My Important News

2010 World Cup Odds

2010-02-23T11:57:00.000Z

The World Cup will start in a few months, but already now some people are starting to bet on it. So far the best place to bet on the world cup and to compare all the odds seems to be the World Cup 2010 Odds comparison website.

They have updated information from the major bookies out there. And you can see where to place your bet for your favorite team

Estonia makes a fuss about criticism over minorities

2007-10-15T14:23:00.000Z

TALLINN - Estonian politicians have stepped up their campaign to discredit Rene van der Linden, president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, for his controversial comments about human rights issues concerning Russian-speaking residents.
The high-ranking European politician has been indirectly accused of lying to the media, distributing incorrect information, and not declaring his financial interests to the parliamentary assembly.
The most recent charge against van der Linden came on Oct. 8, when he was again accused of having financial connections to Russian companies, something he has repeatedly denied.

Marko Mihkelson, the chairman of the European Affairs Committee of the Estonian Parliament, held a press conference to release a dossier of information about van der Linden’s alleged Russian investments.
“The purpose of my press conference was to release this information, which is public anyway, so that everybody can make their own decisions about whether there is a possible conflict of interest,” said Mihkelson, a member of the ruling right-wing party IRL and a former chairman of the Estonian delegation to PACE.
“The possibility of a conflict is quite visible.”
He suggested that van der Linden may have breached PACE Resolution No. 1554, which requires parliamentary members to disclose any conflicts of interest.
The dossier contained press clippings from Russian media sources in which van der Linden is repeatedly named and quoted as the head of the supervisory council of Noble House Holding, a company that invested an estimated 100 million euros into a technology business park in Sobinsk, Russia.
Mihkelson also aired a video showing van der Linden at the opening ceremony of the business park.

For his part, van der Linden has again asserted that he has no such financial dealings. In a statement issued on Oct. 8, he said is not a member of any supervisory or other board of a company with economic interests in Russia.
“I would therefore urge Mr. Mihkelson to stop this slandering,” van der Linden said.
Van der Linden is just the latest in a string of international observers to criticize Estonia over its Russian-speaking population. But the PACE president became a target of criticism himself after he wrongly claimed that non-citizens in Estonia had no electoral voice – they are, in fact, entitled to vote in municipal elections.
That led the speaker of Estonia’s parliament, IRL member Ene Ergma, to fire off an indignant letter to van der Linden which suggested he was not fit to hold his office.
Others in Estonia have joined the chorus against the PACE president.
The Baltic Times asked Mihkelson if, through his campaign against van der Linden, he was attempting to scare off other international observers from scrutinizing Estonia’s integration policies.
Mihkelson welcomed the question, and said Estonia was a democratic country that welcomed international observers.

“We are open to scrutiny. But here I don’t see any connection to the issues of integration. Those issues are very important for us… But if there is some sort of misleading information used, or lies, then of course there is a need to correct the position,” Mihkelson said.

Bush on Climate Change

2007-09-28T14:31:00.001Z

Did anyone else see the press conference that president Bush gave on Climate Change from Washington just now?

It was SO obvious that he had no idea what he was talking about and that he didn't really believe any of it! In the end, as he read the statements point by point, he felt the need to charge them with his little comments, only his comments sounded so.... stupid (and i tried hard to find another word here)

This really pisses me off, seriously! The Kyoto Protocol has been around for ages, and he has always turned a blind eye to it. And now he comes as the saviour of the planet and taking "leadership" on this issue. Like no one else has done something before... arghhh

Watching the whole thing I couldn't believe that that man is the president of a nation with a say in the world.

Its like now he suddenly woke up and decided to take leadership on something he knows nothing about...

We don't need your leadership, we just need you to commit to what we've already been doing! thank you very much!

It's so typical Bush... "it's my way, or the highway" Like he doesn't want to be part of anything unless he's leading it... arghhh GROW UP!

Violent clashes in Tallinn, over Red Army statue

2007-04-28T16:58:00.000Z

Fresh clashes over Estonia statue

The exact number of arrests on Friday night was unclear

Enlarge Image

More than 600 people were detained and about 100 hurt after a second night of riots in Estonia's capital Tallinn.

Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets after new clashes with mainly ethnic Russian protesters erupted over the removal of a Soviet war memorial.

Estonia says the memorial symbolised Soviet occupation. Supporters say it celebrated heroes who fought the Nazis.

Russian officials said a man who died in Thursday night's clashes was a Russian national.

A Foreign Ministry statement said the Estonian authorities had at first denied that any Russian citizens were among the casualties.

The man, who was a resident of Estonia, has been named as Dmitry Ganin.

The Estonian authorities have said he was stabbed by another demonstrator and that police had no involvement in his death.

There have been unconfirmed reports of a second death, in custody.

Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed "serious concern" about the events during a phone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a Kremlin statement said.

Looting

The monument was removed on Friday and taken to a secret location.

ESTONIA-RUSSIA TIES

1918: Estonia gained independence from Russia

1940: Forcibly incorporated into Soviet Union

1941-1944: Occupied by Nazi Germany

1944: Soviets return as Nazis retreat

1991: Gains independence as Soviet Union collapses

1994: Last Russian forces leave Estonia

Now: Ethnic Russians make up quarter of Estonia's 1.3m people

History at the heart of row

In pictures: Thursday clashes

Correspondents said a crowd of more than 1,000 demonstrators gathered on Friday evening where the monument used to stand.

Some of the protesters threw petrol bombs, while others waved Russian flags and chanted "Rossiya, Rossiya" (Russia, Russia).

Department stores and other shops in the city centre were looted.

There were also reports of rioting and looting in the towns of Johvi and Kohtla-Jarve, in a mainly ethnic Russian region east of Tallinn.

AFP said that in Johvi looters set fire to a statue of an Estonian general who fought the Russians during the country's 1918 war of independence.

By Saturday morning the situation in central Tallinn was described as calm, but the authorities are braced for more trouble.

HAVE YOUR SAY

The purpose of the removal was to prevent further outbreaks of violence

Mihkel T, Tartu, Estonia

Send us your comments

Squads of police were seen moving around the area where the memorial used to stand.

The BBC's Richard Galpin in Tallinn says the security forces cannot afford to take chances, with more protests expected on Saturday night.

The decision to remove the Soviet monument has strained relations with Russia, which called it "blasphemous".

And for local ethnic Russians it is one insult too many, our correspondent says, after what they feel has been years of discrimination against them by the majority Estonian population.

Whereabouts unknown

More than a quarter of Estonia's 1.3m people are ethnically Russian, and speak the language.

However, half of them do not have Estonian citizenship.

But the Estonians believe much of the tension is being whipped up by forces outside the country, i.e. Russia itself.

During the years of Soviet occupation after World War II, tens of thousands of Estonians were killed. And they say their country was effectively colonised with many Russians being brought in as workers and military personnel.

Estonia's government would not reveal where it took the six-foot (1.83m) statue, but spokesman Martin Jasko said it would ultimately be placed at the military cemetery in Tallinn.

The memorial, a bronze statue of a Soviet soldier, was erected in 1947. The remains of Soviet soldiers are thought to be buried nearby.

20 mishaps that could have caused a nuclear war

2007-02-09T20:59:00.001Z

http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-
weapons/issues/accidents/20-mishaps-maybe-caused-nuclear-war.htm

20 Mishaps That Might Have Started Accidental Nuclear War
by Alan F. Philips, M.D.

Ever since the two adversaries in the Cold War, the U.S.A. an the U.S.S.R.,
realized that their nuclear arsenals were sufficient to do disastrous
damage to both countries at short notice, the leaders and the military
commanders have thought about the possibility of a nuclear war starting
without their intention or as a result of a false alarm. Increasingly
elaborate accessories have been incorporated in nuclear weapons and their
delivery systems to minimize the risk of unauthorized or accidental launch
or detonation. A most innovative action was the establishment of the "hot
line" between Washington and Moscow in 1963 to reduce the risk of
misunderstanding between the supreme commanders.

Despite all precautions, the possibility of an inadvertent war due to an
unpredicted sequence of events remained as a deadly threat to both
countries and to the world. That is the reason I am prepared to spend the
rest of my life working for abolition of nuclear weapons.

One way a war could start is a false alarm via one of the warning systems,
followed by an increased level of nuclear forces readiness while the
validity of the information was being checked. This action would be
detected by the other side, and they would take appropriate action;
detection of the response would tend to confirm the original false alarm;
and so on to disaster. A similar sequence could result from an accidental
nuclear explosion anywhere. The risk of such a sequence developing would be
increased if it happened during a period of increased international
tension.

On the American side many "false alarms" and significant accidents have
been listed , ranging from trivial to very serious, during the Cold War .
Probably many remain unknown to the public and the research community
because of individuals' desire to avoid blame and maintain the good
reputation of their unit or command. No doubt there have been as many
mishaps on the Soviet Side.

