news20100611nn1

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[nature.com > naturenews]
Published online 10 June 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.291
News
Asteroid probe begins return from rendezvous
｛小惑星探査機、”イトカワ”とランデブーし、帰還開始｝

But is Japan's Hayabusa capsule carrying any precious asteroid dust?
By David Cyranoski
｛しかし、日本の「はやぶさ」のカブセルに貴重な小惑星の微粒子が採取されているか？｝

{{Japan's Hayabusa is on its way home after its rendezvous with Itokawa.}
Akihiro Ikeshita / Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency}

Yesterday in the south central Australian village of Woomera, Japanese scientists, with US and Australian colleagues, celebrated news from their Hayabusa spacecraft — the first round-trip space mission to an asteroid. Successful manoeuvres that day had put the spacecraft on course to parachute its recovery capsule into the nearby desert on 13 June. Anticipation will continue to build until the capsule's lid is opened, offering, they hope, the first peek at asteroid dust.

Scientists anticipate that such samples will provide greater knowledge of these 'little planets', shedding light on the beginnings of the Solar System, the origins of life on Earth (see 'Asteroid ice hints at rocky start to life on Earth') and the connection between asteroids and the tens of thousands of meteorites that have been found on Earth. "It could establish a bridge for the first time," says Michael Zolensky, a NASA scientist who will analyse some of the Hayabusa samples.

The original aim of Hayabusa was as a technical mission to test various engineering technologies, such as ion-thrust engines and autonomous navigation systems, needed for landing on an asteroid and returning to Earth. The spacecraft, launched in May 2003, landed on the 535-metre-long Itokawa asteroid twice in November 2005.

The mission is lucky to get this far, says Hajime Yano, a Hayabusa project scientist with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). After the spacecraft landed on Itokawa a second and final time, a massive fuel leak resulted in loss of communication for several months. Hayabusa's engines also experienced a range of problems, and its return was uncertain until 8 June, when its faltering thrusters completed the last necessary trajectory correction. "It's like a critical patient who can't walk well," says Yano. "Up until yesterday, anything could have happened."

Mission accomplished

Although three years behind schedule, the mission has achieved its major goals, and has already yielded scientific data about Itokawa's dimensions and composition, which will provide a benchmark for future asteroid studies.

The remaining mission goals are retrieving the sample-return capsule from the desert and analysing any samples within it. The capsule is a disk-shaped aluminium container about 40 centimetres in diameter, and is scheduled to separate from the craft on 13 June before entering Earth's atmosphere. "From their perspective, it's all gravy," says Scott Sandford, another NASA scientist working on the project. "Everything we're getting now is a bonus, but to me it's the most interesting part."

{“From their perspective, it's all gravy.”}

The incoming capsule has a radio beacon to signal its location, and infrared-detection devices on helicopters will also be used to find it. Even if these fail, monitoring stations will track the burning wreckage of Hayabusa through the atmosphere as a guide to the trajectory of the nearby capsule.

JAXA scientists will retrieve the capsule on 14 June, and by the end of the week, they hope to have it back in their laboratory in Sagamihara, just south of Tokyo. There they will first take X-ray images to estimate the amount of dust picked up — if any.

High hopes

Zolensky says they were originally hoping to have "spoonfuls, several grams of sample", made up of "chips like peanut-size grains". But sample collection didn't go as planned. Pellets designed to hit Itokawa to dislodge loose fragments seem not to have fired. "It's very likely we won't be able to see anything with the naked eye," says Makoto Yoshikawa, also a Hayabusa project scientist at JAXA.

Still, the scientists have high hopes. A hard impact on Hayabusa's first landing attempt on the asteroid is likely to have kicked up dust, says Yoshikawa. Hayabusa sat on the surface for 30 minutes after that. Zolensky agrees: "Just the fact that it landed should cover it in dust. The astronauts on the Moon got covered with dust just walking around. The mission team might not get grams, but they'll have something. With today's technologies, even microbe-sized particles should be enough."

On the basis of the X-ray results, the researchers will decide when and how to open the lid and distribute the contents between analysis and storage. Any dust that is found will be analysed over the next six months as scientists look at oxygen isotopes, helium content, water traces, and other clues that might provide insight into Itokawa's history. "We want to look at its elemental composition and structure," says Yoshikawa. "When this asteroid was born, what kind of matter was around? This will tell us about Earth and the Solar System."

news20100611nn2

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[nature.com > naturenews]
Published online 10 June 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.292
News
Global warming's impact on Asia's rivers overblown
｛地球温暖化の影響論、アジアの河川を誇大問題化｝

Freshwater flow dominated by monsoon rains rather than glacier run-off.
｛淡水の流量は、氷河からの流出よりもモンスーンの雨量によって左右される｝
By Richard A. Lovett

{Meltwater from glaciers makes a large contribution to the Indus river but not to all Asian rivers.}World Pictures/Photoshot}

Although global warming is expected to shrink glaciers in the Himalayas and other high mountains in Central Asia, the declining ice will have less overall impact on the region's water supplies than previously believed, a study concludes.

It's an important finding, says Richard Armstrong, a climatologist at the US National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, who notes that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had previously predicted dire restrictions on water supplies in Asia. "There clearly were some misunderstandings," he says.

The researchers behind the latest study began by calculating the importance of meltwater in the overall hydrology of five rivers: the Indus, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and the Yellow River and the Yangtze in China¹. The authors found that meltwater is most important to the Indus, with a contribution roughly 1.5 times that from lowland rains. In the Brahmaputra, meltwater flow is equivalent to only one-quarter of the volume supplied by lowland rainfall, and, in the other rivers, it forms no more than one-tenth of the input.

Furthermore, the study found that in the Indus and Ganges basins, glacial ice contributes only about 40% of the total meltwater, with the rest coming from seasonal snows. In the other three rivers its contribution is even lower.

High and dry?

That's important, says Walter Immerzeel, a hydrologist at FutureWater in Wageningen, The Netherlands, and lead author of the study¹, because Asian rivers are fed by three sources: rain, snow melt and melting glaciers.

The first two are driven by current weather patterns, because rains fall either as water or as snow that will later melt. The last is a carry-over from the build-up of glaciers in prior centuries. As the glaciers shrink, their contribution will also decline until the glaciers have either melted entirely, or stabilized at smaller sizes.

{“The glaciers are tiny, compared with the monsoon.”}

Climate change will therefore have two effects, Immerzeel says. One will be to reduce the contribution of glaciers to total run-off. The other will be to change weather patterns, including rain and snowfall. Combining these and looking at averages from five climate models, Immerzeel and colleagues concluded that the change in upstream water inputs will range from a decrease of 19.6% for the Brahmaputra to a 9.5% increase for the Yellow River. The latter, he notes, is due to increased winter rains. "The Yellow River depends only marginally on meltwater," he says, "and, on average, the models project an increase in winter precipitation in the Yellow River basin."

What this means, Armstrong says, is that river flows are dominated by seasonal rains. "The glaciers are tiny, compared with the monsoon," he says.

Nevertheless, the study concludes that climate change will reduce water supplies enough that by 2050, declines in irrigation water are likely to reduce the number of people the region's agriculture can support by about 60 million — 4.5% of the region's present population.

Model uncertainty

One caveat, Immerzeel notes, is that climate models don't fare well at simulating the effect of warming on Asian rainfall. "There's still a lot of research going into the effect of climate change on the behaviour of the monsoon," he says.

