranian Labor News Agency reported Saturday. "You must hear the objections that the protesters have to the elections. We must let the people speak."

Another grand ayatollah issued two fatwas, or religious edicts, on Saturday, saying Islam forbids security forces from hitting unarmed people. Grand Ayatollah Asadollah Bayat Zanjani said the protests were Islamic. "These gatherings are the lawful right of the people and their only method for informing the rulers of their requests," he said.

Mousavi and another opposition candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, have vehemently refused to recognize the election results, which officially gave Ahmadinejad a landslide victory. They have also declined to participate in recount efforts by the Guardian Council, which must certify the final results Monday but which the opposition insists is biased.

Their refusal plays into the hands of the president's camp, which, strongly supported by state media, has launched a campaign against Mousavi, the protesters and his advisers. According to the official narrative of this campaign, opposition unrest was fomented by Iran's foreign enemies -- including the United States, Great Britain and Saudi Arabia -- in an attempt to overthrow the regime.

The Iranian government and its allies are gearing up to use those accusations to bring to court some political opponents, a move aimed at silencing the opposition for a longer period, analysts here say. The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights said Sunday that more than 2,000 people are in detention and that hundreds more have gone missing since the election.

"We are very worried about my husband's fate," said Mahdieh Mohammadi, wife of journalist Ahmad Zeidabadi, a government critic. He was arrested the day after the election. "When you know nothing at all for the past two weeks, naturally you start to worry about everything."

State media have rolled out a daily serving of alleged plots and conspiracies involving Mousavi supporters. They refer to the protesters as "rioters" and "hooligans." Mousavi's aides are linked to plans for "a velvet revolution" meant to overthrow Iran's complex system of religious and democratic governance. Some demonstrators have been forced to make televised statements in which they admit to being the pawns of foreigners.

The head of the parliament's judicial commission has said that Mousavi could be put on trial. Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a staunch ally of Iran's supreme leader, called Friday for "severe and ruthless" punishments for the "leaders of the agitations," asking the judiciary to try them as those who "wage war against God." Such crimes are punishable by death under Iran's Shiite Islamic law.

Khamenei has said that those organizing the "riots" will be held responsible for the "violence and bloodshed." He has openly supported Ahmadinejad, breaking with the Islamic republic's tradition of the supreme leader being above the fray.

The Revolutionary Guard Corps, whose power mushroomed after the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, respectively, is in position to gain even more sway in the government. The 120,000-member corps acts as a praetorian guard, protecting Iran's Islamic ruling system, and its commanders are close to top Iranian leaders. In recent years, the corps has added divisions, expanded its intelligence operations, helped professionalize the voluntary militia known as the Basij and taken greater control of the borders.

"We are now in a security situation. That is increasing their influence," said Mohebbian, the analyst, who is critical of both main presidential candidates. "Mousavi's extremist actions have made it easy for military people to get involved in politics, which is always bad for democracy."

Former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an Ahmadinejad rival who supported Mousavi, on Sunday broke his post-election silence and called for an investigation into complaints of election irregularities.

"I hope those who are involved in this issue thoroughly and fairly review and study the legal complaints," Rafsanjani said.

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[Environment] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Climate Change]
Energy bills 'too low' to combat climate change
Royal Society report says current government policy is not enough to pay for green technology
Alok Jha
The Guardian, Monday 29 June 2009
Article history

Consumers will need to pay more for energy if the UK is to have any chance of developing the technologies needed to tackle climate change, according to a group of leading scientists and engineers.

In a Royal Society study to be published today, the experts said that the government must put research into alternatives to fossil fuel much higher among its priorities, and argued that current policy in the area was "half-hearted".

"We have adapted to an energy price which is unrealistically low if we're going to try and preserve the environment," John Shepherd, a climate scientist at Southampton University and co-author of the report said. "We have to allow the economy to adapt to higher energy prices through carbon prices and that will then make things like renewables and nuclear more economic, as carbon-based alternatives become more expensive."

Shepherd admitted higher energy costs would be a hard sell to the public, but said it was not unthinkable. Part of the revenue could be generated by a carbon tax that took the place of VAT, so that the cost of an item took into account the energy and carbon footprint of a product. This would allow people to make appropriate decisions on their spending, and also raise cash for research into alternatives.

"Our research expenditure on non-fossil energy sources is 0.2% of what we spend on energy itself," said Shepherd. "Multiplying that by 10 would be a very sensible thing to do. We're spending less than 1% on probably the biggest problem we've faced in many decades."

He said that the priority should be to decarbonise the UK's electricity supply. Measures such as the government's recent support for electric cars, he said, would be of no use unless the electricity they used came from carbon-free sources.

Though the creation of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) was a good move, Shepherd said: "We've had a lot of good talk but we still have remarkably little in the way of action."

He cited the recent DECC proposals on carbon capture and storage (CCS) as an example. The department plans to legislate that any new coal-fired power station must demonstrate CCS on a proportion of its output. Once the technology is proven, a judgment made by the EnvironmentAgency around 2020, power plants would have five years to scale up to full CCS.

Shepherd said the proposals were not bold enough. "Really, it needs to be 'no new coal unless you have 90% emissions reductions by 2020'. That is achievable and, if that were a clear signal, industry would get on and do it. It's taken a long time for that signal to come through and now that it has, it's a half-hearted message."

A spokesperson for DECC argued that its proposed regulatory measures were "the most environmentally ambitious in the world, and would see any new coal power stations capturing at least 20-25% of their carbon emissions from day one".

Ed Miliband, energy and climate change secretary, said that a white paper due next month will lay out how Britain will source its energy for the coming decades.

"This white paper will be the first time we've set out our vision of an energy mix in the context of carbon budgets and climate change targets. We have identified ways to tackle the challenges – we will need a mix of renewables, clean fossil fuels and nuclear and we're already making world-leading progress in those areas. It's a transition plan, a once in a generation statement of how the UK will make the historic and permanent move to a low-carbon economy with emissions cut by at least 80% in the middle of the century."

The Royal Society report will argue that energy policy has been too fragmented and short-term in its outlook, with a tendency to hunt for silver-bullet solutions to climate change. "That really isn't the case. What we need is a portfolio of solutions, horses for courses," said Shepherd.


[Conservation]
Map of elephant DNA reveals trail of ivory smugglers
Robin McKie, science editor
The Observer, Sunday 28 June 2009
Article history

Scientists have used a revolutionary genetic technique to pinpoint the area of Africa where smugglers are slaughtering elephants to feed the worldwide illegal ivory trade.

Using a DNA map of Africa's elephants, they have found that most recent seizures of tusks can be traced to animals that had grazed in the Selous and Niassa game reserves on the Tanzania and Mozambique borders.

The discovery suggests that only a handful of cartels are responsible for most of the world's booming trade in illegal ivory and for the annual slaughter of tens of thousands of elephants. The extent of this trade is revealed through recent seizures of thousands of tusks in separate raids on docks in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan. These were aimed at satisfying the far east's growing appetite for ivory, a new status symbol for the middle classes of the region's swelling industrialised economies.

As a result, ivory prices have soared from $200 a kilogram in 2004 to more than $6,000. At the same time, scientists estimate that between 8% and 10% of Africa's elephants are now being slaughtered each year to meet demand.

"In the past, law enforcement agencies - including Interpol - thought these shipments of ivory had been put together by traders cherry-picking small stockpiles across Africa," said Professor Sam Wasser, director of the University of Washington's Centre for Conservation Biology, where the DNA elephant map was developed.

"Our work shows that isn't true. The vast majority of poaching is being carried out by a few big organisations - possibly one or two major syndicates - that are targeting one area and then hammering its elephants. It is grim, but it also suggests we can target our anti-poaching efforts very specifically by focussing efforts on these regions."

At present, Tanzania is at the centre of the world's ivory slaughter. However, other work by Wasser and his team indicates that different areas, including parts of Zambia and Malawi, have been targeted in the recent past.

Ivory poaching was halted by an international campaign in the 1990s after it reached a peak between 1979 and 1989, when more than 700,000 elephants were killed for their tusks. However, aid that helps African nations fight poachers has dried up and the illegal ivory trade has returned to its previous high levels.

Killing for tusks is a particularly gruesome trade. Elephants are highly 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 tusks. "Our estimates suggest that more than 38,000 elephants were killed using techniques such as this in 2006 and that the annual death rate is even higher today," said Wasser.

His team's technique - outlined in the current issue of Scientific American - involves two separate sets of analyses. First, volunteers and researchers across Africa collected samples of elephant dung. Each contains plentiful amounts of DNA from cells, sloughed from the intestines of individual animals. These provide material for DNA fingerprints, which have since been mapped for the whole of Africa. Animals from one area have very similar DNA fingerprints, the researchers have found.

As part of the second analysis, a section of tusk seized from smugglers is ground up and its DNA is carefully extracted. Again a DNA fingerprint is made and compared with those on the dung map, in order to pinpoint the origin of the elephant.

In this way, Wasser and his colleagues analysed ivory seized when more than 11 tonnes of tusks were found in containers in raids on Taiwan and Hong Kong docks in July and August 2006. About 1,500 tusks were discovered and all were traced to elephants from the Selous game reserve, a Unesco heritage site in Tanzania, and the nearby Niassa game reserve in Mozambique. However, Japanese authorities - who had made another seizure of ivory that summer in Osaka - refused to co-operate and have since burnt the 260 tusks they found before their origins could be established. "You can draw your own conclusions," said Wasser.

Since then, major seizures of ivory have been made in Vietnam and the Philippines, both this year, and Wasser and his team are now preparing to use their DNA map to trace its origins.

"Ivory is now traded globally in the same illegal manner as drugs and weapons," said Wasser. "It is shameful that this has happened and we need to press the countries whose elephants are being targeted this way and get them to halt this trade."