Working with any new system, false alarms are more likely. The rising moon
was misinterpreted as a missile attack during the early days of long-range
radar. A fire at a broken gas pipeline was believed to be enemy jamming by
laser of a satellite's infrared sensor when those sensors were first
deployed.

The risks are illustrated by the following selection of mishap. If the
people involved had exercised less caution, or if some unfortunate
coincidental event had occurred, escalation to nuclear war can easily be
imagined. Details of some of the events differ in different sources: where
there have been disagreements, I have chosen to quote those from the
carefully researched book, The Limits of Safety by Scott D. Sagan. Sagan
gives references to original sources in all instances.

The following selections represent only a fraction of the false alarms that
have been reported on the American side. Many probably remain unreported,
or are hidden in records that remain classified. There are likely to have
been as many on the Soviet Side which are even more difficult to access.

1) November 5, 1956: Suez Crisis Coincidence

British and French Forces were attacking Egypt at the Suez Canal;. The
Soviet Government had suggested to the U.S. that they combine forces to
stop this by a joint military action, and had warned the British and French
governments that (non-nuclear) rocket attacks on London and Paris were
being considered. That night NORAD HQ received messages that:

(i) unidentified aircraft were flying over Turkey and the Turkish air force
was on alert

(ii) 100 Soviet MIG-15's were flying over Syria

(iii) a British Canberra bomber had been shot down over Syria

(iv) the Soviet fleet was moving through the Dardanelles.

It is reported that in the U.S.A. General Goodpaster himself was concerned
that these events might trigger the NATO operations plan for nuclear
strikes against the U.S.S.R.

The four reports were all shown afterwards to have innocent explanations.
They were due, respectively, to:

(i) a flight of swans

(ii) a routine air force escort (much smaller than the number reported) for
the president of Syria, who was returning from a visit to Moscow

(iii) the Canberra bomber was forced down by mechanical problems

(iv) the Soviet fleet was engaged in scheduled routine exercises.

2) November 24, 1961: BMEWS Communication Failure

On the night of November 24, 1961, all communication links went dead
between SAC HQ and NORAD. The communication loss cut off SAC HQ from the
three Ballistic Missile Early Warning Sites (BMEWS) at Thule (Greenland,)
Clear (Alaska,) and Fillingdales (England,). There were two possible
explanations facing SAC HQ: either enemy action, or the coincidental
failure of all the communication systems, which had redundant and
ostensibly independent routes, including commercial telephone circuits. All
SAC bases in the United States were therefore alerted, and B-52 bomber
crews started their engines, with instructions not to to take off without
further orders. Radio communication was established with an orbiting B-52
on airborne alert, near Thule. It contacted the BMEWS stations by radio and
could report that no attack had taken place.

The reason for the "coincidental" failure was the redundant routes for
telephone and telegraph between NORAD and SAC HQ all ran through one relay
station in Colorado. At that relay station a motor had overheated and
caused interruption of all the lines.

3) August 23, 1962: B-52 Navigation Error

SAC Chrome Dome airborne alert route included a leg from the northern tip
of Ellesmore Island, SW across the Arctic Ocean to Barter Island, Alaska.
On August 23, 1962, a B-52 nuclear armed bomber crew made a navigational
error and flew 20 degrees too far north. They approached within 300 miles
of Soviet airspace near Wrangel island, where there was believed to be an
interceptor base with aircraft having an operational radius of 400 miles.

Because of the risk of repetition of such an error, in this northern area
where other checks on Navigation are difficult to obtain, it was decided to
fly a less provocative route in the future. However, the necessary orders
had not been given by the time of the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962,
so throughout that crisis the same northern route was being flown 24 hours
a day.

4) August-October, 1962: U2 Flights into Soviet Airspace

U2 high altitude reconnaissance flights from Alaska occasionally strayed
unintentionally into Soviet airspace. One such episode occurred in August
1962. During the Cuban missile crisis on October of 1962, the U2 pilots
were ordered not to fly within 100 miles of Soviet airspace.

On the night of October 26, for a reason irrelevant to the crisis, a U2
pilot was ordered to fly a new route, over the north pole, where positional
checks on navigation were by sextant only. That night the aurora prevented
good sextant readings and the plane strayed over the Chukotski Peninsula.
Soviet MIG interceptors took off with orders to shoot down the U2. The
pilot contacted his U.S. command post and was ordered to fly due east
towards Alaska. He ran out of fuel while still over Siberia. In response to
his S.O.S., U.S. F102-A fighters were launched to escort him on his glide
to Alaska, with orders to prevent the MIG's from entering U.S. airspace.
The U.S. interceptor aircraft were armed with nuclear missiles. These could
have been used by any one of the F102-A pilots at his own discretion.

5) October 24, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: A Soviet Satellite Explodes

On October 24, a Soviet satellite entered its own parking orbit, and
shortly afterward exploded. Sir Bernard Lovell, director of the Jodrell
Bank observatory wrote in 1968: "the explosion of a Russian spacecraft in
orbit during the Cuban missile crisis... led the U.S. to believe that the
USSR was launching a massive ICBM attack." The NORAD Command Post logs of
the dates in question remain classified, possibly to conceal reaction to
the event. Its occurrence is recorded, and U.S. space tracking stations
were informed on October 31 of debris resulting from the breakup of "62
BETA IOTA."

6) October 25, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: Intruder in Duluth

At around midnight on October 25, a guard at the Duluth Sector Direction
Center saw a figure climbing the security fence. He shot at it, and
activated the "sabotage alarm." This automatically set off sabotage alarms
at all bases in the area. At Volk Field, Wisconsin, the alarm was wrongly
wired, and the Klaxon sounded which ordered nuclear armed F-106A
interceptors to take off. The pilots knew there would be no practice alert
drills while DEFCON 3 was in force, and they believed World War III had
started.

Immediate communication with Duluth showed there was an error. By this time
aircraft were starting down the runway. A car raced from command center and
successfully signaled the aircraft to stop. The original intruder was a
bear.

7) October 26, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: ICBM Test Launch

At Vandenburg Air Force Base, California, there was a program of routine
ICBM test flights. When DEFCON 3 was ordered all the ICBM's were fitted
with nuclear warheads except one Titan missile that was scheduled for a
test launch later that week. That one was launched for its test, without
further orders from Washington, at 4a.m. on the 26th.

It must be assumed that Russian observers were monitoring U.S. missile
activities as closely as U.S. observers were monitoring Russian and Cuban
activities. They would have known of the general changeover to nuclear
warheads, but not that this was only a test launch.

8) October 26, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: Unannounced Titan Missile Launch

During the Cuba crisis, some radar warning stations that were under
construction and near completion were brought into full operation as fast
as possible. The planned overlap of coverage was thus not always available.

A normal test launch of a Titan-II ICBM took place in the afternoon of
October 26, from Florida to the South Pacific. It caused temporary concern
at Moorestown Radar site until its course could be plotted and showed no
predicted impact within the United States. It was not until after this
event that the potential for a serious false alarm was realized, and orders
were given that radar warning sites must be notified in advance of test
launches, and the countdown be relayed to them.

9) October 26, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: Malstrom Air Force Base

When DEFCON 2 was declared on October 24, solid fuel Minuteman-1 missiles
at Malmstrom Air Force Base were being prepared for full deployment. The
work was accelerated to ready the missiles for operation, without waiting
for the normal handover procedures and safety checks. When one silo and
missile were ready on October 26 no armed guards were available to cover
transport from the normal separate storage, so the launch enabling
equipment and codes were all placed in the silo. It was thus physically
possible for a single operator to launch a fully armed missile at a SIOP
target.

During the remaining period of the Crisis the several missiles at Malstrom
were repeatedly put on and off alert as errors and defects were found and
corrected. Fortunately no combination of errors caused or threatened an
unauthorized launch, but in the extreme tension of the period the danger
can be well imagined.

10) October, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: NATO Readiness

It is recorded on October 22, that British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan
and NATO Supreme Commander, General Lauris Norstad agreed not to put NATO
on alert in order to avoid provocation of the U.S.S.R. When the U.S. Joint
Chiefs of Staff ordered DEFCON 3 Norstad was authorized to use his
discretion in complying. Norstad did not order a NATO alert. However,
several NATO subordinate commanders did order alerts to DEFCON 3 or
equivalent levels of readiness at bases in West Germany, Italy, Turkey, and
United Kingdom. This seems largely due to the action of General Truman
Landon, CINC U.S. Air Forces Europe, who had already started alert
procedures on October 17 in anticipation of a serious crisis over Cuba.

11) October, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: British Alerts

When the U.S. SAC went to DEFCON 2, on October 24, Bomber Command (the
U.K.) was carrying out an unrelated readiness exercise. On October 26, Air
Marshall Cross, CINC of Bomber Command, decided to prolong the exercise
because of the Cuba crisis, and later increased the alert status of British
nuclear forces, so that they could launch in 15 minutes.