Further refinements will also come from improved mapping of the area's glaciers, something that Armstrong's team has recently started, using remote-sensing data from satellites. That's an important next step, he says, although he adds, "I don't think we'll have a substantially different result."

The findings are important for policy-makers, says Jeffrey Kargel, a glaciologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "This paper adds to mounting evidence that the Indus Basin [between India and Pakistan] is particularly vulnerable to climate change," says Kargel. "This is a matter that obviously concerns India and Pakistan very much."

"The two nations must talk to one another and see that it is in their mutual best interests to arrive at an equitable means of sharing and utilizing water," he adds.

References
1. Immerzeel, W. W. , van Beek, L. P. H. & Bierkens, M. F. P. Science 328, 1382-1385 (2010).


[nature.com > naturenews]
Published online 10 June 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.290
News
The Sun as comet snatcher
｛太陽、誘拐犯？｝

Most of the Solar System's comets may have been stolen from other stars.
｛太陽系の彗星のほとんどが、他の系外の星から侵入したものか？｝
By Lucas Laursen

{{Comets in the Sun's Oort cloud may be stolen goods.}
DR SETH SHOSTAK / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY}

New simulations suggest that the Sun may have captured more than its fair share of comets from the primordial star-forming soup. The study, led by Harold Levison of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, seeks to account for the abundance of comets in the outer reaches of the Solar System.

Our Solar System's comets spend most of their time between roughly 5,000 and 100,000 times further away from the Sun than the Earth, in a little-understood region beyond the planets known as the Oort cloud. Occasionally, some zip past the inner Solar System, and a rare few, such as Halley's Comet, return on a regular basis. But the origin of even the most well known comets is something of a mystery.

An influential model of how the Solar System formed predicts that around 6 billion comets in the Oort cloud are home-grown¹. But some astronomers estimate that there are as many as 400 billion comets surrounding the Solar System — a discrepancy that researchers have struggled to explain.

Now the Levison study suggests that these mystery comets may actually have formed around other stars during the first moments of star formation. "Our Sun is a relatively heavy star," explains Ramon Brasser, a co-author of the study, which appears online in Science today². When material such as gas, dust and ice began to find gravitational dancing partners, our Sun may have been massive enough to skim spare comets from its more lightweight neighbours.

Stolen goods

Levinson and colleagues are not the first to suggest that some comets may be from beyond the Solar System. A team examined the possibility in a 1990 study, but concluded that the Sun's pull was not sufficient to attract enough comets³. "They did not have the computing power to do the simulation we have done," Brasser says.

Brasser and his colleagues built a computer model in which many stars form near one another in a stellar cluster. In the simulation, each star spawns planetary objects including comets, some of which settle into orbits occupying an extended scattered disk around the star and others of which are ejected into the wider gas cloud enveloping the cluster. About 3 million years into the simulation, the gas surrounding the newly formed stars collapses into each solar system, and most of the free-floating comets find homes around one of the stars. During subsequent flybys with other stars, the simulation shows the Sun snags enough comets to account for its present collection.

However, running such a detailed simulation required the astronomers to make many assumptions about solar system formation, which introduce large uncertainties into the picture. "The most vulnerable assumption is that extended scattered disks would actually exist at the early time considered," says Hans Rickman of Uppsala Astronomical Observatory in Sweden. Extended scattered disks, a hypothetical home for comets in orbit around stars, have not been directly observed, nor do theorists agree on how they form, Rickman says. In one recent model, the disk does not form until 1 billion years after the beginning of a solar system.

Brasser says the simulation also had to assume that all stars have the same number of comets because solid numbers are not available. "People will have difficulty with this assumption," he admits. And for lack of more information, the authors write in the paper that they assumed that other solar systems have a distribution of large planets (whose mass influence cometary orbits) similar to our own.

Even the more widely accepted estimates of the number of comets in the Oort cloud could be too high, Rickman says, and a later formation of the cloud could make it easier to fill with home-grown comets. All the uncertainty, he says, "makes me think there does not have to be any problem at all".

References
1. Levison, H. F. & Duncan, M. J. Icarus 127, 13 (1997).
2. Levison, H. F. , Duncan, M. J. , Brasser, R. & Kaufmann, D. E. Science published online, doi: 10.1126/science.1187535 (10 June 2010).
3. Zheng, J-Q. , Valtonen, M. J. & Valtaoja, L. Celest. Mech. Dyn. Astr. 49, 265 (1990).

news20100611bbc1

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

[bbc.co.uk > Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 09:46 GMT, Friday, 11 June 2010 10:46 UK
Japan unfurls solar sail in orbit
｛日本、軌道上で太陽光を受ける帆を展開｝

{An image of the deployment is sent back to Earth}

Japanese scientists are celebrating the successful deployment of their solar sail Ikaros.
｛日本の科学者、宇宙ヨット「イカロス」の帆の展開の成功を祝う｝

The 200-sq-m (2,100-sq-ft) membrane is attached to a small disc-shaped spacecraft that was put in orbit last month by an H-IIA rocket.

Ikaros will demonstrate the principle of using sunlight as a simple and efficient means of propulsion.

The technique has long been touted as a way of moving spacecraft around the Solar System using no chemical fuels.

The mission team will be watching to see if Ikaros produces a measurable acceleration, and how well its systems are able to steer the craft through space.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) said in a statement that its scientists and engineers had begun to deploy the solar sail on 3 June (JST). On 10 June, Jaxa said, confirmation was received that the sail had expanded successfully and was generating power through the thin film solar cells embedded in the membrane

The deployment occurred about seven million km from Earth.

Ikaros was a piggy-back payload to Japan's Venus orbiter Akatsuki. The pair were boosted in to space on 21 May (JST) from the Tanegashima Space Center.

Akatsuki will arrive at Venus in December. Key goals include finding definitive evidence for lightning and for active volcanoes.

{{SAILING TO VENUS - HOW IKAROS UNFURLS ITS SOLAR SAIL}
(1) For the deployment, the disc-shaped Ikaros spacecraft was first spun up
(2) The four weighted corners of the sail were then released and flew outwards
(3) Finally, the packed sail membrane was released and pulled flat by the rotating tips}


[bbc.co.uk > Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 08:16 GMT, Friday, 11 June 2010 09:16 UK
By Mark Kinver
Science and environment reporter, BBC News
Himalayan climate impacts 'cannot be generalised'
｛ヒマラヤの気候温暖化の影響は総括的に述べれない｝

{Mountain glaciers provide vital lifeblood for some of Asia's major rivers}
｛アジアの大河には、山の氷河が極めて重要な活力源になっているものがある｝

Melting glaciers in the Himalayas will have varying impacts on the region's five major river basins, a study says.
｛調査報告書によると、ヒマヤラの氷山の溶解が５大河川流域に種々の影響を及ぼしている｝

Changes to the flow of meltwater as a result of global warming is likely to have a "severe" impact on food security in some area, say scientists.

Yet people living elsewhere are likely to see food productivity increase, they added in a paper published in Science.

Overall, the food security of 4.5% of 1.4bn people in the region is threatened, the researchers conclude.

More than 1.4bn people depend on water from the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Yangtze and Yellow rivers.

"We show that meltwater is extremely important in the Indus basin and important for the Brahmanputra basin, but only plays a modest role for the Ganges, Yangtze and Yellow rivers," the team from the Netherlands wrote.