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[Environment] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment]
China recruits algae to combat climate change
Chinese firm behind ambitious plan to breed microalgae in greenhouse with the potential to absorb carbon emissions
Jonathan Watts in Langfang
The Guardian, Monday 29 June 2009
Article history

The garish gunk coursing through a greenhouse filled with transparent pipes appears to belong on the set of a particularly slimy episode of Star Trek.

Multiplying rapidly as it flows through tubes, stacked 14 high in four long rows, the organism thickens and darkens like the bioweapon of a deranged scientist.

But this is not a science fiction horror story, it is one of humankind's most ambitious attempts to recruit algae in the fight against climate change.

Developed by a groundbreaking Chinese firm, ENN, the greenhouse is a bioreactor that breeds microalgae, one of the fastest growing organisms on the planet, with carbon captured from gasified coal.

China is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, largely because it relies on coal for 70 per cent of its power. Almost none of the carbon dioxide is captured, partly because there is no profitable way of using it.

Algae may be the answer. The organism can absorb carbon far more quickly than trees, a quality that has long attracted international scientists seeking a natural method of capturing the most abundant greenhouse gas.

At ENN's research campus in Langfang, an hour's drive from Beijing, scientists are testing microalgae to clean up the back-end of a uniquely integrated process to extract and use coal more efficiently and cleanly than is possible today.

Coal is first gasified in a simulated underground environment. The carbon dioxide is extracted with the help of solar and wind power, then "fed" to algae, which can be then used to make biofuel, fertiliser or animal feed.

Foreign experts are enthusiastic. "Algae biofuels and sequestration are being tried in a bunch of places, but never with such an innovative energy mix," said Deborah Seligsohn, of the World Resources Institute, who visited ENN recently with a group of international energy executives. "It is really interesting and ambitious."

Researchers at the algae greenhouse plan to scale up the trial to a 100 hectare (247 acre) site over the next three years. If it proves commercially feasible, coal plants around the world could one day be flanked by carbon-cleaning algae greenhouses or ponds.

"Algae's promise is that its population can double every few hours. It makes far more efficient use of sunlight than plants," said Zhu Zhenqi, a senior advisor on the project. "The biology has been proven in the lab. The challenge now is an engineering one: We need to increase production and reduce cost. If we can solve this challenge, we can deal with carbon."

The algae must be harvested every day. Extracting the oily components and removing the water is expensive and energy intensive.

ENN is experimenting with different algae to find a hybrid that has an ideal balance of oil content and growth speed. It is testing cultivation techniques using varying temperatures and acidity levels.

Algae tests are also being carried out at the University of Ohio. In Japan, algae is farmed at sea where it absorbs carbon from the air. Elsewhere carbon is sprayed or bubbled into algae ponds. But ENN is focusing on a direct approach.

"Here we can control it, like in a reactor," said Gu Junjie, a senior advisor. "Theoretically we can absorb 100% of carbon dioxide emissions through a mix of microalgae and chemical fixing with hydrogen."

This might work on a large scale in the northern deserts of Inner Mongolia, where land is cheap, plentiful and in need of fertiliser. But elsewhere, application may be limited because of the large areas of land or water needed for cultivation.

"Algae is not likely to be the main solution for the carbon problem because of the amount of CO2 that needs to be consumed," said Ming Sung, Chief Representative for Asia Pacific of Clean Air Task Force. But, he said: "Algae is part of the solution and is closer to what nature intends. Being one of the simplest forms of life, all it takes is light and CO2 in salt water,"

The advanced algae, solar and coal gasification technology is the latest stage in the rise of ENN, which has been spectacular even by modern Chinese standards. Founded in 1989 as a small taxi company, it has branched successfully into the natural gas industry and now into the field of renewable energy. The private company now employs about 20,000 people, and owns a golf course and hotel near its headquarters in Hebei province, where a new research campus is under construction.

In the short term, ENN's advanced underground coal gasification technology is likely to prove more significant than its algae work. This technique enables extraction of fuel from small, difficult-to-access coal seams, and could double the world's current coal reserves. It also avoids the release of the pollutants sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide.

The company is also one of only a small handful in the world capable of mass producing thin-film solar panels, which can be manufactured with less water and energy than conventional photovoltaic materials. Late last year, the World Bank's International Financing Corporation announced a US$136m loan for ENN's solar business.

ENN executives have talked to the US department of energy about joint research , a sign that the transfer of low-carbon technologies is no longer a one-way street from west to east.

The development of the algae technology trails the others, but Zhu says the results from the 10,000 litre algae greenhouse have been sufficiently encouraging to move ahead.

For the 100 hectare test facility, ENN is looking at sites near the company's 600,000 tonne-a-year coal mine in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, where the cold winters will require a heated greenhouse, and a location on Hainan Island, where the hot weather would allow the algae to be grown more cheaply in open ponds, but further away from China's main coal deposits.

With China building the equivalent of more than one new 500MW coal-fired plant every week and likely to be dependent on coal for at least two decades, the further studies planned by ENN could be crucial.

Recognising the continued role of the fossil fuel in China, the European Commission proposed a plan this week to co-finance a demonstration coal plant that aims to have near zero emissions through the use of carbon capture and storage technology.

If members states and the European parliament agree on the €50m plan, the facility would be operational by 2020.

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[Environment] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Business > BP]
BP shuts alternative energy HQ
• 'Beyond Petroleum' boast in doubt as clean energy boss quits
• Renewables budget will be reduced by up to £550m this year
Terry Macalister
The Guardian, Monday 29 June 2009
Article history

BP has shut down its alternative energy headquarters in London, accepted the resignation of its clean energy boss and imposed budget cuts in moves likely to be seen by environmental critics as further signs of the oil group moving "back to petroleum".

But Tony Hayward, the group's chief executive, said BP remained as committed as ever to exploring new energy sources and the non-oil division would benefit from the extra focus of being brought back in house.

BP Alternative Energy was given its own headquarters in County Hall opposite the Houses of Parliament two years ago and its managing director, Vivienne Cox, oversaw a small division of 80 staff concentrating on wind and solar power.

But the 49-year-old Cox – BP's most senior female executive, who previously ran renewables as part of a larger gas and power division now dismantled by Hayward – is standing down tomorrow.

This comes alongside huge cuts in the alternative energy budget – from $1.4bn (£850m) last year to between $500m and $1bn this year, although spending is still roughly in line with original plans to invest $8bn by 2015.

The move back to BP's corporate headquarters at St James's Square in London's West End made sense, particularly when the group was sitting on spare office space due to earlier cutbacks, said Hayward.

"We are going through a major restructuring and bringing the alternative energy business headquarters into the head office seems a good idea to me.

"It saves money and brings it closer to home ... you could almost see it as a reinforcement [of our commitment to the business]," he said.

Cox was stepping down to spend more time with her children, Hayward added. "I know you would love to make a story out of all this," he said, "but it's quite hard work."

The reason for the departure of Cox is variously said by industry insiders to be caused by frustration over the business being downgraded in importance or because she really does intend to stay at home more with her young children. Cox had already reduced her working week down to three days and had publicly admitted the difficulty of combining different roles.

She will be replaced by another woman, her former deputy Katrina Landis, but the moves will worry those campaigning for more women in business, especially as Linda Cook, Shell's most senior female executive, has recently left her job too.

BP has gradually given up on plans to enter the UK wind industry and concentrated all its turbine activities on the US, where it can win tax breaks and get cheaper and easier access to land.

In April the company closed a range of solar power manufacturing plants in Spain and the US with the loss of 620 jobs and Hayward has publicly questioned whether solar would ever become competitive with fossil fuels, something that goes against the current thinking inside the renewables sector.

Hayward has also moved BP into more controversial oil areas, such as Canada's tar sands, creating an impression that he has given up on the objectives of his predecessor, Lord Browne, to take the company "Beyond Petroleum".


[Business]

Nuclear industry accused of hijacking clean energy forum
Critics say France is using debate about where to base new Irena global renewables body to co-opt organisation
Terry Macalister
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 28 June 2009 14.52 BST
Article history

The nuclear power industry has been accused of trying to muscle in on plans to establish a global body to represent the renewable energy industry at a key meeting in Egypt tomorrow.

France – a major user and exporter of nuclear technologies – is accused by critics of trying to win the top job inside the renewable organisation so it can move the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) towards being a promoter of "low-carbon" technologies – including atomic power.

The talks in Sharm el-Sheikh are already threatening to become a major standoff between Germany and the United Arab Emirates over which country should win the right to have the headquarters of Irena based in its country.

France, which recently signed a nuclear co-operation agreement with the UAE, is supporting Abu Dhabi. It also wants one of its own civil servants, Hélène Peloss, to be given the top role.

Britain, which only signed up for membership on Friday, has given no indication whether it plans to cast its vote in favour of Bonn or Abu Dhabi, while the US is expected to join Irena in Egypt and then lend its support to Germany.

Karsten Sach, an official in the German environment ministry with responsibility for Irena, said he was "very optimistic" that his country would be chosen but he refused to be drawn on the competition with Abu Dhabi or the role of France.

"I think we have an excellent offer in terms of experience, policy frameworks and vibrant research but we are not campaigning against any other offer," he argued.

Bonn is considered by many to be the more obvious location because the renewables agency was the brainchild of the Germans, who have led the way in the clean technology sector through its determined championing of solar power. The promoters of Bonn are also suggesting that the Danish renewables policy expert Hans Jørgen Koch should be chosen as director general.

But Abu Dhabi, in the UAE, is pushing its claims to host Irena by emphasising its new commitment to clean technology through the construction of the hugely ambitious, low-carbon Masdar City project. It is also arguing that a developing country rather than the west is better placed to pursue the vital north-south dialogue needed to beat global warming.