It seems likely that Soviet intelligence would perceive these moves as part
of a coordinated plan in preparation for immediate war. They could not be
expected to know that neither the British Minister of Defense nor Prime
Minister Macmillian had authorized them.

It is disturbing to note how little was learned from these errors in
Europe. McGeorge Bundy wrote in Danger and Survival (New York: Random House
1988), "the risk [of nuclear war] was small, given the prudence and
unchallenged final control of the two leaders."

12) October 28, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: Moorestown False Alarm

Just before 9 a.m., on October 28, the Moorestown, New Jersey, radar
operators informed the national command post that a nuclear attack was
under way. A test tape simulating a missile launch from Cuba was being run,
and simultaneously a satellite came over the horizon.

Operators became confused and reported by voice line to NORAD HQ that
impact was expected 18 miles west of Tampa at 9:02 a.m. The whole of NORAD
was reported, but before irrevocable action had taken place it was reported
that no detonation had taken place at the predicted time, and Moorestown
operators reported the reason for the false alarm.

During the incident overlapping radar's that should have confirmed or
disagreed were not in operation . The radar post had not received routine
information of satellite passage because the facility carrying out that
task had been given other work for the duration of the crisis.

13) October 28, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: False Warning Due to Satellite

At 5:26 p.m. on October 28, the Laredo radar warning site had just become
operational. Operators misidentified a satellite in orbit as two possible
missiles over Georgia and reported by voice line to NORAD HQ. NORAD was
unable to identify that the warning came from the new station at Laredo and
believed it to be from Moorestown, and therefore more reliable. Moorestown
failed to intervene and contradict the false warning. By the time the CINC,
NORAD had been informed, no impact had been reported and the warning
was "given low credence."

14) November 2, 1962: The Penkovsky False Warning

In the fall of 1962, Colonel Oleg Penkovsky was working with the Soviets as
a double agent for the (U.S.) C.I.A. He had been given a code by which to
warn the CIA if he was convinced that a Soviet attack on the United States
was imminent. He was to call twice, one minute apart, and only blow into
the receiver. Further information was then to be left at a "dead drop" in
Moscow.

The pre-arranged code message was received by the CIA on November 2, 1962.

It was known at the CIA that Penkovsky had been arrested on October 22.
Penkovsky knew he was going to be executed. It is not known whether he had
told the KGB the meaning of the code signal or only how it would be given,
nor is it known exactly why or with what authorization the KGB staff used
it. When another CIA agent checked the dead drop he was arrested.

15) November, 1965: Power Failure and Faulty Bomb Alarms

Special bomb alarms were installed near military facilities and near cities
in the U.S.A., so that the locations of nuclear bursts would be transmitted
before the expected communication failure. The alarm circuits were set up
to display a red signal at command posts the instant that the flash of a
nuclear detonation reached the sensor and before the blast put it out of
action. Normally the display would show a green signal, and yellow if the
sensor was not operating or was out of communication for any other reason.

During the commercial power failure in the NE United States, in November
1965, displays from all the bomb alarms for the area should have shown
yellow. In fact, two of them from different cities showed red because of
circuit errors. The effect was consistent with the power failure being due
to nuclear weapons explosions, and the Command Center of the Office of
Emergency Planning went on full alert. Apparently the military did not.

16) January 21, 1968: B-52 Crash near Thule

Communication between NORAD HQ and the BMEWS station at Thule had 3
elements:

1. Direct radio communication.

2. A "bomb alarm" as described above.

3. Radio Communication relayed by a b-52 bomber on airborne alert.

On January 21, 1968, a fire broke out in the b-52 bomber on airborne alert
near Thule. The pilot prepared for an emergency landing at the base.
However the situation deteriorated rapidly, and the crew had to bale out.
There had been no time to communicate with SAC HQ, and the pilotless plane
flew over the Thule base before crashing on the ice 7 miles miles offshore.
Its fuel and high explosive component of its nuclear weapons exploded, but
there was no nuclear detonation.

At that time, the "one point safe" condition of the nuclear weapons could
not be guaranteed, and it is believed that a nuclear explosion could have
resulted form accidental detonation of the high explosive trigger. Had
there been a nuclear detonation even at 7 miles distant, and certainty much
nearer the base, all three communication methods would have given an
indication consistent with a succsessful nuclear attack on both the base
and the B-52 bomber. The bomb alarm would have shown red, and the other two
communication paths would have gone dead. It would hardly have been
anticipated that the combination could have been caused by accident,
particularly as the map of the routes for B-52 airborne flights approved by
the President showed no flight near to Thule. The route had been apparently
changed without informing the White House.

17) October 24-25, 1973: False Alarm During Middle East Crisis

On October 24, 1973, when the U.N. sponsored cease fire intended to end the
Arab-Israeli war was in force, further fighting stared between Egyptian and
Israeli troops in the Sinai desert. U.S. intelligence reports and other
sources suggested that the U.S.S.R. was planning to intervene to protect
the Egyptians. President Nixon was in the throes of Watergate episode and
not available for a conference, so Kissinger and other U.S. officials
ordered DEFCON 3. The consequent movements of aircraft and troops were of
course observed by Soviet intelligence. The purpose of the alert was not to
prepare for war, but to warn the U.S.S.R. not to intervene in the Sinai.
However, if the following accident had not been promptly corrected then the
Soviet command might have had a more dangerous interpretation.

On October 25, while DEFCON 3 was in force, mechanics were repairing one of
the Klaxons at Kinchole Air Force Base, Michigan, and accidentally
activated the whole base alarm system. B-52 crews rushed to their aircraft
and started the engines. The duty officer recognized the alarm was false
and recalled the crews before any took off.

18) November 9, 1979: Computer Exercise Tape

At 8:50 a.m. on November 9, 1979, duty officers at 4 command centers (NORAD
HQ, SAC Command Post, The Pentagon National Military Command Center, and
the Alternate National Military Command Center) all saw on their displays a
pattern showing a large number of Soviet Missiles in a full scale attack on
the U.S.A. During the next 6 minutes emergency preparations for retaliation
were made. A number of Air Force planes were launched, including the
President's National Emergency Airborne Command Post, though without the
President! The President had not been informed, perhaps because he could
not be found.

No attempt was made to use the hot line either to ascertain the Soviet
intentions or to tell the Soviets the reasons for U.S. actions. This seems
to me to have been culpable negligence. The whole purpose of the "Hot Line"
was to prevent exactly the type of disaster that was threatening at that
moment.

With commendable speed, NORAD was able to contact PAVE PAWS early warning
radar and learn that no missiles had been reported. Also, the sensors on
the satellites were functioning that day and had detected no missiles. In
only 6 minutes the threat assessment conference was terminated.

The reason for the false alarm was an exercise tape running on the computer
system. U.S. Senator Charles Percy happened to be in NORAD HQ at the time
and is reported to have said there was absolute panic. A question was asked
in Congress. The General Accounting Office conducted an investigation, and
an off-site testing facility was constructed so that test tapes did not in
the future have to be run on a system that could be in military operation.

19) June , 1980: Faulty Computer Chip

The Warning displays at the Command Centers mentioned in the last episode
included windows that normally showed

0000 ICBMs detected 0000 SLBMs detected

At 2:25 a.m. on June 3, 1980, these displays started showing various
numbers of missiles detected, represented by 2's in place of one or more
0's. Preparations for retaliation were instituted, including nuclear bomber
crews staring their engines, launch of Pacific Command's Airborne Command
Post, and readying of Minutemen missiles for launch. It was not difficult
to assess that this was a false alarm because the numbers displayed were
not rational.

While the cause of that false alarm was still being investigated 3 days
later, the same thing happened and again preparations were made for
retaliation. The cause was a single faulty chip that was failing in a
random fashion. The basic design of the system was faulty, allowing this
single failure to cause a deceptive display at several command posts.

The following incident is added to illustrate that even now, when the Cold
War has been over for 8 years errors can still cause concern. This
particular one could have hardly brought nuclear retaliation.; but there
are still 30,000 nuclear weapons deployed, and two nuclear weapon states
could get into a hostile adversarial status again.

20) January, 1995: Russian False Alarm

On January 25, 1995, the Russian early warning radar's detected an
unexpected missile launch near Spitzbergen. The estimated flight time to
Moscow was 5 minutes. The Russian President, the Defense Minister and the
Chief of Staff were informed. The early warning and the control and command
center switched to combat mode. Within 5 minutes, the radar's determined
that the missile's impact would be outside the Russian borders.

The missile was Norwegian, and was launched for scientific measurements. ON
January 16, Norway had notified 35 countries including Russia that the
launch was planned. Information had apparently reached the Russian Defense
Ministry, but failed to reach the on-duty personnel of the early warning
system.

See article in Scientific American by Bruce G. Blair, Harold A. Feiveson
and Frank N. von Hippel

Comment and Note On Probability

The probability of actual progression to nuclear war on any one of the
occasions listed may have been small, due to planned "fail-safe" features
had failed. However, the accumulation of small probabilities of disaster
from a long sequence of risks add up to serious danger.