"The Brahmaputra and Indus basins are most susceptible to reductions of flow, threatening the food security of an estimated 60m people."

The researchers described mountains as the "water towers of the world".

"Snow and glacial melt are important hydrological processes... and changes in temperature and precipitation are expected to seriously affect the melt characteristics," they explained.

Summer rains

The team used data to assess a number of factors to reach their conclusions, including: the current importance of meltwater in overall river basin hydrology; observed cyrospheric changes; and the effects of climate change on the water supply from the upstream basins and on food security.

"The Yellow River, in particular, shows a consistent increase in early spring discharge, " they said.

"This is highly beneficial because most reservoirs are empty at the beginning of the growing season.

"An accelerated melt peak may thus alleviate a shortage of irrigation water in the drought-prone early stages of the growing season."

However, despite the projected compensating effects of increased rainfall in the Indus and Brahmaputra basins, the team predicted that summer and late spring discharges would eventually be reduced "consistently and considerably by 2046 to 2065 after a period with increase flows as a result of accelerated glacial melt".

"These anticipated changes will also have considerable effects on food security," they warned.

"By relating changes in upstream water availability to net irrigation requirements, observed crop yields, calorific value of the crops and required human energy consumption, one can estimate the change in the number of people that can be fed."

The team estimates that about 34.5m fewer people could be fed in the Brahmaputra basin; 26.3m fewer in the Indus basin; 7.1m in the Yangtze region and about 2.1m fewer around the Ganges.

However, they suggested that the changes could see an increase in food production in the Yellow River basin, enough to feed a further 3m people.

"In total, we estimate that the food security of 4.5% of the total population will be threatened as a result of reduced water availability," they concluded.

"The strong need for prioritising adaptation options and further increasing water productivity is therefore ever more eminent.

"We conclude that Asia's water towers are threatened by climate change, but the effects of climate change on water availability and food security in Asia differ substantially among basins and cannot be generalised.

"The effects in the Indus and Brahmaputra basins are likely to be severe owing to the large population and the high dependence on irrigated land and meltwater.

"In the Yellow River, climate change may even yield a positive benefit as the dependence on meltwater is low and a projected increased upstream precipitation, when retained in reservoirs, would enhance water availability for irrigated agriculture and food security."

news20100611bbc2

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

[bbc.co.uk > Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 08:40 GMT, Friday, 11 June 2010 09:40 UK
By Katia Moskvitch
Science reporter, BBC News
Most comets may have extra-solar origin
｛ほとんどの彗星は太陽系外の起源｝

{Hale-Bopp comet is believed to have formed in the Oort cloud}
｛ヘールボップ彗星はオールトの雲で形成されたものと思われる｝

Many famous comets may have formed in other Solar Systems, a new theory proposes.
｛新理論によると、有名な彗星の多くは他の太陽系で形成されている。｝

Astronomers now believe that when our Sun was still a young star, it may have gravitationally captured the "dusty" Oort cloud comets formed elsewhere in the galaxy.

This contradicts the earlier theory that most comets were born in the Sun's protoplanetary disk.

The scientists described their findings in the journal Science.

The formation of the Oort cloud has long been a mystery.

Up until now, astronomers thought that this spherical cloud of comets lying at the outermost edge of the Solar System might have formed in the Sun's protoplanetary disk - a cloud of gas and matter that gave birth to planets, some 4.6 billion years ago.

But this hypothesis has been challenged by an international group of astronomers led by Dr Harold Levison from the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, US.

Sun's cluster

A member of the team, Dr Ramon Brasser from the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, explained to BBC News that the Sun was not born alone.

{For 60 years we did not know how the Oort cloud had formed and we have been looking for an answer}
Dr Roman Brasser
University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis}

Instead, he said, it is believed to have formed in a cluster of about a thousand of other stars, all packed together.

"Imagine that you have a very large cloud of gas composed of mostly hydrogen that is sitting around in our galaxy.

"From some disturbances inside it, the cloud slowly starts to collapse, it shrinks, becoming more compact.

"It then forms lumps and those lumps compress even further - that is how stars are born," said Dr Brasser.

He explained that each young star then creates a huge number of small icy bodies around it in a disk from which planets gradually form.

In our galaxy's early times, many of these icy objects got "ejected" from the planetary systems and eventually became comets.

But a few stayed near the Sun, affected by strong interstellar forces. They formed, astronomers used to believe, what became known as the peculiar "dusty" Oort cloud, about a light-year from the Sun.

It was assumed to be the birthplace of the majority of the famous comets, including Halley, Hale-bopp and McNaught.

Mystery 'solved'

When the Sun's cluster dispersed, exploding from inside out, the star was left all alone.

The Oort cloud was thought to have formed around the Sun And the new study showed that its gravitational field may have been so strong that it pulled in a large cloud of comets originally formed in other solar systems.

The idea of the Oort cloud comets being extra-solar was suggested before, in the early 1990s. But back then, the methods used were not precise enough to prove the theory and it was abandoned.

Dr Levinson said that his team picked up on the same thought and used computer simulations to construct a model of a star cluster and comets - and had some interesting results.

"If we assume that the Sun's observed proto-planetary disk can be used to estimate the indigenous population of the Oort cloud, we can conclude that more than 90% of the observed Oort cloud comets have an extra-solar origin," commented the astronomer.

His colleague Martin Duncan from the Queen's University in Ontario, Canada, said that the findings lead "to the exciting possibility that the [Oort] cloud contains a potpourri that samples material from a large number of stellar siblings of the Sun".

Dr Brasser concluded that the recent findings may be an important missing link to explain the formation of the Universe.

"For 60 years we have not known how the Oort cloud formed and for 60 years people have been looking for an answer. It has been a missing piece and it might help understand the evolution and the formation of our Solar System," he said.

news20100608gdn

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[guardian > Business > Oil]
North Sea oil rigs will face tougher environmental scrutiny after BP spill
｛ＢＰ社の原油流出事故により、北海の原油掘削リグにも環境監視に厳しさを増す｝

Chris Huhne is to increase oil inspectors after Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico
｛英国のクリスハッフニー長官、メキシコ湾でのディープウォーター・ホライゾンの大惨事を受けてオイル検査者を増員する｝
Tim Webb
The Guardian, Tuesday 8 June 2010
Article history

The new energy and climate secretary Chris Huhne will announce plans today to beef up environmental inspections of North Sea oil rigs in the wake of the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster, but is increasing the numbers from just six to nine staff.
｛今日、クリスハッフニー新気候変動エネルギー長官は、ＢＰ社のメキシコ湾の大惨事を受けて北海の原油掘削リグに対して環境検査者を増員する考えを表明する。がすでに６人から９人に増員している｝

The current six government inspectors, based in Aberdeen, are responsible for investigating and enforcing environmental standards on the 24 drilling rigs and an estimated 280 oil and gas production installations in the UK's part of the North Sea. Last year they carried out 69 inspections, of which eight were of drilling rigs.

A spokeswoman for the Energy Department said last night that the increase in manpower would result in the number of drilling rig inspections being doubled. She did not say when they would be in place.

The Gulf of Mexico disaster has focused attention on regulation of the oil industry's safety and environmental performance around the world. Environmental campaigners are demanding that tighter regulations are introduced particularly for deepwater drilling rigs – like the Deepwater Horizon, whose explosion caused the Gulf slick – which typically explore for oil in technically challenging areas where little is known about the geology. This year the government agreed to offer millions of pounds worth of tax breaks to oil companies seeking to develop the deep waters off the west coast of the Shetland Isles.