At previous planning meetings for Irena, the French have talked about "low-carbon" technologies, encouraging speculation about its ultimate motives.

Eric Martinot, a senior research director with the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies in Tokyo, and a former environment specialist at the World Bank, told the Huffington Post, an online newspaper, that the French manoeuvres should be resisted.

"An Irena located in Abu Dhabi under such circumstances would be 'nuclear tainted' because the negotiating process used to select a host country would be based on support for nuclear power," said Martinot.

"Are the original goals of Irena being co-opted so that renewables become a mere appendage to a nuclear agenda? 'Sprinkling some renewables on top of our nuclear power'?" he asked.

More than 100 countries have signed up to the new organisation, although the US and China have yet to do so. Sach said he was hopeful that the US might join in Egypt and that China would eventually come on board.

The renewable agency will have a mandate to disseminate knowledge, develop regulatory framework and to actively promote the widespread adoption of renewable energy technologies around the world.

It comes ahead of vital new talks in Copenhagen at the end of this year about how to tackle global warming and amid excitement that the US and China are finally starting to play more constructive roles compared with the past.

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[Environment] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Fishing]
French fishermen hit back at stars' bid to save bluefin tuna
Threat to livelihood sparks anger in Mediterranean port as celebrities campaign over plight of species
Jason Burke in Marseille
The Observer, Sunday 28 June 2009
Article history

It has been a long few weeks for captain Jean-Louis Donnarel and the crew of the Provence-Côte d'Azur II. Long, rough and not very profitable. After sailing a total of 6,600 nautical miles - first to Cyprus, then the length of the Egyptian coast, to Malta, around the Balearics and then home - the Provence-Côte d'Azur II returned with 84 tonnes of bluefin tuna, a catch that will barely cover the costs of the voyage.

"We found fish on the last day," Donnarel said last week. "Without that, we would have been finished. Someone has to take a decision. Do they want us to fish or not? If not, they should put us out of our misery."

Donnarel and his crew are at the sharp end of an increasingly bitter row: one that links globally known restaurants, top celebrities, huge international conglomerates, sushi shops and supermarkets across half the world to the livelihoods of a few thousand fishermen.

At stake is the survival of the bluefin tuna, a single specimen of which can be sold for tens of thousands of dollars - a price that has seen stocks decline in some areas by up to 90%.

This month Sienna Miller, Elle Macpherson, Jemima Khan, Sting and others signed a letter to Nobu, a famous upmarket restaurant chain part-owned by Robert De Niro, threatening a boycott of their favourite haunt. Stephen Fry, one of the celebrity campaigners, wrote: "It's astounding lunacy to serve up endangered species for sushi. There's no justification for peddling extinction, yet that is exactly what Nobu is doing in restaurants around the world."

The restaurant has so far refused to take it off the menu, citing its cultural importance in Japan and "enormous demand", but the battle goes on. According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Atlantic bluefin will be wiped out in three years unless radical action is taken.

Meanwhile, fishermen such as Donnarel are unimpressed by the celebrity-inspired pressure on their livelihoods. "We have become hooligans, bandits," said Donnarel. "Tuna fishing has become politically incorrect and we are pariahs. Once it was fine to fish; now it isn't."

With their 40-metre, £3m boats, the vast nets used to encircle and sweep up entire schools of tuna making their way into the Mediterranean, and their apparent disregard for the limits the EU have previously tried to impose, the French fishermen have been cast as the villains of the piece. The fishermen themselves are very defensive - angry with consumers, governments, conservationists and the EU. Few speak to the press.

And they are now being closely watched. When this year's season ends next week, France's fleet of tuna boats will have fished less than its quota of just over 3,000 tonnes. After seriously exceeding limits in previous years, a huge operation involving French navy ships, observers and constant monitoring of a boat's position and catch has meant "total control and total transparency", according to Bertand Wendeling, spokesmen for the 11 tuna boats working out of the French port of Sète.

Even the campaign groups agree that there have been "steps in the right direction", but they also say it may too little. too late.

Tuna fishing is managed by the Madrid-based International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas. Conservationists claim the body is primarily interested in protecting the fishing industries of its 45 member countries and they also allege that is ignores its own scientists' recommendations, setting quotas twice as high as those believed necessary to allow the bluefin to survive.

The EU has agreed that catches must be cut by 30% by 2010, but conservationists say this will not be enough to prevent the eventual "collapse" of stocks to levels from which recovery will be impossible.

"The real problem is not going to be solved by more controls," François Chartier, a French Greenpeace campaigner, said. "It is only going to be solved by better management. Both the number and the size of the bluefin currently fished remain in serious decline. There's not much time left."

The fishermen, while doubting the scientists' figures, know the boom times are over. For decades, prices for bluefin and other species such as the more common skipjack have risen and EU funds flowed into the industry. That was then.

"It's as if someone gave you a permit to build a house, helped you build it and then told you to knock it down," said Virginie Donnarel, the fisherman's daughter. "These are family businesses that employ scores of people. If they want to close us down, so be it. But it's only right that we are properly compensated."

The environmentalists deny claims that "coastal communities" need to be protected, alleging that many of the crews are recruited in Morocco or Benin and paid a pittance. Donnarel's crew, however, is all French. "Some of these guys can barely read or write. They will need proper retraining and new jobs," he said.

In fact, the big money is largely made by the major conglomerates that buy the Mediterranean tuna for export to the far east. Though the EU may be cracking down, many other fishing countries are not. Turkey, which has a large if inefficient fleet, is asking for a higher quota next year.

The one bright spot for the likes of Donnarel is the skipjack. Unlike the slow-breeding bluefin tuna, skipjack is smaller and spectacularly fecund: the "chicken of the seas" is most likely to be the tuna in your tin or sandwich. But it is a world away from the bluefin.

"As long as people want to eat bluefin, someone will fish it," said Donnarel. "It just probably won't be me."


[Climate Change]
Victory on climate change boosts president's position
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
The Observer, Sunday 28 June 2009
Article history

The epic battle over universal health care is still to be fought, but Barack Obama moved to capitalise on a defining moment of his presidency yesterday - a vote in Congress to act on global warming - saying the time had arrived for America to show international leadership on climate change.

The White House shifted the topic of Obama's address from healthcare to energy after the vote, seeking to build momentum for the ambitious climate change bill ahead of its next hurdle in the Senate. The first round, in the house of representatives on Friday night, barely went to Obama. The Democratic leadership, despite making concessions to dissidents from oil and coal states, eked out only a 219-212 victory. A total of 44 Democrats opposed the bill.

But environmentalists claimed the vote as a milestone: the first time either house of Congress had acted to reduce the carbon emissions that cause climate change. It was also a validation of Obama's powers of persuasion. The president put energy reform at the heart of his White House agenda and jumped into a furious lobbying effort for its passage.

In his video address, Obama sought to bring home Friday night's victory, calling on the Senate to approve the bill so that America could catch up to the rest of the world in moving to a cleaner energy economy.

"We have seen other countries realise a critical truth: the nation that leads in the creation of a clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the 21st-century global economy," he said. "Now is the time for us to lead."

The international community had been waiting for America to take action on climate change and the vote gave a boost to efforts to reach a deal to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change.

India, a key player in the negotiations to reach a deal at Copenhagen, gave a cautious welcome. "Obviously having the US take the lead on climate change would have a significant impact on the current multilateral negotiations," India's climate change envoy said. "We would hope that the US will lead with ambitious actions."

Environmentalists, who had despaired during eight years of George Bush of ever seeing action on climate change, said the bill, though weaker than they might have liked, was still a signature achievement.

"The fact is, just weeks ago, few in Washington believed that this day would come to pass. The best bet - the safe bet - was that after three decades of failure, we couldn't muster the political will to tackle the energy challenge despite the necessity and urgency of action," Obama said on Friday night.

The bill would gradually impose a ceiling on the carbon emissions that cause global warming, ultimately cutting them by 83% from 2005 levels by 2050 by forcing industries to obtain permits for the emissions they release in the atmosphere, or to buy offsets by investing in cleansing projects like planting trees.

The bill would also compel utility companies to obtain a share of their electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar.

The biggest weakness in the bill is its target of cutting carbon emissions by 17% from 2005 levels by 2020, which represents only a marginal reduction compared with Europe.

However, Greenpeace opposed the package, saying it had been badly weakened by the concessions made to win over conservative Democrats from oil and coal states.

news20090629NT

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 28 June 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.603
News
Spooky computers closer to reality
Solid-state quantum processing demonstrated.
Katharine Sanderson

The computers of tomorrow could be quantum not classical, using the quantum world's strange properties to vastly increase memory and speed up information processing. But making quantum computing parts from standard kit has proved difficult so far.

Now physicist Leonardo DiCarlo of Yale University, New Haven, and his colleagues have made the first solid-state quantum processor, using similar techniques to the silicon chip industry. The processor has used programs called quantum algorithms to solve two different problems. The work is published in Nature¹.

Classical systems use a series of 0s and 1s, or bits, to convey information. Two bits, for example can be combined as either 00, 11, 01 or 10. But quantum systems have a property called superposition, where all these combinations can exist at once. This vastly increases the amount of information that can be stored and the speed at which it can be processed.

Quantum bits, or qubits, can also be entangled — the state of one qubit influences the state of another even at a considerable distance. A quantum computer would use entangled qubits to process information.

Solid work

Quantum algorithms have been processed before, but only in exotic systems using lasers or ions suspended with strong magnets. To make something more similar to a computer, a solid-state system is needed.

DiCarlo made his device out of two transmon qubits. These are tiny pieces of a superconducting material consisting of a niobium film on an aluminium oxide wafer with gaps etched into it. A current can 'tunnel' across these gaps — another special property of the quantum world, where waves and particles can cross barriers without breaching them. The two qubits are separated by a cavity that contains microwaves, and the whole system connected to an electric current.