There is no way of telling what the actual level of risk was in these
mishaps but if the chance of disaster in every one of the 20 incidents had
been only 1 in 100, it is mathematical fact that the chance of surviving al
20 would have been 82%, i.e. about the same as the chance of surviving a
single pull of the trigger at Russian roulette played with a 6 shooter.
With a similar series of mishaps on the Soviet side: another pull of the
trigger. If the risk in some of the events had been as high as 1 in 10,
then the chance of surviving just seven such events would have been less
than 50:50.

Acronyms

BMEWS: Ballistic Missile Early Warning Site

CIA: Central Intelligence Agency

CINC: Commander in Chief

DEFCON: Defense Readiness Condition (DEFCON 5 is the peacetime state;
DEFCON 1 is a maximum war readiness).

HQ: Headquarters

ICBM: Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (land based)

KGB: Soviet Secret Police and Intelligence

NORAD: North American Air Defense Command

PAVE PAWS: Precision Acquisition of Vehicle Entry Phased-Array Warning
System

SAC: Strategic Air Command

SIOP: Single Integrated Operational Plan

SLBM: Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile

Principal Sources
Britten, Stewart: The Invisible Event , (London: Menard Press, 1983).
Calder, Nigel: Nuclear Nightmares , (London: British Broadcasting
Corporation, 1979)
Peace Research Reviews , vol. ix: 4, 5 (1984); vol. x: 3, 4 (1986) (Dundas,
ON.: Peace Research Institute, Dundas).
Sagan, Scott D.: The Limits of Safety , (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, (1993).

Pollution fears as UK ship loses cargo

2007-01-31T10:15:00.000Z

A damaged container ship, grounded off the English coast and listing badly, began to lose some of its cargo in heavy winds, and officials said Sunday that oil was leaking from a crack in the vessel's hull.

The stricken MSC Napoli was deliberately run aground in waters close to Sidmouth, southwest England, after it was damaged during a storm on Thursday.

Navy helicopters rescued the vessel's 26 crew members in rough seas, 45 miles (70 kilometers) off Lizard Point on England's southwest tip.

French maritime officials said that of the 41,700 tons of merchandise in the ship's 2,400 containers, 1,700 tons were considered dangerous, including explosive and flammable material. The containers also hold motorcycles, car parts and oak barrels.

Britain's Department for Transport said more than 200 containers from the ship, which was listing at a 30-degree angle, had slid into the sea as new gales struck the English coast late Saturday.

Maritime and Coast Guard spokesman Paul Coley said two of the containers that went overboard contained hazardous materials -- including battery acid and perfume products -- but that the risk they posed was "minimal."

Robin Middleton, the government's salvage adviser, said a greater threat was posed by the ship's 3,000 tons of diesel and fuel oil, some of which had leaked out through a crack in the vessel's port side. He said only one fuel tank appeared to be ruptured, and no more than 200 tons of oil was likely to leak.

Middleton told a news conference that salvage workers would attempt to stabilize the ship to prevent it capsizing, pump out the fuel oil and remove the containers.

The 16-year-old vessel is registered in London and was last inspected by the coast guard agency in May 2005, when officials said it met safety standards.

Ship spilling oil and cargo off England

2007-01-31T10:13:00.000Z

A damaged and listing cargo ship was spilling fuel and cargo containers into stormy seas off the southwest coast of England, near Devon, British officials said Sunday night. Some of the containers held hazardous materials.

An estimated 150 to 200 containers have slipped off the deck of the heavily damaged ship, the Napoli, which is listing severely, said Paul Coley of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency at a press conference Sunday.

Some of the containers have already washed up at local beaches, officials said. The police have closed some beaches and warned residents not to approach any of the containers, some of which are thought to contain substances like nitric acid and perfume ingredients.

In addition, the boat's hull developed a crack at some point before or during the towing operation and since last night has been spilling heavy diesel fuel oil into the sea, presumably from its engines.

The Napoli was deliberately run aground after it was damaged during a storm Thursday. The ship was refloating at each high tide and still at risk of capsizing, so two French tug boats were trying to move it further ashore. Once it is firmly beached, the ship will be flooded to prevent further movement and the fuel oil in the tanks will be pumped out.

It is not clear how much fuel oil has spilled into local waters, although there have been reports of a few sea birds covered in oil.

The leaks are extremely threatening because the boat is near a sensitive ecological area, the estuary of the Axe River, an area known for wildlife and also salmon breeding, said Mike Dunning, spokesman for the U.K. Environment Agency in Southwest England. The British authorities have deployed a boom over the mouth of the river as a precaution to prevent any oil from washing in.

"We are working closely with the MCA to minimize damage," he said, referring to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which is leading the salvage operation.

The Napoli was damaged and its crew of 26 evacuated 40 miles, or about 65 kilometers, off the British coast on Thursday after a severe storm, with seas of 40 feet, or 12 meters, and winds of 70 miles per hour. British officials subsequently decided to tow the vessel nearer to land and to ground it to prevent it from sinking.

But recurrent gale force wind and high seas near the coast Sunday caused the boat to list, allowing containers piled 4 high on its deck to fall into the sea perilously close to land, Dunning said.

"The salvage plan concerns the oils that we deem at this present moment to be the greater threat," said Robin Middleton, a salvage advisor to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, at a news conference Sunday.

The vessel was carrying 2,323 containers, 158 of which are classed as hazardous according to the International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code. In addition to the nitric acid and perfume ingredients, dangerous material in the containers included potassium hydoxide and battery acid.

The coastguard agency said that it believed only 2 of the containers washed overboard contained hazardous materials and that the risk they posed was so far deemed "minimal."

Other containers on the British-registered ship held motorcycles and car parts.

The 16-year-old ship was last inspected by the coast guard agency in May 2005. But the same ship, previously named CMA-CGM ran aground in Vietnam in 2001 and subsequently underwent major structural repairs, the BBC reported.

Despite reports of hazardous materials overboard, British officials said Sunday they were still most concerned about the fuel oil.

The ship's tanks hold a total of 3,000 tons of diesel and fuel oil but British officials said Sunday that only one tank, holding 200 tons, appeared damaged.

Zune wants Europe, does Europe want Zune?

2007-01-31T10:11:00.000Z

From a European’s perspective, the announced launch of Zune for the end of 2007 is apparently not an event to make you anxiously shiver or rejoice.

A recent announcement made by Jason Reindorp, marketing director for Zune at Microsoft, indicates that the Redmond behemoth plans to introduce its… MP3 player (I would have said iPod-killer but that’s not the case) in Europe by the end of this year.

Reindorp also said that the Zune managed to grab since its launch about 10.2 percent market share in the U.S. in the 30 gigabyte MP3 player category. That seems pretty impressive considering the short period (although I do advise you to take Reindorp’s allegations with a grain of salt) and is in accordance with the company’s forecast for the first half of 2007: 1 million Zune owners by June. Alexa.com also reports that Zune.net, the official site where you can find out about Zune and buy songs or download short videos, has made it to the 5,711th place, which indicates that it has between 50,000 and 100,000 visitors per day, but is now way below the peak registered in November (and apparently dropping).

Reindorp, quoted by Reuters, said at the annual music industry Midem Net conference in France “"You couldn't get a more entrenched competitor. But we feel really good about the first steps that we've taken."

"The industry moves in this sort of Christmas to Christmas cycle. So you can expect that there will be more devices, more features in the market at that point," he said.

"Our next round of introductions will probably be in time for the holiday of this year."

"We're not simply trying to play catch up with Apple," he said. "We are very realistic, we have what is essentially a three-year plan to firmly and solidly get on the radar.”

Well, from hopes to reality is a long way. At least for Zune.

I have unofficially made an ad-hoc poll among my friends on IM clients, all of them being involved in the tech or the news industry here in Europe, and the results are disappointing for Microsoft: Zune apparently doesn’t exist in the EU.

I asked them first whether they know what Zune is. Friends from France, Sweden or Italy have not even heard of this name, and if they did (and associated it by contrast with the iPod, after viewing some photos) they firmly declared that they’ll stick to the iPod. They were on the other side attracted by the wireless sharing feature of the Zune (after I mentioned this to them), but were disappointed by the fact that only around 58% of the songs were actually transferable from one gadget to another (let’s hope that rate will improve).

Concerning Zune’s interoperability with Windows Vista or Xbox or even SoapBox (Microsoft’s new video service which is in Beta - I told them about it because I have a beta-tester account), they didn’t seem to be impressed, all of them saying that they prefer to wait and see how Vista or SoapBox behave on the market before taking a decision.

The interoperability between Zune and Xbox 360 has been made available in advance. In October, MS released a software update for its famous gaming console, through the Xbox Live Marketplace service, explaining that the update will let the Xbox 360 stream music, pictures and video from a Zune device, and from the Zune software on a Windows PC. The Xbox 360 will also stream content from the new Windows Media Player 11 PC software.