Huhne said the regulatory regime for the North Sea was "fit for purpose" following a review of procedures after last month's disaster. But he added: "The Deepwater Horizon gives us pause for thought and, given the beginning of exploration in deeper waters west of Shetland, there is every reason to increase our vigilance."

A spokeswoman for the trade association Oil and Gas UK said inspectors employed by the Health and Safety Executive also monitored companies' compliance with regulations.

Jake Molloy, of the Offshore Industry Liaison Committee, a trade union for offshore workers, said inspectors needed to work "hand in glove" with the HSE. The HSE focuses on ensuring employee safety on offshore installations. The Energy Department is responsible for assessing firms' environmental compliance.

Last month Oil and Gas UK established a working group to examine how companies can best tackle an oil spill, in which the government said it would participate.

This week a whistleblower who worked for a BP contractor called for safety checks on all BP's rigs in the North Sea. Ken Abbott claims 6,000 out of 7,000 documents meant to be in place regarding another BP platform in the Gulf of Mexico were missing, and that his attempts to raise his concerns were not taken seriously. BP has denied the allegations, saying its ombudsman's office had twice investigated the claims, and insisting the documentation and filing procedures had "no bearing" on operating or regulatory issues.


[guardian > Environment > Whaling]
Sea Shepherd expels Peter Bethune over weapons
｛団体シーシェパード、ピーターベテューヌ氏を武器を持ち込んだとして除名処分｝

Activist, who is on trial in Tokyo over attack on Japanese whaling ship, had a bow and arrows while aboard the Ady Gil
｛日本の捕鯨船への妨害行為で東京の裁判にかけられている活動家、アディ・ギル号船上に弓矢を持ち込む｝

Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 June 2010 12.25 BST
Article history

The anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd has expelled a member, currently standing trial in Tokyo, for allegedly violating the organisation's policies against carrying weapons.
｛反捕鯨団体シーシェパードは、現在、東京で裁判にかけられているメンバーを武器の携帯を禁じた当団体の政策に違反したとして除名処分にした。｝

New Zealander Peter Bethune, 45, had a bow and arrows with him while he was aboard the Sea Shepherd vessel Ady Gil, although he never used them and the group believes he never intended to use them, said Chuck Swift, Sea Shepherd's deputy chief executive officer.

"His decision to bring them on a Sea Shepherd campaign is unacceptable," Swift said in a statement on Friday.

Bethune is being tried on charges including trespassing, vandalism, possession of a knife, obstructing business and assault. He pleaded guilty to all but the assault charge in last month's opening session. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.

Prosecutors say Bethune climbed on to the Japanese whaling vessel Shonan Maru 2 from a jetski in February, while the ship was in the Antarctic Ocean. He was apprehended when the ship returned to Tokyo in March. Bethune is suspected of throwing glass bottles containing rotten butter at the Japanese harpoon boat in an attempt to block its whaling mission, injuring a crew member.

Sea Shepherd has been protesting Japan's whaling policy for years.

Japan, alongside Norway and Iceland, hunts whales under exceptions to a 1986 moratorium by the International Whaling Commission. Its programme involves large-scale expeditions down to the Antarctic, while other whaling countries mostly stay along their coasts.

Sea Shepherd says it will continue to support Bethune through his court battle in Japan and sees him as a dedicated hero for its cause.

"But unfortunately he will no longer be formally associated with, or be a representative of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society," said Swift.

In tearful court appearances last month, Bethune said it is likely that he will end his anti-whaling protests.

"I thought my crew were going to die," he said, sobbing. "I live with this vision of being run over – images of this big boat running us over. This broke my heart."

Sea Shepherd says that in its 30 years of activism, it has never injured anyone.

news20100607gdn

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[guardian > Business > Oil]
BP's Deepwater Horizon costs hit $1.25bn
｛ＢＰ社の石油掘削リグ”ディープウォーター・ホライゾン”のコスト、12.5億ドル（約1160億円）に達する｝

> Efforts to stop leak, clean-up costs and compensation costing tens of millions a day
｛流出封じ込め対策、原油除去費、補償費用で１日に数10億円｝
> BP shares rise 2.7% this morning on hopes for success and dividend pledge
｛ＢＰ社の株価、封じ込めの成功の兆しと配当補償で今朝2.7％上昇｝
> Chief executive vows to spend 'what it takes' to fix spill
｛ＢＰ社の最高責任者、封じ込めするための代償は厭わないと断言｝
Graeme Wearden
guardian.co.uk, Monday 7 June 2010 08.57 BST
Article history

{{Protesters yesterday outside a BP station in Florida. The company, and its chief executive Tony Hayward, have been much criticised over its response to the spill.}
{Photograph}: Dave Martin/AP}

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has now cost BP $1.25bn (£870m), as its much-criticised chief executive vows to spend "what it takes" to fix the Deepwater Horizon disaster that has caused growing anger across America.

The energy company continues to spend tens of millions of dollars a day trying to stop the leak, mopping up oil on the surface, and compensating some of the people affected by the spill. It has also been instructed by the US coastguard to pay the $360m cost of building six sand booms off Louisiana to divert oil from the coastline, taking its committed spending over the $1.6bn mark.

BP continues to insist that it can fix America's worst ever environmental disaster. Tony Hayward, BP's embattled chief executive, tweeted on Twitter this morning that "Our top priority is the Gulf. I will not be diverted away from that. We will spend what it takes to make it right."

Hayward, who was dubbed "the most hated – and most clueless – man in America" last week, is handing responsibility for running the clean-up operation to its American director, Bob Dudley. This may assuage some of the fury vented at the British company, which faces calls for its US assets to be seized.

Although BP is now managing to collect some of the leaking oil through the containment cap it installed last week, the spill is expected to continue until August when relief wells have been drilled.

Official estimates put the leak anywhere between 12,000 and 25,000 barrels of oil a day, and it is not clear how successful the containment cap will be. BP has said it collected around 10,000 barrels on Sunday and hopes to eventually capture most of the leak, but the US coastguard is being much more cautious.

"I'm hoping we catch as much oil as we can, but I'm withholding any comment until production is at a full rate," said Thad Allen, the US coastguard admiral.

Oil from the stricken wellhead has now reached the beaches of Alamaba and Florida, widening the environmental damage caused by the spill, despite 2.2m ft (6.7km) of containment boom being deployed. There are also 2,600 boats involved in the response effort.

BP said it has paid compensation totalling $48m to 18,000 individuals – out of a total of 37,000 compensation claims. President Barack Obama, who has also been criticised for his approach to the catastrophe, said yesterday it was "brutally unfair" that ordinary fishermen and shopkeepers were seeing their businesses damaged by the spill.

"If laws were broken, those responsible will be brought to justice," Obama said yesterday. "We will make sure they pay every single dime owed to the people along the Gulf coast."

The City continues to be reassured by BP's efforts, and its refusal so far to cut its dividend. The company's shares were the only risers on the FTSE 100 when trading began today, up 11p or 2.7% to 444p.