(“The appeal of our processor is that it is an all-solid-state device.”
Leonardo DiCarlo
Yale University)

"The appeal of our processor is that it is an all-solid-state device," says DiCarlo. It was made using standard industrial techniques. But the analogy with ordinary computers shouldn't be overstretched, he cautions — the device works at just a fraction of a degree above absolute zero and requires special refrigeration technology.

The researchers controlled the system using a microwave 'tone' with a frequency that causes the qubits to become entangled. A voltage pulse is then applied to control how long the two qubits remain entangled and in their superpositional state. Longer entanglement allows the qubits to process more complex problems.

DiCarlo was able to keep the qubits entangled for a microsecond, which is the state of the art, he says.

Qubit calling

The system processed two algorithms written specially for quantum systems.

The first is Grover's search algorithm, also known as the reverse phone book search, where someone's number is known but not the name. The processor essentially reads all the numbers in the phone book at once to find the single correct answer. "At the end the qubit will be in one state, not superposed, and that's the answer," says DiLorio.

The second, more simple, algorithm, the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm, tests whether the flip of a coin is fair or not.

DiCarlo's processor got the reverse phone book search right an impressive 80% of the time and the coin-flip algorithm right about 90% of the time.

To read out the answer, DiCarlo used a microwave tone at the same frequency as the cavity in the system. "Depending what state the qubit is in, the cavity will resonate at a certain frequency. If the tone is transmitted through the cavity, we know it's in the right state," he says.

But this technique could not read out the answer in a system with many more qubits, says quantum-computing expert Hans Mooij from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. The development of the processor is good news Mooij adds. "This is a necessary step," he says. "If this can be done, the next thing can be done."

DiCarlo is cautious. "We've made a very simple quantum processor," he says. "It's by no means a quantum computer."

He is working to give the processor more qubits, and so more processing power. He thinks that scaling up to three or four quibits will be relatively straightforward, but beyond that the problem becomes a lot harder, and the coherence time needed will be very difficult to attain. Mooij agrees: "From three or four to ten they will need to make a big step again."

References
1. DiCarlo, L. et al, Nature, doi:10.10383/nature08121 (2009)

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[Today's Paper] from [Slate Magazine]

Military Coup Shakes Up Honduras
By Daniel Politi
Posted Monday, June 29, 2009, at 6:53 AM ET
The Los Angeles Times (LAT) leads with the Honduran army ousting President Manuel Zelaya and forcing him into exile in Costa Rica yesterday. Soldiers stormed the presidential palace early in the morning, hours before a controversial referendum was set to begin that could have paved the path to rewriting the country's constitution to potentially allow presidential reelection. It was the first military coup in Central America in 16 years. "This has been a brutal kidnapping," Zelaya said at the airport in San Jose, Costa Rica, where he was still wearing his pajamas. Leaders throughout the Americas condemned the coup. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) leads its world-wide newsbox with the latest from Iran, where nine Iranian employees of the British Embassy were arrested. Iranian media tried to portray the British Embassy employees as instrumental players in the recent unrest. Meanwhile, security forces forcefully beat back thousands of protesters in Tehran. The Washington Post (WP) also leads with Iran but focuses on taking a look at how opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi faces a tough choice now in choosing whether to continue contesting the election at a time when leaders in Tehran are consolidating their power.

The New York Times (NYT) leads with President Obama calling the energy bill that passed the house on Friday an "extraordinary first step," but he criticized a measure that would impose tariffs on imports from countries that do not impose limits on carbon dioxide emissions. "At a time when the economy worldwide is still deep in recession and we've seen a significant drop in global trade, I think we have to be very careful about sending any protectionist signals out," Obama said. USA Today (USAT) goes across its front page with a look at how Michael Jackson was preparing for the 50 shows he was scheduled to give at London's O2 arena. The night before he died, Jackson rehearsed at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, and those who witnessed it say they saw hints of the old Jackson on stage. While some say he looked underweight, they insist he was energetic and didn't appear to be sick as he put on the finishing touches to what everyone expected would be his comeback.

Zelaya called his ouster a "brutal kidnapping," and the Organization of American States called for an emergency meeting. President Obama said he was "deeply concerned" and called on Honduran politicians to "respect democratic norms." Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a close ally of the Honduran president, said the coup was carried out by "the bourgeoisie and the extreme right." Lawmakers and Army leaders had opposed the referendum, and the Supreme Court had ruled that it was illegal. The WSJ hears word that it was the Supreme Court that gave the order to the military to detain the president. Despite the worldwide condemnation, the Honduran Congress officially voted Zelaya out of office and named congressional leader Roberto Micheletti to the presidency.

The WP hears word that the Obama administration plans to work with the Organization of American States to restore Zelaya to power, but "a senior Honduran official" says it's unlikely that the new government will be giving up its new power very easily. Regardless, analysts say it's important for Obama to strongly condemn the coup and insist on the reinstatement of Zelaya, even if U.S. officials share concerns that he might have been following Chavez's example of using the ballot box to hold on to power. At the very least, if Obama speaks strongly on the issue it should help take some attention away from Chavez. "This would prevent Chávez from stealing the show," one expert tells the WSJ.

Early morning wire stories reveal that a spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry said five of the Iranian British Embassy employees have been released, and four are still being held for questioning. Despite the recent brutal crackdown on demonstrators, thousands still flowed to the streets on Sunday only to be met, once again, by security forces that used tear gas and batons to disperse the crowds.

The WP states that the recent unrest in Iran has allowed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to consolidate control and grant more power to a small group of hard-line clerics and Revolutionary Guard commanders. Mousavi must now choose between continuing to fight the election results and likely face imprisonment or accept his defeat and become a strong opposition force inside the government. If he accepts defeat, he would certainly anger supporters, but if he doesn't it's likely that he and his advisers would be jailed. The WP says that the "one possible wild card in Mousavi's favor" could come from the holy city of Qom, where several grand ayatollahs are calling for compromise and have pointedly refused to support Ahmadinejad. Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani broke his post-election silence. While the WP and NYT interpret Rafsanjani's words as support for the demonstrators, the WSJ calls it a "double-edged comment that chilled expectations he might play an influential role in favor of the opposition."

The WP fronts at how General Electric has become the biggest beneficiary of a government program to help out banks. The world's largest industrial company has been able to save billions of dollars by raising money at lower interest rates, as part of the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program. GE Capital "has issued nearly a quarter of the $340 billion in debt backed by the program," notes the paper. Although GE's huge financing arm isn't a bank, it was able to take advantage of a loophole that the Obama administration is now trying to close. So far, GE has been able to essentially "live in the best of both worlds," as the WP puts it, because it can take advantage of the federal safety net while also avoiding the stricter regulations that banks have to endure.

The LAT fronts the death of Billy Mays, the well-known infomercial pitchman who hawked OxiClean stain remover, Orange Glo, Mighty Putty, and a host of other items, died at his home yesterday. He was 50. The cause of death is not known. On Saturday afternoon, Mays was on a flight that had a rough landing, apparently due to a ruptured tire. Mays told a local TV station he was struck hard on the head by a falling object during the landing. "I hate to say it, but the king is dead," Anthony Sullivan, an infomercial veteran who has worked with Mays, said.

news20090628BRT

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]
June 28



[On This Day] from [Britannica]
June 28



[Today's Word] from [Dr. Kazuo Iwata]
June 28
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves.
Jean Jacques Rousseau (born this day in 1712)
（人間は自由に生まれながら、あらゆるところで鎖につながれている。
自然はけっしてわれわれを騙さない。自分自身を欺くものは、つねにわれわれである。）

news20090628JT1

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Aso leaning toward early August election
LDP executives may also be reshuffled to boost poll numbers

(Kyodo News) As speculation grows over the timing of the next general election, Prime Minister Taro Aso began moving Saturday toward holding it in early August, coalition sources said.

On Saturday night, Aso met with Hiroyuki Hosoda, the secretary general of his Liberal Democratic Party, to discuss election matters. What they concluded was not immediately clear.

"It is almost certain that Prime Minister Aso will dissolve the Lower House sometime in July. I would like to ask him whether he plans to dissolve the chamber soon or wait for various bills to be passed," Hosoda told reporters in Nara Prefecture before the meeting.

Hosoda has repeatedly said that he hopes high-profile bills, including one to revise the Organ Transplant Law and another to allow Japan to inspect North Korean cargo ships on the high seas, get past the Diet before Aso dissolves the Lower House.

Even so, Hosoda said he wouldn't try to push the issue with Aso.

According to the sources, Aso is apparently considering dissolving the House of Representatives in early or mid-July to hold the pivotal election on Aug. 2 or Aug. 9.

Aso himself floated the idea of holding an August election in a meeting Friday night with Akihiro Ota, leader of New Komeito, the ruling LDP's junior coalition partner, the sources said.

Despite New Komeito's repeated requests not to hold the election close to the July 12 Tokyo assembly race, Aso told Ota it would be difficult to keep the Tokyo assembly election and the general election more than a month apart, the sources said. Tokyo is New Komeito's power base.

Aso also said Thursday at a news conference that his call to dissolve the Lower House would come "in the not-so-distant future."

On Friday, he suggested the time frame for the remark covered up to around two months.

"What impression do you get if I say 'in the not-so-distant future?' I don't think one month is so distant. I don't think two months are also so distant," Aso told reporters. "I will make the decision on the timing (for the dissolution) at an appropriate time."

Aso's remarks were perceived as a way for testing the waters for a July dissolution before the Tokyo assembly election and a general election in early August.