I repeat: this is not an official point of view and might not reflect real life situations. But in the next days I will certainly include a poll on the site where users from all over the world (but especially Europeans) will be able to express their thoughts about Zune, so… stay Zuned.

Drug Ads: Taking Medicine Never Looked So Good

2007-01-31T09:58:00.000Z

Remember all those tricks drugmakers used to get you to take medicine as a kid? They made cough syrup sweet and acetaminophen chewable. They transformed horse pill vitamins into friendly cartoon characters.

Well, perhaps a better approach would've been to inundate you with ads--ones that depict a fearful and alone child who becomes happy, confident and popular after taking a pill.

That formula, it seems, works well on millions of Americans, who watch as many as 16 hours of prescription drug ads every year -- far more than the average time spent with a primary care physician.

Since the Food and Drug Administration relaxed restrictions on direct-to-consumer advertising 10 years ago, commercials touting prescription cures for everything from insomnia to heart burn to erectile dysfunction have become ubiquitous, if not any less mysterious. (I never understand what any of those medicines do, except potentially provoke the gross list of side effects muttered at lightening speed at the end of the ad.)

Direct-to-consumer ads cost Big Pharma $1.19 billion in 2005, up from $654 million in 2001.

The question is, do all those ads help consumers make health care decisions or are they just convincing people they need treatments for conditions they don't have?

Former FDA Commissioner David Kessler thinks prescription drug ads are causing us to overmedicate. In an editorial that accompanied the study, he offered sleeping pills as an example. One-third of direct-to-consumer ad spending in 2005 was on sleep medications, yet sleep disorders are no where near a major cause of death in the United States the way heart disease and cancer are. He also cited a 2002 FDA survey of doctors, which found that 41 percent believed such ads don't help to inform consumers but actually give them bad information.

Given the importance of ads in health-care decisions, a group of researchers lead by Dominick L. Frosch, of the University of California - Los Angeles Department of Medicine, chose to dissect four weeks worth of prescription drug ads from 2004. Their findings are in the latest issue of the Annals of Family Medicine.

Some nuggets from the report:
- 86 percent of the ads made rational pitches for a drug but only about a quarter described the condition's causes, risk factors and prevalence. When ads did refer to prevalence, they used vague terms such as "millions."

- 95 percent made emotional appeals by framing medication use in terms of losing and regaining control and winning social approval. (Picture once-beleaguered allergy sufferers running merrily, nostrils flared, through a weed-filled field.)

- None of the ads mention lifestyle change as an alternative to products, though some -- 19 percent -- mentioned it as an adjunct to medication. And 18 percent of ads made lifestyle changes seem futile, such as an ad that featured a woman who ran three miles every day and ate 50-calorie salads for lunch but whose cholesterol was 277 mg/dL.

- More than half the ads show people engaging in moderate physical activity -- the one silver lining in the study.

"Portrayal of healthy lifestyles in the ads... may offer some public health benefits" by promoting the benefits of physical activity, the authors noted.

In response to criticism of aggressive prescription drug marketing, especially following the flurry of lawsuits filed over the heavily promoted painkiller Vioxx, some pharmaceutical companies have volunteered to wait a year after a drug is approved to begin advertising, but the study's authors say that's not enough. They need to address the content of the ads, too.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association responded to the study more specifically yesterday saying such advertising "empowers patients," and increases "people's awareness of diseases and available treatments." The trade group also noted that it came out with guidelines for direct-to-consumer ads that address some of the study's concerns. Those took effect in January 2006, but the study doesn't reflect changes made by drugmakers since then because it only looked at ads from 2004.

Has anyone noted an improvement in prescription drug ads? Or do the study's findings still resonate with what you see? More importantly, do you feel like you've learned valuable health information after watching Abe Lincoln sitting around a kitchen table talking to a beaver?

Greece: Three weeks of struggle… and it continues!!!!!

2007-01-31T09:56:00.000Z

Greek universities are paralyzed. More than half of faculties nation wide (Universities and Colleges) are occupied by the students who refuse the privatization of Greek education system .Every day General Assemblies are organized and new faculties are added to the list. At side of the students we find also the university lecturer, primary and secondary education teachers and several trade-unions.

Why this explosion??

In the center of this new social explosion is the government’s will (with the explicit agreement of the party of opposition, the PASOK, Socialist Party) to revise Article 16 of the Greek Constitution. This article guarantees a high quality, free and especially public education for all Greek citizens. It declares without ambiguity that only the State can provide this service and that any private person is explicitly prohibited to do it in its place or in parallel.

It is obvious that an article of this type poses a major problem in the process of privatization of education. Process, let us not forget it, directed by the U.E through the Essen, Bologna and Lisbon Agreements.

In the Greek Parliament the discussion is not likely to be tense. The PASOK and Nea Dimokratia-party in government, centre right wing-, which together count for 90% of the seats, are in agreement on the revision. It is ironic is that it was the president of the opposition to the Parliament, G. Papandreou the president of the PASOK, who introduced it. The proposal concerns the opening of the market of education.
“The revision of Article 16 is essential for the improvement of the public system of education. Thanks to the creation of non-state and non-profit organizations the public universities will be forced to rationalize and become more effective thus exceeding the phenomena of bureaucracy and stagnation. ” he said in 2005. It is thanks to this “assist” on behalf of the “opposition” that the party in the government, Nea Dimokratia, can without obstacles dismount the national educational system.

The movement is getting bigger and bigger and bigger….
After three weeks of struggle the students do not seem tired. It started with a dozen occupied faculties and in three weeks it reached 311 occupied faculties. This has more merit if we think that the occupations are not permanent but each week, and in certain cases twice per weeks, there is a struggle in General Assemblies against the DAP (student union organization related to the party in government) which is a great force among the students.

Each week Coordinations at city level and one at national level take place. In spite of their structure being little fuzzy and questionable it is obvious that the participation increased since their beginning two weeks ago. The first national meeting had 200 students of all Greece representing their committee of occupation while in the second, one week later, there where more than 2000 students.

Since the beginning of the movement there are demonstrations organized every Wednesday. The participation in these demonstrations reflects the national tendency. On Wednesday January 24, third national event, the number of demonstrators at the national level reached 40000. In Athens there were 20000 demonstrators, in Thessaloniki 8000 to10000 and in other cities 10000.

However these figures are clearly lower than the capacity of the movement. It should not be forgotten that in the movement May-June 2006 more than 90% of faculties were occupied and that the demonstrations at the national level reached 70.000 - 80.000 demonstrators. “It is obvious that the fear of loss of the exam session or even of the whole semester and the arguments of the DAP limit the students to take part in the movement... ” Declared one participant of the Coordination of the occupations of Thessaloniki.

Students are not alone….
However in the street the students are not alone. The trade-unions: of university professors, primary and secondary teachers, employees at the universities, public services, of the workers in the construction /industry, some of the private sectors support and take part in the mobilizations. According to voice of the left, this is also the struggle of the workers.

This is only the beginning. The vote on the revision of the Constitution will take place in Mars. Meanwhile this week of new General Assemblies were called to decide the future actions, regional Coordinations and a national one of all faculties in the struggle are already planned. As it appears even more faculties will be swallowed by the wave of discontent as new mobilizations take place this week.

Skype Founder Tries Hand at Online Advertising

2007-01-31T09:55:00.001Z

The folks behind eBay-owned Skype announced that they will invest in Wunderloop, an online advertising firm based in Luxembourg. Niklas Zennstrom, founder of Skype, along with two of his technology investors, Klaus Hommels and Howard Hartenbaum, will invest in the European company that claims to have developed a groundbreaking type of targeted advertising.

Wunderloop has already begun working with AOL, T-Online, Tiscali, Lycos, and Deutsche, and lays claim that its technology can improve revenue gain for advertisers by 10 to 15 times over its current rate. The company claims that advertising efficiency would also reach almost 80 percent with this new technology, which Wunderloop claims continuously analyzes users’ current behavior - what they click on or their queries in search engines, for example – and compares available market research data in real-time from AGOF, Nielsen NetRatings and comScore among others. Additional information is culled with the user’s consent from in-house data such as CRM profiles.

Other investors like the Samwer brothers are joining in on backing Wunderloop, which will receive an estimate of €8m (£5m). While Hommels and Hartenbaum are using their own funds to invest, Zennstrom is investing through his Atomico Investments.

In a statement to the New York Times, Hartenbaum said, “When I am surfing the web, I get a lot of ads that are a waste of my time and a waste of the advertisers’ time - weight-loss products for women, for example. Wunderloop means that I get a better experience, and it works for the advertise.

Educational unification in Australia

2007-01-31T09:53:00.000Z

THE University of New England will lead a consortium of 14 Australian universities to develop a template for a new international "qualifications passport".

The Australian Diploma Supplement is expected to make it easier for graduates to move between jobs and institutions in Australia and overseas.