[guardian > Environment > Bhopal]
Bhopal disaster criminal court verdicts to be delivered
｛ボパール有毒ガス災害の刑事法廷、評決を下す見込み｝

> 12 Indian Union Carbide managers face possible jail sentences
｛１２人のユニオンカーバイド社の責任者、実刑の可能性高まる｝
> US chairman Warren Anderson still refuses to face trial
｛米国のウォーレン・アンダーソン前最高経営責任者、なおも出廷拒否｝
Jason Burke
The Guardian, Monday 7 June 2010
Article history

{{Bhopal residents demonstrate on the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster in December. A magistrate is set to deliver judgment on 12 criminal cases against senior managers.}
{Photograph}: Reinhard Krause/Reuters}

An Indian court is set to deliver a historic judgment on the Bhopal gas disaster, one of the worst modern industrial accidents.

Over 25 years after a leak from a chemical plant owned by Union Carbide Corporation, a US company, killed up to 25,000 people and harmed hundreds of thousands more in the central Indian city, the city judicial magistrate of Bhopal will today decide whether a dozen senior managers and directors of the plant should go to jail. The verdict will be the first in a criminal prosecution connected to the tragedy.

Those in the dock are all Indian. The trial was split following the refusal of the then chairman Union Carbide, Warren Anderson, who is American, to return to India to face charges.

Those in the dock are now accused of causing death by criminal negligence and face a sentence of up to two years' imprisonment if found guilty.

Original charges of culpable homicide, which carries a potential 10-year sentence, were controversially downgraded by the supreme court in 1996. Anderson remains charged with the more serious offence.

The trial has involved 178 witnesses and over 3,000 documents. The prosecution has sought to show that the accident was a result of the Bhopal plant's defective design and poor maintenance. Groups representing the survivors of the disaster have criticized the prosecution case, brought by the state through India's Central Bureau of Investigation, which they say has been poorly prepared.

The disaster was caused when late in the evening of 2 December 1984, safety systems failed, allowing methyl isocyanate, a key ingredient for pesticide, to mix with water at high temperatures. Poorly trained and ill-equipped local staff were unable to prevent the subsequent release of clouds of highly toxic gas. Worst hit were the densely-populated slum areas which had grown up around the plant since its construction in 1969.

Groups representing the survivors of the tragedy say that those responsible should face more serious sanctions.

"Justice will be done in Bhopal only if the individuals and corporations responsible are punished in an exemplary manner," said Rashida Bee, who lost six family members in the disaster. "Union Carbide's disaster was foreseeable and foreseen and still allowed to happen."

One defendant, Vijay Gokhale, who was managing director of the Indian subsidiary of Union Carbide Corporation at the time, told the local Sunday Mid Day newspaper that the accused were not "nervous" about the end of the trial. "We all hope there is some kind of closure," he said.

The number of casualties caused by the disaster remains disputed. The Madhya Pradesh government has confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths. Campaigners say more than six times as many were killed and nearly 250,000 harmed. A 2004 Amnesty International report said around 100,000 people in Bhopal continue to suffer "chronic and debilitating illnesses". Many have received little compensation. A deal struck by the Indian government with Union Carbide was based on an early estimate of victims that proved extremely low.

Defendants will be able to appeal today's verdict.

news20100607nn/bbc

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[nature > Nature News]
Published online 7 June 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.282
News
Crocodiles go with the flow
｛クロコダイル（ワニの総称）、流れに乗る｝

Surfing currents allows crocodiles to travel long distances.
By Natasha Gilbert
｛クロコダイル、流れに乗って長距離の移動ができる｝

{Crocodiles may surf ocean currents to reach distant shores.}
｛クロコダイル、潮流に乗って遠く離れた沿岸まで到着する｝

Crocodiles are bad long-distance swimmers. Instead, their talents lie in surfing, according to a study published today in the Journal of Animal Ecology^１.
｛今日発刊のＪＯＡＥ（動物生態学ジャーナル）によると、クロコダイルは長い距離を泳ぐのは苦手である。その代わりに、その能力は波乗りの技術にある。｝

Estuarine crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus) have the largest geographical range of any crocodile species, spanning more than 10,000 square kilometres of the southeast Pacific Ocean.

That wide distribution suggests that they can cross the ocean to reach distant locales, but until now only three estuarine crocodiles had been tracked on transoceanic voyages. Zoologists didn't know how the reptiles travelled such long distances given the sustained level of swimming required.

The answer is that the crocodiles ride surface currents, says a group led by Craig Franklin, a zoologist at the University of Queensland in Australia. The reptiles only travel when the current flows in the direction of their desired journey, the researchers report. When the tide turns, the crocodiles either climb onto the riverbank or dive to the bottom of the river to wait for the current to reverse.

"Crocodiles ride the currents to cut the energy costs of travelling. They get a free ride," says Franklin.

Surf's up

The group, which included the late Steve Irwin, better known as 'The Crocodile Hunter', spent a year studying 20 adult crocodiles in the Kennedy River in North Queensland, Australia. Implanted with acoustic devices that emit pulses through the water, the reptiles' movements were tracked by 20 receivers placed along a 63-kilometre stretch of the tidal river. The signals allowed the team to identify the crocodile, and determine its body temperature.

{{Transmitters attached to the crocodiles recorded their location and temperature.}
Australian Zoo}

The researchers compared their data with estimates of surface water currents from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia's national science agency. They found that eight crocodiles undertook a total of 42 long-distance journeys of more than 10 kilometres per day. In 96% of these trips, the reptiles travelled with the current flow. In contrast, the crocodiles were equally likely to travel with and against the current flow when making short journeys.

When the tide was against the crocodiles' direction of travel, their recorded body temperatures rose to around 32 ºC, suggesting they were basking in the sun on the riverbank. When the tide turned in their favour, their body temperatures dropped to 25 ºC, indicating that they were back in the water.

"They know when the current is flowing in the direction they want to travel," says Franklin. "It is like they are purposeful. They seem to be making a decision prior to the journey that they will travel with the current."

Magnetic attraction

It is not clear whether this behaviour is learned or inherited, says Franklin. He says that correlations can be drawn between the migratory behaviour and cognitive abilities of crocodiles and birds, because the former are more closely related to the latter than to other reptiles. Previous studies have shown that both animals use magnetic cues to navigate.

The latest study indicates that surfing the ocean currents is an effective migration method for estuarine crocodiles. Surfing also provides a way for individuals from distant populations to cross ocean barriers and breed, helping to explain why estuarine crocodiles have not diversified into different species.

But James Perran Ross, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, is not convinced that the crocodiles' ocean travels are intentional, but instead says that they are more likely to be "occasional mishaps". "Just heading off blindly downstream isn't much of a strategy," he says.

"That would be quite some mishap," counters Franklin. "And if it is a mishap, why have other crocodile species not also made the same mistake?" His team plans to track the crocodiles over the next ten years or so, to shed light on why the reptiles travel long distances and how this behaviour arose.

References
1. Campbell, H. A. et al. Journal of Animal Ecology advance online publication doi:10.1111/j.1365-2656.2010.01709.x (2010).


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

[BBC > Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 22:10 GMT, Monday, 7 June 2010 23:10 UK
By Katia Moskvitch
Science reporter, BBC News
Crocodiles 'surf' long distance on ocean currents

{Estuarine crocodiles are poor swimmers}

Saltwater crocodiles enjoy catching a wave and can travel hundreds of kilometres by "surfing" on ocean currents, a study suggests.

Australian researchers used sonar sensors and satellite transmitters to monitor 20 reptiles' movements.

They found the crocodiles undertook numerous trips of over 10km (6.2 miles), but only when a current flowed in their direction of travel.

The results of the research appear in the Journal of Animal Zoology.