The sources also said Aso is considering reshuffling the LDP's leadership as early as Thursday, after the Cabinet approves a ceiling for fiscal 2010 budget requests on Wednesday.

The reshuffle is aimed at refreshing the LDP's image before the election, the sources said.

According to the lawmaker, Aso plans to replace Secretary General Hosoda, Policy Research Council Chairman Kosuke Hori and General Council Chairman Sasagawa. But Aso will let Election Strategy Council Chairman Makoto Koga stay in his post, the lawmaker said.

DPJ targets budget
The Democratic Party of Japan will freeze some of the measures in the supplementary budget for fiscal 2009 if it becomes the ruling party, DPJ leader Yukio Hatoyama said Saturday.

Speaking in Sapporo, Hatoyama said the opposition-leading party would review the supplementary budget, which has been approved by the Diet, and that some of the measures would be frozen if deemed unnecessary.

"It will be difficult to stop the policy measures that are already being implemented, but we will slam the brakes on things that aren't necessary," Hatoyama said.

The party will submit a revised supplementary budget to the Diet to allocate funds for measures that are effective and important, he said.

As an example, Hatoyama said that some of the budget should be spent on welfare payments for single-parent households instead of building a new media center in Tokyo to promote animation and art. The welfare payments were terminated in April.

A bill being sponsored by the opposition to resume state welfare payments for single-parent households cleared the House of Councilors on Friday.

It is unlikely to clear the Diet, however, because the ruling bloc, which controls the powerful Lower House, opposes it.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Sunday, June 28, 2009
North threatens to shoot spy planes

SEOUL (AP) North Korea threatened Saturday to shoot down any Japanese planes that intrude into its airspace, accusing Tokyo of spying near one of its missile sites.

The North has designated a no-sail zone off its eastern coast lasting from Thursday to July 10 for military drills, raising concerns it might test-fire short- or mid-range missiles in the coming days in violation of a U.N. resolution.

North Korea's air force said Japan's E-767 surveillance aircraft conducted aerial espionage near the Musudan-ri missile site on its northeast coast Wednesday and Thursday.

The country's official mouthpiece, the Korean Central News Agency, said the air force "will not tolerate even a bit the aerial espionage by the warmongers of the Japanese aggression forces but mercilessly shoot down any plane intruding into the territorial air of the (North) even 0.001 mm."

Officials of the Air Self-Defense Force were not immediately available for comment Saturday.

The threat against the alleged aerial espionage is rare, although the North has regularly complained of U.S. spy missions in its airspace.

Japan is very sensitive to North Korea's missile programs, as its islands lie within easy range. In 1998, a North Korean missile flew over Honshu. Tokyo has since spent billions of dollars on developing a missile shield with the United States and has launched a series of spy satellites primarily to watch developments in North Korea.

But in April, another rocket flew over the island, drawing a strong protest from Tokyo. Pyongyang claims it put a satellite into orbit.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Toyota to work on weekends

NAGOYA (Kyodo) Toyota Motor Corp. will resume weekend production in July to meet strong demand for the remodeled Prius hybrid car, company officials said Saturday.

Toyota resumed overtime work in June but has decided it needs to operate its Prius plant in Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, on July 11 to catch up with brisk demand for the gasoline-electric car, the officials said. Toyota canceled weekend work hours last December.

"We'd like to improve as soon as possible the situation where purchasers are waiting for delivery," a Toyota official said.

Orders for the car, unveiled in May, have already hit 200,000 so far. The new cars are expected to be delivered in February, at the earliest.

Weekend production had been suspended as part of efforts to adjust output to deal with the global depression in the automobile market.

Toyota Auto Body Co., a Toyota manufacturing unit, will also operate its plant in the city of Kariya on July 11 and its plant in Inabe, Mie Prefecture, on July 4 and 11, the officials said.

The Kariya plant, which is also in Aichi, produces the new Prius, while the Inabe factory manufactures the Alphard and Vellfire minivans.

The Alphard and Vellfire are selling well.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Sato's call to freeze Japan Post IPOs challenges privatization

(Kyodo News) Internal affairs minister Tsutomu Sato urged Japan Post Holdings Co. on Friday to freeze its initial public offerings of shares in itself and two of its subsidiaries planned for fiscal 2010.

"No one believes stock offerings are appropriate," Sato told a news conference.

The government ordered Japan Post in April to improve its business practices following several scandals, including its aborted sale of the Kampo no Yado resort inn network.

"I doubt if it should consider the matter while carrying out business improvements over the next one year," the minister said.

Sato touched on the IPO freeze for the first time since taking the helm of the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry.

He succeeded Kunio Hatoyama, who resigned June 12 to protest Prime Minister Taro Aso's decision to allow Yoshifumi Nishikawa to retain the Japan Post presidency, despite the scandals.

Sato's remarks on the IPO freeze are expected to prompt calls to reconsider the privatization of the postal system, which started in October 2007 with its breakup into Japan Post as a holding company and four subsidiaries under it.

Sato had earlier called for re-examining the privatization process, which is planned to take 10 years.

Japan Post has plans to list itself and two subsidiaries — Japan Post Bank Co. and Japan Post Insurance Co. — in fiscal 2010 at the earliest. Japan Post is required under law to release all shares in the two subsidiaries by September 2017. The government is set to retain an equity stake of at least one-third in the holding company even after its IPO.

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

[ENVIRONMENT]
Sunday, June 28, 2009
OUR PLANET EARTH
Priorities and politics 'must change fast' to head off global calamity
By STEPHEN HESSE

The 19th-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer declared: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident."

Reading the most recent book by James Gustave Speth, Dean of the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, brings these words repeatedly to mind.

As one of America's leading environmentalists, Speth's writings attract great attention — especially given his other roles as founder of the World Resources Institute and co-founder of the the Natural Resources Defense Council, two of Washington's most respected environmental organizations.

Speth was also chair of the Council on Environmental Quality under U.S. President Jimmy Carter, headed the U.N. Development Programme, and received the Asahi Glass Blue Planet Prize in 2002.

His most recent work — described by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as "the most compelling plea we have for changing our lives and our politics" — is titled "The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability" (2008, CQ Press). There, Speth spells out the great challenges humanity faces and his thoughts on how to overcome them. The Japanese translation is due out this fall.

"All of us who have been part of the environmental movement in the United States must now face up to a deeply troubling paradox: Our environmental organizations have grown in strength and sophistication, but the environment has continued to go downhill, to the point that the prospect of a ruined planet is now very real. How could this have happened?" Speth said in an article last autumn — asking a question that also applies to environmentalism worldwide.

The situation, he declares, is bad.

"Half the world's tropical and temperate forests are now gone. The rate of deforestation in the Tropics continues at about an acre a second, and has for decades. Half the planet's wetlands are gone. An estimated 90 percent of the large predator fish are gone, and 75 percent of marine fisheries are overfished or fished to capacity. Almost half the corals are gone or seriously threatened.

"Species are disappearing at rates about 1,000 times faster than normal. Desertification claims a Nebraska-sized area of productive capacity each year globally [an area only 15 percent smaller than the size of Honshu].

"Persistent toxic chemicals can now be found by the dozens in essentially each and every one of us," he writes.

Most people have heard such facts and figures before, but Speth is as well aware of our successes as our failures. Indeed, it is this objectivity that makes him such a thoughtful voice for change.

"All we have to do to destroy the planet's climate and biota and leave a ruined world to our children and grandchildren is to keep doing exactly what we are doing today, with no growth in human population or the world economy. Just continue to generate greenhouse gases at current rates; just continue to impoverish ecosystems and release toxic chemicals at current rates; and the world in the latter part of this century won't be fit to live in.

"But human activities are not holding at current levels — they are accelerating, dramatically. The size of the world economy has more than quadrupled since 1960, and is projected to quadruple again by mid-century. It took all of human history to grow the $7-trillion world economy of 1950. We now grow by that amount in a decade," he explains.

The problem is clear, according to Speth: Modern capitalism is out of control. We have come to believe that, given enough time and space, continuous economic growth will make all 6.5 billion of us better off materially, socially, politically and spiritually.

But, as he notes in "The Bridge at the Edge of the World," our planet remains finite. Both time and space conspire against our pursuit of unlimited growth.

Indeed, growth has become the overarching belief system of humanity.

"Communism aspired to become the universal creed of the 20th century, but a more flexible and seductive religion succeeded where communism failed: the quest for economic growth. Capitalists, nationalists — indeed almost everyone, communists included — worshipped at this same altar because economic growth disguised a multitude of sins," notes historian J.R. McNeill, one of dozens of authorities Speth enlists in this work.

Thinking back to Schopenhauer, those who worship free-hand capitalism and laissez-faire government will ridicule and oppose Speth. But for those seeking an even-handed look at the shortcomings of the status quo, "The Bridge at the End of the World" offers a cogent and well- documented journey through our past, present and future(s).

Speth peels back the many layers of our global societal onion: the workings of the market and contemporary environmentalism; our addiction to growth, consumption and corporations; studies confirming that even as a nation's Gross Domestic Product rises, life satisfaction remains level; and the seeds for transformation we already possess — but must take up and plant — including new ways of doing business and new politics.

The last time I spoke with Speth was at Yale in 2004, just after his book "Red Sky at Morning" was published. This time we talked by e-mail, and I asked if any of his observations in the new book have been altered by the recent financial meltdown.

"The economic collapse serves to further delegitimize the current order, and opens the door further to fundamental challenges. For decades, anti-regulation market fundamentalists have argued with increasing success against government interference in the economy. As a result, investor, consumer and environmental protection have all been weakened far past the danger point. Thanks to the crisis, we may be able to say goodbye to that era," he replied.

Asked what role he would like to see Japan play in the coming decade, Speth offered several suggestions.