It is part of the commonwealth's response to Europe's Bologna Process, a higher education bloc of 45 countries with common degree structures.

Education Minister Julie Bishop announced in September that she would proceed with a diploma supplement. Today she will reveal the 14 members of the consortium selected to draw up a template.

The supplement, used in many European countries, is a document of several pages attached to a degree or diploma that can be easily understood by institutions and employers anywhere.

It outlines their achievements, describes courses, the university attended and the higher education system in their country of study.

"The ultimate aim for the supplement is to assist students and employers, both at home and abroad, by providing a world-class system for verifying student qualifications," Ms Bishop said.

The consortium will work with a range of interested people, including students, and employer and professional associations.

Ms Bishop has also established a steering group to monitor the Bologna Process.

"The steering group will help to fill some of the gaps in our knowledge on the latest developments in Europe and act as an important source of advice and leadership on this issue."

Last April a federal government discussion paper warned that Australia needed to look at uniform degree structures, a diploma supplement and international recognition of qualifications to meet competition from Europe.

"The Bologna process seems likely to have a profound effect on the development of higher education globally," the paper said.

But some sceptics believe the potential effect is overstated and that it would be better for Australia to align with Asian countries.

Europe wide smoke ban proposed

2007-01-31T09:51:00.000Z

The EU could become a "smoke-free zone" with a Europe-wide smoking ban if proposals by the European Commission go ahead.

The Commission wants the rest of the EU to follow the lead of Ireland, Scotland, Northern Ireland, England and Wales which have all banned smoking in public places.

Partial bans apply elsewhere - and a partial ban in France starts this week - but EU Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said he wants a comprehensive ban on smoking in all public places in the EU by 2009.

Member states are being asked to step up their own measures, but the EU's 27 countries are being warned Europe-wide legislation may be imposed.

Conservative MEP John Bowis said the EU should avoid legislating on smoking. He said: "Europe should butt out on enforcing smoke-free zones across member states with more heavy-handed legislation."

"As usual, Europe is at its best when it shares good practice. It enables us to learn from and, when appropriate, emulate one another."

The Irish ban came into force in March 2004, followed by Scotland in March last year. Complete smoke-free legislation will be in force in Northern Ireland, England and Wales by summer this year.

The Commission says that about one third of the EU's 480 million population still smokes - almost 38 per cent of men and 23 per cent of women.

Canadian PM letter dismisses Kyoto as 'socialist scheme'

2007-01-31T09:48:00.000Z

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper once called the Kyoto accord a "socialist scheme" designed to suck money out of rich countries, according to a letter leaked Tuesday by the Liberals.

The letter, posted on the federal Liberal party website, was apparently written by Harper in 2002, when he was leader of the now-defunct Canadian Alliance party.

He was writing to party supporters, asking for money as he prepared to fight then-prime minister Jean Chrétien on the proposed Kyoto accord.

"We're gearing up now for the biggest struggle our party has faced since you entrusted me with the leadership," Harper's letter says.

"I'm talking about the 'battle of Kyoto' — our campaign to block the job-killing, economy-destroying Kyoto accord."

The accord is an international environmental pact that sets targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Canada officially ratified the accord Dec. 17, 2002, under Chrétien's Liberal government. Harper's Conservative government, which took power January 2006, has since been accused of ignoring the accord.

Harper's letter goes on to outline why he's against the agreement.

Accord based on 'contradictory' data: Harper

He writes that it's based on "tentative and contradictory scientific evidence" and it focuses on carbon dioxide, which is "essential to life."

He says Kyoto requires that Canada make significant cuts in emissions, while countries like Russia, India and China face less of a burden.

Under Kyoto, Canada was required to reduce emissions by six per cent by 2012, while economies in transition, like Russia, were allowed to choose different base years.

"Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations," Harper's letter reads.

He said the accord would cripple the oil and gas industries, which are essential to Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

He wrote in the letter that he would do everything he could to stop Chrétien from passing the Kyoto agreement.

"We will do everything we can to stop him there, but he might get it passed with the help of the socialists in the NDP and the separatists in the BQ [Bloc Québécois]."

The Prime Minister's Office refused to comment about the letter on the record.

In recent weeks, Harper has spoken strongly about the environment, saying he will dramatically revamp his minority government's much-criticized Clean Air Act.

His comments come as public-opinion polls indicate the environment has become the number one issue among Canadians.

Liberal MP Mark Holland told the Canadian Press on Tuesday that the leaked letter shows that Harper isn't actually committed to climate change.

"Now, suddenly, because he has seen the polls and realized the political opportunism of going green, the prime minister has launched a new campaign — that of trying to convince Canadians that he actually cares about the environment," Holland said.

"But no one is buying it."

The Kyoto Protocol went into effect Feb. 16, 2005, with 141 countries signing on, including every major industrialized country, except the United States, Australia and Monaco.

Here is the full text

Text of a 2002 letter by Stephen Harper to members of his Canadian Alliance party denouncing the Kyoto accord:

Dear Friend,

We’re on a roll, folks!

The Canadian Alliance is once again setting the agenda in the House of Commons. Look at what happened in less than two months since Parliament reopened:

- We bagged another Liberal cabinet minister when we drove the hapless Lawrence MacAulay to resign for violating the ethics guidelines.

- We broke Jean Chretien’s chokehold on the House of Commons by getting the election of committee chairs and votes on all private members’ bills.

- We finally (!) got the Liberals to agree to set up a national registry for sex offenders.

But we can’t just relax and declare victory. We’re gearing up for the biggest struggle our party has faced since you entrusted me with the leadership. I’m talking about the “battle of Kyoto” - our campaign to block the job-killing, economy-destroying Kyoto Accord.

It would take more than one letter to explain what’s wrong with Kyoto, but here are a few facts about this so-called “Accord”:

- It’s based on tentative and contradictory scientific evidence about climate trends.

- It focuses on carbon dioxide, which is essential to life, rather than upon pollutants.

- Canada is the only country in the world required to make significant cuts in emissions. Third World countries are exempt, the Europeans get credit for shutting down inefficient Soviet-era industries, and no country in the Western hemisphere except Canada is signing.

- Implementing Kyoto will cripple the oil and gas industry, which is essential to the economies of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

- As the effects trickle through other industries, workers and consumers everywhere in Canada will lose. THERE ARE NO CANADIAN WINNERS UNDER THE KYOTO ACCORD.

- The only winners will be countries such as Russia, India, and China, from which Canada will have to buy “emissions credits.” Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.

- On top of all this, Kyoto will not even reduce greenhouse gases. By encouraging transfer of industrial production to Third World countries where emissions standards are more relaxed, it will almost certainly increase emissions on a global scale.

For a long time, the Canadian Alliance stood virtually alone in opposing the Kyoto Accord, as Bob Mills, our senior environment critic, waged a valiant battle against it. Now, however, allies are stepping forward - eight of 10 provincial governments, and a broad coalition of businesses across Canada - to help us fight the “battle of Kyoto.”

Jean Chretien says he will introduce a resolution to ratify Kyoto into Parliament and get it passed before Christmas. We will do everything we can to stop him there, but he might get it passed with the help of the socialists in the NDP and the separatists in the BQ.

But the “battle of Kyoto” is just beginning. Ratification is merely symbolic; Kyoto will not take effect unless and until it is implemented by legislation. We will go to the wall to stop that legislation and at that point we will be on much stronger procedural ground than in trying to block a mere resolution.

The Reform Party defeated the Charlottetown Accord in an epic struggle in the fall of 1992. Now the Canadian Alliance is leading the battle against the Kyoto Accord!

But we can’t do it alone. It will take an army of Canadians to beat Kyoto, just as it did to beat Charlottetown.

We can’t stop Kyoto just in Parliament. We need your help at all levels. We need you to inform yourself about Kyoto, to discuss it with your friends and neighbours, and to write protest letters to newspapers and the government.

And, yes, we need your gifts of money. The “battle of Kyoto” is going to lead directly into the next election. We need your contribution of $500, or $250, or $100, or whatever you can afford, to help us drive the Liberals from power.

Yours truly,

Stephen Harper, MP

Leader of the Opposition

PS: The “battle of Kyoto” shows why the Canadian Alliance is so important to you and to Canada. All the other federal parties are supporting Kyoto (Liberals, NDP, BQ) or speaking out of both sides of their mouth (Tories). Only the Canadian Alliance is strong and fearless enough to block dangerous and destructive schemes like the Charlottetown Accord and the Kyoto Accord.

What is the Kyoto Protocol

2007-01-31T09:45:00.000Z

Delegates from 189 nations will meet in Nairobi from November 6-17 for annual talks on combating climate change and the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, meant to cut emissions of gases blamed for global warming.

Here are some frequently asked questions about Kyoto:

WHAT IS THE KYOTO PROTOCOL?

- It is a pact agreed by governments at a 1997 U.N. conference in Kyoto, Japan, to reduce greenhouse gases emitted by developed countries to at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. A total of 165 nations have ratified the pact.