The TV personality Steve Irwin, who was nicknamed "The Crocodile Hunter", but died in 2006, took part in the study.

Estuarine or saltwater crocodiles are the world's largest reptiles and can grow up to five-and-a-half metres in length.

They are poor swimmers and mainly live in salt water - but their "home" spans over 10,000sq km of the South-East Pacific, from Sri Lanka to Fiji and from Thailand to northern Australia.

Researchers have long been puzzled by how crocodiles managed to spread themselves so widely.

"Of all the amazing things animals can do, the ability of certain species to migrate significant distances across formidable geographical barriers is one of the most remarkable," write the authors of the recent study.

Although the crocodiles spend most of their life in salt water, they are not considered marine animals as they rely on land for food and water.

The open sea

During the research, a team led by Dr Hamish Campbell, from the University of Queensland, captured 20 crocodiles living in the North Kennedy tidal river in Queensland, northern Australia, and tagged them with satellite transmitters.

They found that during the period of study, eight of them ventured out into the open ocean. One travelled from the river mouth all the way to the west coast of the Cape York Peninsula, in Queensland's far north. That amounts to a total of 590km covered over 25 days.

To do that, the ocean-trotter hitched a ride on a current within the Gulf of Carpentaria (that separates Cape York from Arnhem Land, to the west). This current occurs seasonally, during the summer monsoon.

{20 crocodiles were tagged with satellite transmitters}

"[These crocodiles] can survive for long periods in saltwater without eating or drinking, so by only travelling when surface currents are favourable, they would be able to move long distances by sea," commented Dr Campbell.

It took another adventurer - a 4.84m-long male - just 20 days to go more than 411km from from the east coast of Australia's Cape York Peninsula through the Torres Strait (which divides Australia from New Guinea) to the Wenlock River on the west coast of Cape York.

When the crocodile arrived in the Torres Strait, strong currents were flowing in the opposite direction to where it was headed.

So the animal waited in a sheltered bay for four days and continued its trip when the currents changed direction.

Important clues

The scientists also tagged 27 crocodiles with sonar transmitters and spent a year tracking their every move inside the North Kennedy River with underwater receivers.

They found that both male and female crocodiles regularly travelled more than 50km from home, swimming to the river mouth and back.

But the team discovered that crocodiles would only set out on a long journey within an hour of the tide changing. This allowed them to "catch a wave".

They put their trips on hold when the tides reversed, moving out of the river and on to the banks.

Dr Campbell said that the results of the study gave important clues to understanding the evolution of the world's largest reptiles.

"This not only helps to explains how estuarine crocodiles move between oceanic islands, but also contributes to the theory that crocodilians have crossed major marine barriers during their evolutionary past," he said.

news20100607bbc

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

[BBC > Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 12:07 GMT, Monday, 7 June 2010 13:07 UK
By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News
Asteroid probe aimed toward Earth
｛小惑星探査機、地球を目指す｝

{Hayabusa will release its sample capsule for a landing on Earth}
｛「はやぶさ」、地球に帰還でサンプルの入ったカプセルを分離予定｝

The Japanese space probe Hayabusa, which was designed to return samples from an asteroid, has been placed on course for a landing in Australia.
｛小惑星「イトカワ」の表面の微粒子を採集して帰還する日本の宇宙探査機「はやぶさ」、オーストラリアの予定着陸コースを進行中｝

The spacecraft is returning home from its 2005 visit to the asteroid Itokawa

Hayabusa has achieved a crucial engine firing to aim the probe at Woomera Protected Area in southern Australia.

Its sample return capsule is scheduled to detach from its "mothership" and land at Woomera on 13 June, but there is no guarantee of mission success.

It remains doubtful whether the probe managed to grab any material from Itokawa; scientists will have to open the capsule to find out.

At the weekend, the Japanese Space Agency (Jaxa) announced that Hayabusa had successfully completed its third Trajectory Correction Manoeuvre (TCM), designed to guide the spacecraft towards a touchdown in the Australian outback.

The spacecraft now lies within about 3,600,000km of our planet.

Hayabusa returned astonishing images from its encounter with Itokawa Just one further, more detailed, correction manouevre is planned for the spacecraft before its sample capsule is returned to Earth at around 1400 GMT on Sunday.

The US space agency (Nasa) will deploy a DC-8 plane from California to observe the scheduled landing.

The aircraft is packed with imaging and spectrographic cameras to capture different aspects of the craft's re-entry.

Nasa will deploy its DC-8 plane to observe the return Even if Hayabusa failed to grab large samples at Itokawa, scientists hope the capsule may still contain small residues from the asteroid that could be analysed in laboratories.

Asteroids contain primordial material left over from the formation of the Solar System billions of years ago.

The mission has been beset with problems. Hayabusa made two "touchdowns" on Itokawa designed to collect rocks and soil, but apparently failed to fire a metal bullet designed to gather the samples.

A fuel leak in 2005 left Hayabusa's chemical propellant tanks empty, so engineers had to use the spacecraft's ion engines to guide the spacecraft home.

Ion thrusters are highly efficient but have a low acceleration. This means that each trajectory correction takes much longer to complete than it would with chemical engines.

news20100602gdn1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[guardian > News > World news > Yukio Hatoyama]
Japan's prime minister Yukio Hatoyama resigns
｛日本の鳩山由紀夫総理大臣が辞任｝

Yukio Hatoyama steps down over failure to honour election promises including relocation of Okinawa's US air base
｛鳩山由紀夫総理大臣、’沖縄の米空軍基地移設等の選挙公約’を果たせなかったとして辞任｝
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 2 June 2010 07.47 BST
Article history

{{Japan's prime minister Yukio Hatoyama has announced he will resign.}
{Photograph}: Brian Snyder/Reuters}

Japan's prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, today said he would resign just eight months after he took office, after failing to honour election promises to bring sweeping change to domestic policy and fundamentally alter the country's relations with the US.

The world's second biggest economy faces yet another period of uncertainty after Hatoyama, whose Democratic party won by a landslide last year, became Japan's fourth prime minister in as many years to step down after a year or less in power.

In a further blow to the Democrats five weeks before upper house elections, Ichiro Ozawa, the architect of last year's election victory, will also step down amid a political funding scandal.

"Since last year's elections, I tried to change politics so that the people of Japan would be the main characters," Hatoyama said in a nationally televised address to party members.

Although he has had some success in shifting power from bureaucrats to politicians, Hatoyama conceded that he had failed to win public support for his administration's handling of the economy and, crucially, his recent decision on the fate of a US military base on the southern island of Okinawa.

"That was mainly because of my failings," he said, his eyes filling with tears. "The public has refused to hear me."

His fate was in effect sealed by his decision last week to renege on a campaign promise to move a US marine airbase off Okinawa – a move he hoped would demonstrate his determination to end Japan's subservience to Washington's foreign policy.

In the end, US intransigence and the lack of a viable alternative site forced him to accept a 2006 agreement to move the base from its city centre location to an offshore site on the island's northern coast.

His change of heart enraged politicians and residents on Okinawa, who accused him of betrayal, and sent his public support ratings below 17%, compared with over 70% when he took office last September.

Hatoyama, 63, said the importance of maintaining a strong US alliance in the face of a rising China and instability on the Korean peninsula had forced him to cave in to Washington's demands.