"I would like to see Japan pioneer in becoming a post-growth society, as described in the book. The world also needs Japanese leadership in three upcoming areas: in negotiating a post-Kyoto climate agreement; in making the Biodiversity Convention succeed in protecting biodiversity (the upcoming meeting of convention members will be in Japan, hosted by the government); and in seeking to reform the process of global environmental governance, which today is deplorably weak, much weaker than global economic governance. I describe this last need in 'Red Sky at Morning,' " he said.

China is a different story.

"Like the United States, China is a huge problem for the global environment. The good news is that the Chinese authorities now know this, I believe, and understand that their domestic environmental challenges are intimately linked to their global ones, and that there are new industries and products to be built solving both," Speth noted.

I suspect he would agree with Schopenhauer's progression of truth, but in his book he chooses the greater optimism of Mahatma Gandhi: "First they laugh at you, then they ignore you, then they fight you, then you win," quotes Speth.

Speth is one of this generation's keenest observers and potential reformers. He sees "we're headed toward a ruined planet" — but he is also committed to finding solutions, to finding another path, one that "leads to a bridge across the abyss."

"The Bridge at the Edge of the World" offers no promises, but as Speth develops his case against status-quo capitalism, growth at all costs, and misguided governance, he maintains guarded optimism that we can change direction.

To do so, though, will require a concerted change in our priorities and practices. If we don't, we are very likely to end up where we are headed.

news20090628JT3

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Jackson enjoyed loyal following in Japan
By YURI KAGEYAMA
The Associated Press

Despite years of child molestation accusations and deep financial difficulties, Michael Jackson could always count on one nation for unquestioning fan loyalty and lucrative advertising deals — Japan.

His death in Los Angeles on Thursday at age 50 shook the country. Many Japanese TV channels switched to special programming, and a major online retailer was flooded with orders for Jackson's recordings. The government's top spokesman and other ministers expressed their condolences.

"He was a superstar. It is an extremely tragic loss. But it is fantastic he was able to give so many dreams and so much hope to the people of the world," said health minister Yoichi Masuzoe.

Jackson chose Japan — the biggest pop music market in Asia — as the place to make his first public appearance since being acquitted of molestation charges in 2005, a delicate period in his career when his marketability began tanking.

At a ceremony in Tokyo in 2006, Jackson choked up before fans screaming "I love you" as he accepted the Japan MTV "Legend Award." He later visited an orphanage on a trip largely untarnished by the bad press he had received back home.

Japan has long been famous for the royal treatment it gives visiting foreign musicians, and the courteous and deferential coverage it gives to American celebrities. Reports of Jackson's court proceedings didn't fascinate the Japanese as much as his high-spending late-night shopping spree at an electronics store and his visits to Tokyo Disneyland after the park had closed.

Steve McClure, the former Tokyo bureau chief for Billboard magazine, said Japanese fans are fiercely loyal, even with stars who have fallen from grace elsewhere, and that was likely an attraction for Jackson.

He often visited Japan and showed a lot of affection for his fans there; he often became tearful when met with emotional displays from cheering Japanese crowds.

Jackson definitely saw Japan as a good source of income. He sold 4 million Top 10 records, making him the top-selling foreign male artist in Japan. He also appeared in TV commercials for Suzuki scooters and Sony TVs.

Fans displayed the depth of their love — and pockets — for Jackson in 2007 by hosting a ¥400,000 a plate buffet dinner for the star, who appeared but did not perform at the event. Four hundred fans took in performances by several Japanese Jackson impersonators and got their pictures taken with the man himself.

"Japan is one of my favorite places to visit in the world," Jackson said when he appeared on stage at the end of the six-hour party just long enough to express his gratitude. The fee for his appearance was never disclosed.

Perception — however unfair and condescending — is widespread in the music industry that Japanese audiences are unsophisticated and will pay big bucks for any music, including that produced by acts that have failed or lost popularity in the West.

"He was milking Japan for what it was worth because he still had these pretty dedicated fans who apparently didn't mind parting with money to just have the privilege of being in the same room as him," said McClure, who now produces an online music industry magazine, McClure's Asia Music News. "He couldn't do it in the States."

Tatsuro Yagawa, spokesman for Tower Records Japan, which set up special areas to showcase Jackson's music Friday, said sales of Jackson's music contributed greatly to the success of his business.

"We have scored massive sales thanks to him. He is one of the greatest artists in history," Yagawa said.

The retailer said CD sales began picking up following news of his death.

Upon hearing of the King of Pop's death, 44-year-old office worker Michiaki Koiso rushed out to buy a Jackson compilation album.

"I couldn't do anything else," he said sadly in Tower Records in downtown Tokyo.

Jackson was to embark on a comeback tour next month in London. No Japanese dates had been announced.

"I was hoping he would come again to Japan someday," Koiso said.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Use of medical helicopters surged to more than 5,600 flights in 2008

(Kyodo News) Medical helicopters flew 5,635 times in fiscal 2008 ended this March, or more than six times more than when Japan launched aeromedical services in 2000, a medical society reported Saturday.

The number of hospitals participating in the service rose to 18 from only five in the first year, but expanding that will require more finances and medical staff, the Japanese Society for Aeromedical Services said.

An aeromedical helicopter costs about ¥170 million a year to operate, a sum that is paid by the central and municipal governments. The government has earmarked enough funds for six more helicopters in fiscal 2009.

But the subsidies are far short of what is necessary because the government's estimate of how often they are used is far below reality, and this is starting to make other hospitals reluctant about participating in the service, the society said.

An aeromedical helicopter can cover an area with a 50-km radius in 15 minutes.

Compared with ambulances, helicopters shorten response times by an average of 26 minutes, which reduces fatalities by 27 percent.

news20090628LAT

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

[Top News]
Governor's last stand: his way or IOUs
Schwarzenegger's high-stakes strategy could close the budget abyss or cause a meltdown of state government.
By Michael Rothfeld and Evan Halper
10:57 PM PDT, June 27, 2009

Reporting from Sacramento -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, seeking to conquer what could be the last budget crisis of his tenure, is engaged in a high-stakes negotiating strategy with lawmakers that could force him to preside over a meltdown of state government.

As legislators have scrambled to stop the state from postponing payment of its bills and issuing IOUs starting next week, the governor has vowed to veto any measure that fails to close the state's entire $24-billion deficit.

In doing so, Schwarzenegger has sent the message that he would rather allow the state to begin shutting down than let lawmakers push its troubles off for months by closing only part of the shortfall. The latter prospect could swallow up the rest of his governorship.

"Whatever needs to be done," Schwarzenegger told reporters outside his Capitol office Friday when asked why he would be willing to delay payments to needy Californians. "I know that there is a history in this building of always being late with the budget, to drag it out and to kick that can down the alley. . . . I don't think we have this luxury this time."

The governor readily admits that he sees the crisis as a chance to make big changes to government -- to "reform the system," he said Friday -- with proposals he has struggled to advance in the past.


Among them: reorganizing state bureaucracy, eliminating patronage boards and curbing fraud in social services that Democrats have traditionally protected. The governor also would like to move past the budget crisis to reach a deal on California's water problems that has so far eluded him.

By agreeing to a partial budget solution such as one the Assembly approved Thursday, the governor would lose leverage to accomplish many of those things. Without the pressure of imminent insolvency, Democrats might be less likely to agree to his demands.

But if his strategy fails, he could be blamed for unnecessarily subjecting state residents to misery.

"I don't believe the governor wants his legacy to be that he had the opportunity to avoid IOUs for Californians and that he failed to take it because he wanted to play a game of chicken," Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said last week.

California Controller John Chiang has announced that on Thursday he will begin issuing IOUs on the scale of $3 billion a month, delaying payments to college students, welfare recipients, the elderly, the blind and the disabled. The state is on track to run out of cash by the end of July.

The governor has pushed lawmakers to move with urgency, but he has also made clear that his two priorities are ensuring that the state will not raise taxes, as it did in February, and that it closes the whole deficit in one shot.

The Assembly approved measures totaling $5 billion Thursday that would have cut education funding and deferred some expenses, extending the timeline before the state would run out of money. But the Senate rejected the proposal before it reached the governor's desk, so he did not have to exercise a veto, as he had promised to do.

Even if he had, said Bruce Cain, professor of political science at UC Berkeley, the time is ripe for Schwarzenegger to take a gamble: The governor has no obvious designs on future office that might require him to be cautious, and voters who rejected tax hikes in May's election appear to support his approach. In any case, Cain said, most Californians will see those to be hurt by IOUs as vendors and "overpaid state employees," not themselves.

"The reality of what these cuts he is pushing for will mean hasn't hit home with the public yet," Cain said. "They see him standing up to unions and trying to cut all the waste and fraud. . . . Until the middle class bleeds in a way they care about, Arnold has the upper hand."

In this final year before he becomes a lame duck, the governor has attempted to use the budget standoff to burnish the kind of legacy he originally sought, as a populist change agent who promised to control California's finances, "blow up the boxes" of Sacramento's bureaucracy and attack the Capitol's sacred cows.

"We must use this crisis as an opportunity to make government more efficient, which is a much better option than raising your taxes," Schwarzenegger said in a radio address this weekend.

In past years, his plans ran into opposition organized largely by well-funded labor groups and Democrats, who say his proposals are really meant to strangle government. Now he is newly armed with negotiating power over Democratic lawmakers desperate to preserve state programs.

Back on the governor's demand list is a plan to cut the pensions received by state workers, which unions have stymied before but which he thinks may gain traction with a cash-strapped public. Schwarzenegger also views this as an ideal time to once again target growth and fraud in the state's multibillion-dollar in-home healthcare program, which employs 300,000 unionized workers.