IS IT THE FIRST AGREEMENT OF ITS KIND?

- Governments agreed to tackle climate change at an "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 with non-binding targets. Kyoto is the follow-up and is the first binding global agreement to cut greenhouse gases.

SO IT IS LEGALLY BINDING?

- Kyoto has legal force from February 16, 2005. It represents 61.6 percent of developed nations' total emissions. The United States, the world's biggest source of emissions, pulled out in 2001, saying Kyoto is too expensive and wrongly omits developing nations from a first round of targets to 2012.

HOW WILL IT BE ENFORCED?

- Countries overshooting their targets in 2012 will have to make both the promised cuts and 30 percent more in a second period from 2013.

DO ALL COUNTRIES HAVE TO CUT EMISSIONS BY FIVE PERCENT?

- No, only 35 relatively developed countries have agreed to targets for 2008-12 under a principle that richer countries are most to blame. They range from an 8 percent cut for the European Union from 1990 levels to a 10 percent rise for Iceland.

HOW ARE THEY DOING SO FAR?

- Rich nations' emissions were 3.3 percent below 1990 levels in 2004, mainly due to a collapse of Soviet-era industries. Emissions are now rising in many countries. In the United States, outside Kyoto, emissions were up 15.8 percent from 1990.

WHAT ARE THESE 'GREENHOUSE GASES?'

- Greenhouse gases trap heat in the earth's atmosphere. The main culprit is carbon dioxide, produced largely from burning fossil fuel. The protocol also covers methane, much of which comes from agriculture, and nitrous oxide, mostly from fertilizer use. Three industrial gases are also included.

HOW WILL COUNTRIES COMPLY?

- The European Union set up a market in January 2005 under which about 12,000 factories and power stations are given carbon dioxide quotas. If they overshoot they can buy extra allowances in the market or pay a financial penalty; if they undershoot they can sell them.

WHAT OTHER MECHANISMS ARE THERE?

- Developed countries can earn credits to offset against their targets by funding clean technologies, such as solar power, in poorer countries. They can also have joint investments in former Soviet bloc nations.

US Airways stands firm on bid to acquire Delta

2007-01-31T09:43:00.001Z

The prospect of imminent airline industry consolidation faded Tuesday as US Airways Group Inc. reported no headway in its bid to take over rival Delta Air Lines Inc.

US Airways Chief Executive Doug Parker said his airline's nearly $10-billion bid for Delta was firm and he had no intention of extending the Feb. 1 deadline for Delta's official committee of creditors to respond.

Investors had hoped a US Airways-Delta deal would lead to more takeovers in the sector, which would cut competition and give surviving carriers an opportunity to raise fares.

Airline shares dropped across the board, even after US Airways and discount rival JetBlue Airways Corp. reported quarterly profits as oil prices jumped, heralding higher costs.

Parker dismissed as speculation reports that the airline would increase its $9.7-billion bid for Delta, which is operating under bankruptcy protection.

Delta has resisted US Airways, saying that Delta is worth more as a stand-alone company and that a merger would present antitrust problems. Delta said Tuesday that it had lined up $2.5 billion in financing from six major Wall Street banks when it exits bankruptcy.

Parker made his comments after US Airways reported a quarterly profit, reversing a year-earlier loss. The company also reported a profitable 2006, its first full year since the 2005 combination of US Airways and America West.

Tempe, Ariz.-based US Airways reported fourth-quarter net income of $12 million, or 13 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $261 million, or $3.27. The loss was made worse by a large fuel-hedge loss and some merger costs.

Forest Hills, N.Y.-based JetBlue also reported a fourth-quarter profit as both airlines benefited from strong travel demand and higher ticket prices.

But shares of both airlines dropped in the face of surging crude oil prices. US Airways' stock fell $1.33 to $53.10. JetBlue shares fell 65 cents to $13.85.

Scientists Gather to Finalize Climate Report

2007-01-31T09:33:00.000Z

Scientists from across the world gathered here today to hammer out the final details of an authoritative report on climate change that is expected to project centuries of rising temperatures and sea levels unless curbs are placed on emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that trap heat in the atmosphere.

According to scientists involved with writing or reviewing the report, the fourth since 1990 from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body overseen by the United Nations, it is nearly certain to conclude that there is at least a 90 percent probability that human-caused emissions are the main driver of warming since 1950.

The report, according to several authors, who spoke only on condition of anonymity saying that details could still change, will describe a growing body of evidence showing that warming is likely to profoundly transform the planet.

Three large sections of the report will be forthcoming during the year, with the summary for policymakers and sections on basic climate science coming on Friday.

Among findings in recent drafts are that the Arctic Ocean could largely be devoid of sea ice in summers later in the century; the Alps could shift from snowy winter destinations to summer havens from the heat; growing seasons in temperate regions will expand, while droughts will likely further ravage semi-arid regions of Africa and southern Asia.

"Concerns about climate change and public awareness on the subject are at an all time high," the chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, told delegates today.

"It would perhaps be no exaggeration to suggest that at no time in the past has there been a greater global appetite for knowledge on any subject as there is today on the scientific facts underlying the reality of global climate change," Dr. Pachauri said.

But scientists involved in the effort warned that squabbling between teams and representatives from governments of more than 100 countries over how to portray the most probable amount of sea-level rise during the 21st century could distract from the basic finding that a warming world will be one in which retreating coasts are the new normal for centuries to come.

Jerry Mahlman, an emeritus researcher at the National Center For Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who was a reviewer of the report’s single-spaced, 1,644-page summary of climate science, said that most of the leaks to the press so far were from people eager to find elements that were the scariest or most reassuring.

He added in an interview yesterday that such efforts distract from the basic, undisputed findings, saying that those point to trends that are very disturbing.

Mr. Mahlman pointed to recent disclosures that there is still uncertainty about the pace at which seas will rise due to warming and melting of terrestrial ice over the next 100 years. That span, he said, was just the start of a process of a rise in sea levels that would then almost certainly continue for 1,000 years or so.

The latest draft of the IPCC summary highlights the hazardous consequences of “business as usual,” finding that twice the pre-industrial concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will likely warm the climate by between 3.5 degrees and 8 degrees Fahrenheit, with a greater than one-in-ten chance of much higher temperatures.

Even the mid-range projection for warming, according to many climate experts and biologists, is likely to powerfully stress ecosystems and disrupt longstanding climate patterns related to water supplies and agriculture.

Many economists and energy experts long ago abandoned any expectation that it would be possible to avoid a doubling of pre-industrial carbon dioxide concentrations given growth of human populations, use of fossil fuels, particularly coal, and deforestation in the tropics.

As a result, a significant focus of the summary coming this week and of other sections of the report will be the necessity to boost the resilience of agriculture and water supplies to inevitable shifts, while trying to slow and, as soon as it can be affordably done, reverse the century-long climb in releases of the heat-trapping gases.

Many experts involved in the IPCC process said there is hope that with a prompt start on slowing emissions, the chances of seeing much great warmer and widespread disruption of ecosystems and societies can be cut.

Outside experts agreed.

``We basically have three choices - mitigation, adaptation, and suffering,” said John Holdren, the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and an energy and climate expert at Harvard University. ``We’re going to do some of each. The question is what the mix is going to be. The more mitigation we do, the less adaptation will be required and the less suffering there will be.”

One key point of controversy in early drafts of the IPCC report is a smaller rise in sea level than the last report projected. In the next several days, scientists relying on field observations and computer models of ocean and ice behavior in a warming world will struggle to find a consensus.

Some scientists say that the figures used in the upcoming report are not up to date because they leave out recent observations of instability in some ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland.

Ice loss in those regions has been very sudden in some cases, implying a more rapid rise in sea levels than projected by some computer models.

Another possible point of contention during the four days of closed-door sessions in Paris this week could be assertions in early drafts of the report that the recent warming rate was blunted by particle pollution and volcanic eruptions.

Some scientists say the final report should reflect the assumption that the rate of warming in coming years is likely to be more pronounced that in previous decades.

The IPCC report will not outline measures to tackle global warming. Instead, it will concentrate on the latest evidence that the phenomenon is underway.

But Achim Steiner, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said the findings that will be presented on Friday should lead decision-makers to accelerate efforts to slash carbon emissions and to help people in vulnerable parts of the world prepare for climate change.

"These findings should strengthen the resolve of governments to act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and put in place the medium to longer term strategies necessary to avert dangerous climate change," said Mr. Steiner.

In a new report issued on today, UNEP said the most recent evidence from mountain glaciers showed they were melting faster than before, or 1.6 times more than the average of the 1990s, and three times the loss rate of the 1980s.

UNEP warned that the trend was likely to continue because 2006 was one of the warmest years in many parts of the world.

Also today, there were new concerns about climate change in low-lying parts of the world. Indonesia could lose about 2,000 islands by 2030 because of the phenomenon, according to the country’s environment minister, Rachmat Witoelar.