"There was no choice but to keep the base on Okinawa," he said, while attempting to sell the deal to a disgruntled electorate and his coalition partners. "I sincerely hope people will understand the agonising choice I had to make. I knew we had to maintain a trusting relationship with the US at any cost."

Although Hatoyama's resignation came sooner than expected, Japanese voters will find themselves in familiar territory, as another ruling party scrambles to appoint a new leader.

Media reports said the Democrats would choose Hatoyama's successor on Friday. The acknowledged frontrunner is the finance minister, Naoto Kan, who earned a reputation for toughness when he took on bureaucrats over an HIV-tainted blood products scandal as Liberal Democratic party health minister in the mid-1990s.

Other possible successors include the foreign minister, Katsuya Okada, and Seiji Maehara, the transport minister.

Kan, 63, has called on the Bank of Japan to do more to fight deflation and is less resistant than Hatoyama to raising the 5% sales tax to pay for ballooning health and welfare costs.

If elected, he will quickly come under pressure to send a strong message to investors over how he intends to rein in Japan's huge public debt – now approaching 200% of GDP – and fund the government's ambitious public spending commitments.

But analysts expected the turmoil to delay key announcements on economic policy. "Hatoyama's resignation may cause delays in the scheduled releases this month of the government's growth strategies and fiscal discipline targets," said Hirokata Kusaba, an economist at Mizuho Research Institute.

"Whoever replaces Hatoyama would need to work them out before an upper house election, or else disappoint voters. Things could not get any worse after Hatoyama quits, given the current deadlock in many important issues."

The potential unraveling of Japan's centre-left experiment comes less than a year after the Democrats ended more than half a century of almost uninterrupted rule by the conservative LDP.

The government can at least take comfort in the fact that the LDP, riven by infighting and defections, is unlikely to mount a strong challenge in July's upper house elections.

Although they have a comfortable majority in the lower house, the Democrats needed to form a coalition with the People's New party and the left-wing Social Democratic party to secure a majority in the upper house and smoothe the passage of key legislation.

The coalition began to crumble last week when Hatoyama sacked the Social Democrats' leader, Mizuho Fukushima, after she refused to sign off on the US air base deal.

Her party's subsequent decision to leave the government prompted senior figures in Hatoyama's party to pressure him to resign and give the Democrats a fighting chance next month.

Ozawa, widely regarded as the most powerful figure in the government, will resign as the party's secretary general. Hatoyama said he had asked Ozawa, who has been embroiled in a fundraising scandal for more than a year, to quit in order to establish a "fresh and clean" party.

"Our politics must break with money. We must become completely clean in order to revitalise our party."

news20100602gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[guardian > Environment > Deepwater Horizon oil spill]
Gulf oil spill: BP could face ban as US launches criminal investigation
｛メキシコ湾原油流出事故：米国、刑事事件として捜査開始、ＢＰ社、操業禁止措置に見舞われる恐れ｝

Oil company's future in doubt as attorney general opens probe into worst oil spill in American history
｛米司法当局、米史上最悪の原油流出事故の究明に乗り出す、英石油大手の今後が不確か｝
Tim Webb and Ed Pilkington in New York
The Guardian, Wednesday 2 June 2010
Article history

{{BP's ongoing failure to stem the leak Deepwater Horizon leak has led to increasingly hostile rhetoric from the White House.}
{Photograph}: KPA/Zuma/Rex Features}

Last night's announcement that the US is launching a criminal investigation into the Gulf of Mexico disaster capped off BP's worst day in a torrid six weeks since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank on 20 April, killing 11 workers.

The firm's shares plummeted by 13% today, wiping £12bn off the company's value, as financial markets reacted to the news that oil is likely to continue spewing into the Gulf of Mexico for at least two more months. It was the worst one-day fall for 18 years for what was once Britain's most valuable company.

Political pressure is also mounting from the US, where BP's ongoing failure to stem the leak has led for calls to Barack Obama to take a more hardline approach, and some commentators are predicting the oil giant could face an operating ban in the country.

Robert Reich, the former labour secretary under Bill Clinton, today called for BP's US operations to be seized by the government until the leak had been plugged. A group called Seize is planning demonstrations in 50 US cities, calling for the company to be stripped of its assets.

The stock plunged 15% , or $6.43, to close at $36.52 at the end regular trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

The criminal investigation announced by the American attorney general was launched just hours after Obama promised to prosecute any parties found to have broken the law in the lead up to the disaster. The president dropped several threatening comments into a 10-minute address from the White House to mark the start of an independent commission to look into the causes of explosion.

City experts advised clients to sell shares following BP's admission over the weekend that the much vaunted "top kill" attempt to bung up the well had failed.

Dougie Youngson, oil analyst at Arbuthnot, said: "This situation has now gone far beyond concerns of BP's chief executive Tony Hayward being fired, or shareholder dividend payouts being cut – it's got the real smell of death. This could break BP.

"Given the collapse in the share price and the potential for it to fall further, we expect that it could become a takeover target."

BP is the largest oil producer in the Gulf of Mexico, and its production growth plans for the next decade are dependent in part on finding new deepwater reserves.

BP said today that its costs from the disaster had risen to $990m (£675m).

Although it is impossible to quantify the full financial impact of the disaster, it seems set to run into the tens of billions of dollars, and the costs will mount as long as the leak continues.

BP will attempt a riskier way of stopping the leak this week, but this could result in the amount of oil increasing and the chances of success appear slim. It hopes to plug the spill in two months, when the first of two relief wells are completed, but this operation could be hampered by the imminent hurricane season.

Today Obama called the oil spill the "greatest environmental disaster of its kind in our history" and said "if laws were broken leading to this death and destruction, my solemn pledge is we will bring these people to justice".

He added that for years the relationship between the oil companies and their regulators has been "too cosy" and said "we will take a comprehensive look at how the oil and gas industry operates".

The justice department is expected to pursue a dual-track approach in its investigation of BP and the other main entities involved: Transocean and Halliburton.

One track will explore whether the company broke rules in the days and months before the explosion, and the other will look at whether it contravened any environmental laws.

So far the Obama administration has moved cautiously on the legal side of the oil disaster, aware of the awkwardness of issuing criminal proceedings against a company upon which the federal government continues to remain deeply dependent for the shutting off of the stricken well and the clean-up operation. But as political pressure has mounted, and Obama himself coming under fire for being insufficiently aggressive, the administration has shown renewed willingness to take on BP.

The US Department of Justice will look for violations of the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. Holder said that "nothing is off the table at this point" with regard to the range of charges prosecutors could pursue, including traditional criminal charges if they find false statements were made.

"As our review expands, we will be meticulous, we will be comprehensive, and we will be aggressive," Holder told reporters. "We will not rest until justice is done."

However, he did acknowledge that the government's first priority was to stop the gushing well and clean up the oil.

As for BP, it has taken steps to beef up its PR operation, in an attempt to limit the damage to its reputation. The company has recruited as head of the firm's US media relations Anne Womack-Kolton, the former press secretary to Dick Cheney.

news20100602bbc

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

[BBC > Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 2:34 GMT, Wednesday, 2 June 2010 3:34 UK
Japanese PM Yukio Hatoyama resigns amid Okinawa row
｛日本の鳩山総理大臣が沖縄問題で退陣｝

{Yukio Hatoyama had been in power for just eight months}
｛鳩山総理大臣、わずか８カ月の在職だった｝

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has announced his resignation after just eight months in office.
｛日本の鳩山総理大臣、在職わずか８カ月で退陣表明｝

He was forced out after breaking an election pledge to move an unpopular US military base away from the southern island of Okinawa.