His agenda includes anti-fraud efforts and tougher enrollment requirements for the state's food stamp programs, efforts that advocates for the poor say are designed to discourage people from participating. In his radio address, he said the state and counties could get by with a "fraction" of the 27,000 workers now handling eligibility for Medi-Cal and food stamps by using Web-based enrollment.

Schwarzenegger has revived plans to allow local school districts to contract out for services like school bus transportation and lawn maintenance, a proposal favored by the GOP but despised by school employee unions.

Gary Jacobson, a professor of political science at UC San Diego, said Schwarzenegger has put himself at risk of antagonizing the public by holding out for some of these ideas while forcing deep cuts and forswearing new taxes that could alleviate some of the pain.

"When it hits people how much damage this budget has done, they are going to say, 'So what that he got some of these things through? Look at what he has done to us in the meantime. State parks are closed. Classrooms are huge. People are being thrown out of the hospital. Medical clinics are shutting down,' " Jacobson said.

"When all this hits," he added, "it is going to be hard to imagine people will look on him favorably because he got some of the structural reforms he wanted."

news20090628NYT1

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

[World]
U.S. and Russia Differ on a Treaty for Cyberspace
By JOHN MARKOFF and ANDREW E. KRAMER
Published: June 27, 2009

The United States and Russia are locked in a fundamental dispute over how to counter the growing threat of cyberwar attacks that could wreak havoc on computer systems and the Internet.

Both nations agree that cyberspace is an emerging battleground. The two sides are expected to address the subject when President Obama visits Russia next week and at the General Assembly of the United Nations in November, according to a senior State Department official.

But there the agreement ends.

Russia favors an international treaty along the lines of those negotiated for chemical weapons and has pushed for that approach at a series of meetings this year and in public statements by a high-ranking official.

The United States argues that a treaty is unnecessary. It instead advocates improved cooperation among international law enforcement groups. If these groups cooperate to make cyberspace more secure against criminal intrusions, their work will also make cyberspace more secure against military campaigns, American officials say.

“We really believe it’s defense, defense, defense,” said the State Department official, who asked not to be identified because authorization had not been given to speak on the record. “They want to constrain offense. We needed to be able to criminalize these horrible 50,000 attacks we were getting a day.”

Any agreement on cyberspace presents special difficulties because the matter touches on issues like censorship of the Internet, sovereignty and rogue actors who might not be subject to a treaty.

United States officials say the disagreement over approach has hindered international law enforcement cooperation, particularly given that a significant proportion of the attacks against American government targets are coming from China and Russia.

And from the Russian perspective, the absence of a treaty is permitting a kind of arms race with potentially dangerous consequences.

Officials around the world recognize the need to deal with the growing threat of cyberwar. Many countries, including the United States, are developing weapons for it, like “logic bombs” that can be hidden in computers to halt them at crucial times or damage circuitry; “botnets” that can disable or spy on Web sites and networks; or microwave radiation devices that can burn out computer circuits miles away.

The Pentagon is planning to create a military command to prepare for both defense and offensive computer warfare. And last month, President Obama released his cybersecurity strategy and said he would appoint a “cybersecurity coordinator” to lead efforts to protect government computers, the air traffic control system and other essential systems. The administration also emphasizes the benefits of building international cooperation.

The Russian and American approaches — a treaty and a law enforcement agreement — are not necessarily incompatible. But they represent different philosophical approaches.

In a speech on March 18, Vladislav P. Sherstyuk, a deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council, a powerful body advising the president on national security, laid out what he described as Russia’s bedrock positions on disarmament in cyberspace. Russia’s proposed treaty would ban a country from secretly embedding malicious codes or circuitry that could be later activated from afar in the event of war.

Other Russian proposals include the application of humanitarian laws banning attacks on noncombatants and a ban on deception in operations in cyberspace — an attempt to deal with the challenge of anonymous attacks. The Russians have also called for broader international government oversight of the Internet.

But American officials are particularly resistant to agreements that would allow governments to censor the Internet, saying they would provide cover for totalitarian regimes. These officials also worry that a treaty would be ineffective because it can be almost impossible to determine if an Internet attack originated from a government, a hacker loyal to that government, or a rogue acting independently.

The unique challenge of cyberspace is that governments can carry out deceptive attacks to which they cannot be linked, said Herbert Lin, director of a study by the National Research Council, a private, nonprofit organization, on the development of cyberweapons.

This challenge became apparent in 2001, after a Navy P-3 surveillance plane collided with a Chinese fighter plane, said Linton Wells II, a former high-ranking Pentagon official who now teaches at the National Defense University. The collision was followed by a huge increase in attacks on United States government computer targets from sources that could not be identified, he said.

Similarly, after computer attacks in Estonia in April 2007 and in the nation of Georgia last August, the Russian government denied involvement and independent observers said the attacks could have been carried out by nationalist sympathizers or by criminal gangs.

The United States is trying to improve cybersecurity by building relationships among international law enforcement agencies. State Department officials hold out as a model the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime, which took effect in 2004 and has been signed by 22 nations, including the United States but not Russia or China.

But Russia objects that the European convention on cybercrime allows the police to open an investigation of suspected online crime originating in another country without first informing local authorities, infringing on traditional ideas of sovereignty. Vladimir V. Sokolov, deputy director of the Institute for Information Security Issues, a policy organization, noted that Russian authorities routinely cooperated with foreign police organizations when they were approached.

This is not the first time the issue of arms control for cyberspace has been raised.

In 1996, at the dawn of commercial cyberspace, American and Russian military delegations met secretly in Moscow to discuss the subject. The American delegation was led by an academic military strategist, and the Russian delegation by a four-star admiral. No agreement emerged from the meeting, which has not previously been reported.

Later, the Russian government repeatedly introduced resolutions calling for cyberspace disarmament treaties before the United Nations. The United States consistently opposed the idea.

In late April, Russian military representatives indicated an interest in renewed negotiations at a Russian-sponsored meeting on computer security in Garmisch, Germany.

John Arquilla, an expert in military strategy at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., who led the American delegation at the 1996 talks, said he had received almost no interest from within the American military after those initial meetings. “It was a great opportunity lost,” he said.

Unlike American officials who favor tightening law enforcement relationships, Mr. Arquilla continues to believe in cyberspace weapons negotiations, he said. He noted that the treaties on chemical weapons had persuaded many nations not to make or stockpile such weapons.

The United States and China have not held high-level talks on cyberwar issues, specialists say. But there is some evidence that the Chinese are being courted by Russia for support of an arms control treaty for cyberspace.

“China has consistently attached extreme importance to matters of information security, and has always actively supported and participated in efforts by the international community dedicated to maintaining Internet safety and cracking down on criminal cyber-activity,” Qin Gang, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said in a statement.

Whether the American or Russian approach prevails, arms control experts said, major governments are reaching a point of no return in heading off a cyberwar arms race.

Cyberwar
Responding to a Growing Threat
Computers, indispensable in peace, are becoming ever more important in political conflicts and open warfare. This article is the sixth in a series examining the growing use of computer power as a weapon.

Privacy May Be a Victim in Cyberdefense Plan
By THOM SHANKER and DAVID E. SANGER
A plan to create a new Pentagon cybercommand is raising privacy and diplomatic concerns.
June 13, 2009

Contractors Vie for Plum Work, Hacking for U.S.
By CHRISTOPHER DREW and JOHN MARKOFF
The government’s push into cyberwarfare has set off a rush among big military companies to secure billions of dollars in contracts and attract top young talent.
May 31, 2009

Cadets Trade the Trenches for Firewalls
By COREY KILGANNON and NOAM COHEN
In cyberwar games conducted by military schools with the National Security Agency, hackers replace snipers.
May 11, 2009

Iranians and Others Outwit Net Censors
By JOHN MARKOFF
Computers are becoming more crucial in global conflicts, not only in spying and military action, but also in determining what information reaches people.
May 1, 2009

U.S. Steps Up Effort on Digital Defenses
By DAVID E. SANGER, JOHN MARKOFF and THOM SHANKER
A new international race has begun to develop cyberweapons and systems to protect against them.
April 28, 2009

news20090628NYT2

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

[World > Cyberwar]
Privacy May Be a Victim in Cyberdefense Plan
By THOM SHANKER and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: June 12, 2009

WASHINGTON — A plan to create a new Pentagon cybercommand is raising significant privacy and diplomatic concerns, as the Obama administration moves ahead on efforts to protect the nation from cyberattack and to prepare for possible offensive operations against adversaries’ computer networks.

President Obama has said that the new cyberdefense strategy he unveiled last month will provide protections for personal privacy and civil liberties. But senior Pentagon and military officials say that Mr. Obama’s assurances may be challenging to guarantee in practice, particularly in trying to monitor the thousands of daily attacks on security systems in the United States that have set off a race to develop better cyberweapons.

Much of the new military command’s work is expected to be carried out by the National Security Agency, whose role in intercepting the domestic end of international calls and e-mail messages after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, under secret orders issued by the Bush administration, has already generated intense controversy.

There is simply no way, the officials say, to effectively conduct computer operations without entering networks inside the United States, where the military is prohibited from operating, or traveling electronic paths through countries that are not themselves American targets.

The cybersecurity effort, Mr. Obama said at the White House last month, “will not — I repeat, will not — include monitoring private sector networks or Internet traffic.”

But foreign adversaries often mount their attacks through computer network hubs inside the United States, and military officials and outside experts say that threat confronts the Pentagon and the administration with difficult questions.

Military officials say there may be a need to intercept and examine some e-mail messages sent from other countries to guard against computer viruses or potential terrorist action. Advocates say the process could ultimately be accepted as the digital equivalent of customs inspections, in which passengers arriving from overseas consent to have their luggage opened for security, tax and health reasons.

“The government is in a quandary,” said Maren Leed, a defense expert at the bipartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies who was a Pentagon special assistant on cyberoperations from 2005 to 2008.