The move comes as his Democratic Party of Japan (DJP) struggles to revive its chances in an election due in July.

The centre-left DPJ's election landslide last year ended half a century of conservative rule in Japan.

But wrangling over the base distracted attention from their broader aims - pursuing a more equal alliance with the US, a bigger welfare state, and to seize control of policy-making from the bureaucracy, says the BBC's Roland Buerk in Tokyo.

Mr Hatoyama, 63, was Japan's fourth prime minister in four years.

Broken promise

Until Tuesday night, Mr Hatoyama had insisted he would stay on while intermittently holding talks with key members of his Democratic Party of Japan.

But he announced his resignation at a special meeting of DJP lawmakers on Wednesday.

He said he had asked Ichiro Ozawa, the party's secretary general - known as the "Shadow Shogun" for his power behind the scenes - to go too.

Mr Hatoyama had been under pressure to quit since last week when it was confirmed that an unpopular US base would be staying on Okinawa.

For months he had searched fruitlessly for an alternative location to fulfil a pledge to move it off the island or even out of Japan altogether, our correspondent says.

When he failed his governing coalition split.

Members of his party had feared with him at the top they would be trounced in mid-term elections to the upper house of parliament expected next month, our correspondent says.

The DPJ's next leader will have to take the party into mid-term elections to the upper house of parliament expected next month.

Possible successors include Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Naoto Kan, with Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and Transport Minister Seiji Maehara also seen as possible contenders.

news20100602cnn

[Top stories] from [CNN.com]

[CNN > Asia]
June 2, 2010 -- Updated 0322 GMT (1122 HKT)
By the CNN Wire Staff
Japanese PM Yukio Hatoyama to resign
｛日本の鳩山由紀夫総理大臣が辞任表明｝

{Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has been under pressure after backtracking on a promise to move an unpopular U.S. Marine base from Okinawa Island.}
｛日本の鳩山総理大臣、約束した’不人気の米国海兵隊基地を沖縄から移設’の撤回で、引責の状況下にあった｝

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
> Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to resign after just eight months in office
｛鳩山総理大臣がわずか８か月の在職で辞任｝
> He was under pressure after backtracking on pledge to move U.S. army base from Okinawa
｛総理大臣、公約の’沖縄から米国陸軍基地を移設’の撤回で、責任を求められていた｝
> Japan's Social Democratic Party leaves coalition government
｛日本の社民党が連立政権から離脱｝
> Party failed to support government's decision not to move U.S. base
｛社民党、’米国基地を移設しない’という政府決定で連立を解消｝

(CNN) -- Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama told parliamentary officials Wednesday he will resign. "I'm going to step down," Hatoyama announced in a live broadcast on Japanese TV NHK.

Hatoyama, who took office in September, has faced criticism after backtracking on a promise to move an unpopular U.S. Marine base from Okinawa to ease the burden of the island, which hosts the majority of the United States military presence in Japan.

His Democratic Party of Japan formed a coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SDP). On Sunday, SDP leader Mizuho Fukushima said the party would leave the coalition government over the dispute regarding the relocation of the base.

Fukishima, formerly the Minister of Consumers, was let go from Hatoyama's Cabinet on Friday because she and her party failed to support the government's decision not to move the U.S. Futenma Air Base from Okinawa Island.

The SDP's departure does not threaten the overwhelming majority of the Democratic Party of Japan in the lower house of government, but weakens the party's negotiating power in the upper house. It also threatened Hatoyama's political position ahead of upper house elections, scheduled for this summer.

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[REUTERS > World > Japan]
Linda Sieg and Yoko Nishikawa
TOKYO
Wed Jun 2, 2010 12:37am EDT
Japan PM quits before election
｛日本の総理大臣、選挙前に退陣｝

(Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said on Wednesday he and his powerful party No. 2 would resign after a slide in the polls threatened their party's chances in an election expected next month.
｛（ロイター）－ 日本の鳩山総理大臣、世論調査の大下落を受けて、来月予定の選挙で民主党の勝算が危ぶまれる中、自身と幹事長の辞任を表明｝

The yen sank to a two-week low against the dollar after Hatoyama became the fourth Japanese leader to leave office in a year or less, with some investors worried that political instability would make Japan's weak economy more dependent on the Bank of Japan's easy monetary policy.

Calls built up in Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) for him to step down to revive the party's fortunes ahead of an election for the upper house of parliament expected on July 11 that it must win to smooth policymaking.

With tears in his eyes, Hatoyama told party lawmakers that he and party secretary-general Ichiro Ozawa would resign.

"In order to revitalize our party, we need to bring back a thoroughly clean Democratic Party. I would like to ask your cooperation," Hatoyama said.

Hatoyama's ratings slid on voter doubts about his leadership, while the old-style image of Ozawa, seen as pulling strings behind the scene, had also eroded public support.

Analysts have tipped outspoken Finance Minister Naoto Kan as the frontrunner to replace Hatoyama, who quits after just eight months on the job. A new leader will be chosen on Friday, in a few days, a party official said.

The latest political turmoil, including the departure of a tiny leftist party from the ruling coalition, has distracted the government as it thrashes out a plan to cut huge public debt and a strategy to engineer growth despite a fast-aging population.

"Hatoyama's resignation may cause delays in the scheduled releases this month of the government's growth strategies and fiscal discipline targets. Whoever replaces Hatoyama would need to work them out before an upper house election, or else disappoint voters," said Hirokata Kusaba, an economist at Mizuho Research Institute.

"Things could not get any worse after Hatoyama quits, given the current deadlock in many important issues."

The yen sank to 91.78 per dollar from around 91.10 before the news but that weakness helped boost the Nikkei share average, which is heavily populated by big Japanese exporters. Bond futures edged higher.

FINMIN KAN NEXT?

Finance Minister Kan has in the past pressed the Bank of Japan to do more to fight deflation and has sounded more positive than Hatoyama about raising the 5 percent sales tax in the future to fund bulging social welfare costs.

That stance would be welcomed by investors worried about Japan's huge public debt, which is nearly 200 percent of GDP.

"If Finance Minister Kan takes over, it would be welcome news for the JGB market because Kan is more proactive about fiscal discipline and about raising the consumption tax than any other cabinet minister," Mizuho Research's Kusaba said.

The Democrats swept to power last August after a landslide election win for parliament's powerful lower house, ousting the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) after more than 50 years of almost non-stop rule.

But doubts over Hatoyama's leadership skills have eroded the government's approval ratings, with one poll showing support at just 17 percent after he failed to keep a campaign pledge to move a U.S. airbase off Okinawa island in southern Japan.

Some analysts said the change of the party's top two leaders would help restore the Democrats' popularity ahead of the election, although many voters had been outraged when two leaders of previous LDP-led governments quit abruptly after just a year in office.

"Although getting rid of Ozawa and Hatoyama won't win back all that support, at least the Democrats will no longer have to be on the defensive during the campaign." said Katsuhiko Nakamura, director of research at the Asian Forum Japan.

"Looking at the numbers, Kan is the most likely to take over. But there was so much criticism of the Liberal Democratic Party for switching prime ministers without an election, he may decide to go to the polls again fairly quickly."

"This will put an end to downward trend in the popularity of Democrats," said Hidenori Suezawa, chief strategist at Nikko Cordial Securities.

"Ozawa must have made this decision to win the election."