Ms. Leed said a broad debate was needed “about what constitutes an intrusion that violates privacy and, at the other extreme, what is an intrusion that may be acceptable in the face of an act of war.”

In a recent speech, Gen. James E. Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a chief architect of the new cyberstrategy, acknowledged that a major unresolved issue was how the military — which would include the National Security Agency, where much of the cyberwar expertise resides — could legally set up an early warning system.

Unlike a missile attack, which would show up on the Pentagon’s screens long before reaching American territory, a cyberattack may be visible only after it has been launched in the United States.

“How do you understand sovereignty in the cyberdomain?” General Cartwright asked. “It doesn’t tend to pay a lot of attention to geographic boundaries.”

For example, the daily attacks on the Pentagon’s own computer systems, or probes sent from Russia, China and Eastern Europe seeking chinks in the computer systems of corporations and financial institutions, are rarely seen before their effect is felt inside the United States.

Some administration officials have begun to discuss whether laws or regulations must be changed to allow law enforcement, the military or intelligence agencies greater access to networks or Internet providers when significant evidence of a national security threat was found.

Ms. Leed said that while the Defense Department and related intelligence agencies were the only organizations that had the ability to protect against such cyberattacks, “they are not the best suited, from a civil liberties perspective, to take on that responsibility.”

Under plans being completed at the Pentagon, the new cybercommand will be run by a four-star general, much the way Gen. David H. Petraeus runs the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq from Central Command in Tampa, Fla. But the expectation is that whoever is in charge of the new command will also direct the National Security Agency, an effort to solve the turf war between the spy agency and the military over who is in charge of conducting offensive operations.

While the N.S.A.’s job is chiefly one of detection and monitoring, the agency also possesses what Michael D. McConnell, the former director of national intelligence, called “the critical skill set” to respond quickly to cyberattacks. Yet the Defense Department views cyberspace as its domain as well, a new battleground after land, sea, air and space.

The complications are not limited to privacy concerns. The Pentagon is increasingly worried about the diplomatic ramifications of being forced to use the computer networks of many other nations while carrying out digital missions — the computer equivalent of the Vietnam War’s spilling over the Cambodian border in the 1960s. To battle Russian hackers, for example, it might be necessary to act through the virtual cyberterritory of Britain or Germany or any country where the attack was routed.

General Cartwright said military planners were trying to write rules of engagement for scenarios in which a cyberattack was launched from a neutral country that might have no idea what was going on. But, with time of the essence, it may not be possible, the scenarios show, to ask other nations to act against an attack that is flowing through their computers in milliseconds.

“If I pass through your country, do I have to talk to the ambassador?” General Cartwright said. “It is very difficult. Those are the questions that are now really starting to emerge vis-à-vis cyber.”

Frida Berrigan, a longtime peace activist who is a senior program associate at the New America Foundation’s arms and security initiative, expressed concerns about whether the Obama administration would be able to balance its promise to respect privacy in cyberspace even as it appeared to be militarizing cybersecurity.

“Obama was very deliberate in saying that the U.S. military and the U.S. government would not be looking at our e-mail and not tracking what we do online,” Ms. Berrigan said. “This is not to say there is not a cyberthreat out there or that cyberterrorism is not a significant concern. We should be vigilant and creative. But once again we see the Pentagon being put at the heart of it and at front lines of offering a solution.”

Ms. Berrigan said that just as the counterinsurgency wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had proved that “there is no front line anymore, and no demilitarized zone anymore, then if the Pentagon and the military services see cyberspace as a battlefield domain, then the lines protecting privacy and our civil liberties get blurred very, very quickly.”

news20090628NYT3

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

[World > Cyberwar]
Contractors Vie for Plum Work, Hacking for U.S.
By CHRISTOPHER DREW and JOHN MARKOFF
Published: May 30, 2009

MELBOURNE, Fla. — The government’s urgent push into cyberwarfare has set off a rush among the biggest military companies for billions of dollars in new defense contracts.

The exotic nature of the work, coupled with the deep recession, is enabling the companies to attract top young talent that once would have gone to Silicon Valley. And the race to develop weapons that defend against, or initiate, computer attacks has given rise to thousands of “hacker soldiers” within the Pentagon who can blend the new capabilities into the nation’s war planning.

Nearly all of the largest military companies — including Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon — have major cyber contracts with the military and intelligence agencies.

The companies have been moving quickly to lock up the relatively small number of experts with the training and creativity to block the attacks and design countermeasures. They have been buying smaller firms, financing academic research and running advertisements for “cyberninjas” at a time when other industries are shedding workers.

The changes are manifesting themselves in highly classified laboratories, where computer geeks in their 20s like to joke that they are hackers with security clearances.

At a Raytheon facility here south of the Kennedy Space Center, a hub of innovation in an earlier era, rock music blares and empty cans of Mountain Dew pile up as engineers create tools to protect the Pentagon’s computers and crack into the networks of countries that could become adversaries. Prizes like cappuccino machines and stacks of cash spur them on, and a gong heralds each major breakthrough.

The young engineers represent the new face of a war that President Obama described Friday as “one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation.” The president said he would appoint a senior White House official to oversee the nation’s cybersecurity strategies.

Computer experts say the government is behind the curve in sealing off its networks from threats that are growing more persistent and sophisticated, with thousands of intrusions each day from organized criminals and legions of hackers for nations including Russia and China.

“Everybody’s attacking everybody,” said Scott Chase, a 30-year-old computer engineer who helps run the Raytheon unit here.

Mr. Chase, who wears his hair in a ponytail, and Terry Gillette, a 53-year-old former rocket engineer, ran SI Government Solutions before selling the company to Raytheon last year as the boom in the military’s cyberoperations accelerated.

The operation — tucked into several unmarked buildings behind an insurance office and a dentist’s office — is doing some of the most cutting-edge work, both in identifying weaknesses in Pentagon networks and in creating weapons for potential attacks.

Daniel D. Allen, who oversees work on intelligence systems for Northrop Grumman, estimated that federal spending on computer security now totals $10 billion each year, including classified programs. That is just a fraction of the government’s spending on weapons systems. But industry officials expect it to rise rapidly.

The military contractors are now in the enviable position of turning what they learned out of necessity — protecting the sensitive Pentagon data that sits on their own computers — into a lucrative business that could replace some of the revenue lost from cancellations of conventional weapons systems.

Executives at Lockheed Martin, which has long been the government’s largest information-technology contractor, also see the demand for greater computer security spreading to energy and health care agencies and the rest of the nation’s critical infrastructure. But for now, most companies remain focused on the national-security arena, where the hottest efforts involve anticipating how an enemy might attack and developing the resources to strike back.

Though even the existence of research on cyberweapons was once highly classified, the Air Force plans this year to award the first publicly announced contract for developing tools to break into enemy computers. The companies are also teaming up to build a National Cyber Range, a model of the Internet for testing advanced techniques.

Military experts said Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics, which have long been major players in the Pentagon’s security efforts, are leading the push into offensive cyberwarfare, along with the Raytheon unit. This involves finding vulnerabilities in other countries’ computer systems and developing software tools to exploit them, either to steal sensitive information or disable the networks.

Mr. Chase and Mr. Gillette said the Raytheon unit, which has about 100 employees, grew out of a company they started with friends at Florida Institute of Technology that concentrated on helping software makers find flaws in their own products. Over the last several years, their focus shifted to the military and intelligence agencies, which wanted to use their analytic tools to detect vulnerabilities and intrusions previously unnoticed.

Like other contractors, the Raytheon teams set up “honey pots,” the equivalent of sting operations, to lure hackers into digital cul-de-sacs that mimic Pentagon Web sites. They then capture the attackers’ codes and create defenses for them.

And since most of the world’s computers run on the Windows or the Linux systems, their work has also provided a growing window into how to attack foreign networks in any cyberwar.

“It takes a nonconformist to excel at what we do,” said Mr. Gillette, a tanned surfing aficionado who looks like a 1950s hipster in his T-shirts with rolled-up sleeves.

The company, which would allow interviews with other employees only on the condition that their last names not be used because of security concerns, hired one of its top young workers, Dustin, after he won two major hacking contests and dropped out of college. “I always approach it like a game, and it’s been fun,” said Dustin, now 22.

Another engineer, known as Jolly, joined Raytheon in April after earning a master’s degree in computer security at DePaul University in Chicago. “You think defense contractors, and you think bureaucracy, and not necessarily a lot of interesting and challenging projects,” he said.

The Pentagon’s interest in cyberwarfare has reached “religious intensity,” said Daniel T. Kuehl, a military historian at the National Defense University. And the changes carry through to soldiers being trained to defend and attack computer and wireless networks out on the battlefield.

That shift can be seen in the remaking of organizations like the Association of Old Crows, a professional group that includes contractors and military personnel.

The Old Crows have deep roots in what has long been known as electronic warfare — the use of radar and radio technologies for jamming and deception.

But the financing for electronic warfare had slowed recently, prompting the Old Crows to set up a broader information-operations branch last year and establish a new trade journal to focus on cyberwarfare.

The career of Joel Harding, the director of the group’s Information Operations Institute, exemplifies the increasing role that computing and the Internet are playing in the military.

A 20-year veteran of military intelligence, Mr. Harding shifted in 1996 into one of the earliest commands that studied government-sponsored computer hacker programs. After leaving the military, he took a job as an analyst at SAIC, a large contractor developing computer applications for military and intelligence agencies.

Mr. Harding estimates that there are now 3,000 to 5,000 information operations specialists in the military and 50,000 to 70,000 soldiers involved in general computer operations. Adding specialists in electronic warfare, deception and other areas could bring the total number of information operations personnel to as many as 88,700, he said.