Over the past year, international concern over what to do about global warming has grown along with concrete signs of climate change in developing regions like Africa, where water is running low, and in developed regions, like Europe, where there was a marked lack of snow at Alpine ski resorts during early January.

Even so political leaders are still groping for ways to tackle the phenomenon. Europe has adopted a program that caps the amount of emissions from industrial producers.

But the world’s largest emitter, the United States, still is debating whether to adopt a similar policy while developing-world countries like China are resisting caps on the grounds that the industrialized world contributed about 75 percent of the current volume of greenhouse gases and should make the deepest cuts.

That has hampered the chances of an effective solution, which experts say will require all nations to cut emissions or become more energy efficient.

The second section of the IPCC report, which focuses on the impacts of and ways of adapting to climate change, is slated for release in April, while a section on mitigating climate change is expected to be released in May.

The final part, a synthesis of all three parts for policy-makers, is expected in November.

The fallout of global warming: 1,000 years

2007-01-31T09:28:00.000Z

In stark terms, scientists confirm that climate change is 'unequivocal'

Humans have already caused so much damage to the atmosphere that the effects of global warming will last for more than 1,000 years, according to a summary of a climate-change report being prepared by the world's leading scientists.

The draft, seen by The Globe and Mail yesterday, also says evidence the world is heating up is now so strong it is “unequivocal” and predicts more frequent heat waves, droughts and rain storms, as well as more violent typhoons and hurricanes. It concludes the higher temperatures observed during the past 50 years are so dramatically different from anything in the climate record that the last half-century period was likely the hottest in at least the past 1,300 years.

Moreover, 11 of the past 12 years rank among the warmest since humans began taking accurate temperature measurements in the 1850s, a record of extremes so pronounced it is unlikely to be due to chance.

“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, melting of snow and ice, and rising sea level,” says the draft, which is being reviewed in Paris before its formal release Friday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The draft also makes projections of how the climate is likely to change over this century:

-- Sea ice will shrink in both the Arctic and Antarctic, and late summer sea ice in the Arctic could disappear almost entirely by the latter part of the 21st century;

-- Heat waves and storms involving heavy precipitation will continue to become more common, as will droughts;

-- The number of hurricanes will decrease, but the ones that do occur will be more powerful;

-- Ocean currents responsible for such things as the Gulf Stream will slow, possibly by as much as 25 per cent. The report said it's “very unlikely” that currents will have abrupt changes during the 21st century, but longer-term alterations “cannot be assessed with confidence.”

-- Global temperatures in 2090-99 are likely to be 1.7 degrees to 4 degrees warmer than the period from 1980-1999;

-- Current models suggest global warming of 1.9 to 4.6 degrees would lead to a “virtually complete” elimination of the Greenland ice sheet and a rise in sea levels of about 7 metres, if sustained for millennia;

-- Sea levels will probably rise from between 0.28 metres and 0.43 metres, although there is a chance the increase will be larger if Greenland and Antarctic ice discharges continue to grow.

The IPCC report is the fourth to be issued by the UN-organized group of scientists, and draws on contributions of about 2,000 top experts from around the world, including many from Canada.

The panel's findings have evolved since the first was issued in 1990, becoming more confident over time that human activity — mainly the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and large-scale agriculture — have been causing profound changes on the climate.

The first report suggested global warming might be happening. The second, in 1995, said it was likely to be under way, while the third, in 2001, had a tone that indicated scientists were pretty sure they were seeing humanity's fingerprints on changes in climate.

Given the stark tenor of the draft scientists are now considering, they seem absolutely sure that climate change is happening.

The projection that human influence on the atmosphere during the 21st century will contribute to warming for more than 1,000 years is based on estimates for how long it will take nature to remove global-warming gases from the air.

The draft says evidence of warming is now being found almost everywhere in the world, from the tops of mountains, where glaciers are in retreat, to ocean deeps, where the average water temperatures have increased all the way down to depths of 3,000 metres because of the warming effect of a hotter atmosphere.

Some environmentalists are predicting that a strongly worded IPCC report will dispel any lingering doubts that global warming is really happening, and are calling on politicians to start taking more sweeping action to limit emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for climate change.

“There is no more reason to delay,” said John Bennett, spokesman for the Climate Action Network Canada. “We need the policies, regulations, and programs to reduce emissions and we need to do it with the same kind of urgency that we would use to fight a war.”

The United Nations' top environment official is calling for an emergency climate-change summit later this year.

The IPCC report will be issued in four instalments over the course of the year. The first section, now being prepared, deals with all new scientific evidence assembled since 2001 on how the world's climate has been changing. The others will deal with specific topics, such as how humans can adapt to climate change and mitigate its effects.

The draft says concentrations of two main greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, “far exceed” anything seen over the past 650,000 years, based on data that reconstructed the atmospheric composition of earlier times using air bubbles contained in ice cores.

The changes to the atmosphere are so large the scientists estimate that warming due to human-caused increases in greenhouse gases are at least five times larger than natural changes caused by normal alterations in output of solar energy from the sun.

Although the draft doesn't mention Canada directly, it says average Arctic temperatures have experienced a far sharper rise than elsewhere on the planet, increasing at a rate over the past 100 years that is double the global average.

Major global warming report

2007-01-31T09:26:00.000Z

The Eiffel Tower's 20,000 flashing light bulbs will go dark for five minutes on Thursday evening, hours before scientists and officials publish a long-awaited report about global warming.

The blackout comes at the urging of environmental activists seeking to call attention to energy waste -- and just hours before world scientists unveil a major report on Friday warning that the planet will keep getting warmer and presenting new evidence of humanity's role in climate change.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will release a report laying out policy proposals for governments based on the latest research on global warming.

The top U.N. official for the environment asked Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday to convene an emergency summit of world leaders aimed at breaking a deadlock over cutting greenhouse gases.

The impetus for such a world summit is U.S. President George W. Bush's acknowledgment in his Jan. 24 State of the Union speech that climate change needs to be dealt with, and the EU's Jan. 10 proposals for a new European energy policy that stresses the need to slash carbon emissions blamed for global warming, U.N. environment program spokesman Nick Nuttall said.

"There's a lot of momentum that has being building," Nuttall said. "We have a window of opportunity."

Nuttall said the summit could be held between July and December.

The second day of the Paris talks wound down Tuesday evening more or less on schedule, according to officials at UNESCO, the conference's host.

There was little sign of the late-night wrangling among countries that marked previous reports. The report must be unanimously approved by bureaucrats from more than 100 governments who can challenge the scientists' wording.

"The government people determine how things are said, but we (the scientists) determine what is said," said Kevin Trenberth, a lead author of the report and director of climate analysis at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado.

The end result is a cautious document, many scientists say.

One Russian participant said Tuesday that the discussions he observed were more procedural than political.

Another observer who has taken part in several such conferences, Stephanie Tunmore of Greenpeace, said, "So far we're running on timetable. But who knows, we've got two more days. If there's any panic, it will be Wednesday night when they realize they've only got a few hours left."

An early draft of the report being released in Paris suggests it will contain stronger evidence of the human role in climate change and more specific predictions of rising temperatures and sea levels this century.

The report "won't change our scientific basis, but it will make our jobs easier," Steve Sawyer, of Greenpeace, said Tuesday. "It is an important and powerful new tool in public debate and policy debate."

Environmental groups have long urged governments and consumers to rely more on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power instead of greenhouse gas-emitting ones like coal and oil. Greenhouse gases are considered a key culprit of rising global temperatures.

Global warming: impacts of temperature increases

2007-01-31T09:22:00.000Z

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will publish a report, the most complete overview of climate change science, in Paris on February 2. It will guide policy makers combating global warming.

A draft of the report projects temperatures rising by 2 to 4.5 Celsius (3.6 to 8.1 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by 2100, with a "best estimate" of a 3C (5.4 F) rise.

Below are some estimates of the global implications of different temperature rises relative to pre-industrial levels, as detailed in a report on climate change by Nicholas Stern, chief British government economist, published in October.

Temp. rise/ Impacts 1 DEGREE

* Shrinking glaciers threaten water for 50 million people

* Modest increases in cereal yields in temperate regions

* At least 300,000 people each year die from malaria, malnutrition and other climate-related diseases

* Reduction in winter mortality in higher latitudes

* 80 percent bleaching of coral reefs, e.g. Great Barrier Reef

2 DEGREES

* 5 - 10 percent decline in crop yield in tropical Africa

* 40 - 60 million more people exposed to malaria in Africa

* Up to 10 million more people affected by coastal flooding

* 15 - 40 percent of species face extinction (one estimate)

* High risk of extinction of Arctic species, e.g. polar bear

* Potential for Greenland ice sheet to start to melt irreversibly, committing world to 7 meter sea level rise

3 DEGREES

* In Southern Europe, serious droughts once every 10 years

* 1 - 4 billion more people suffer water shortages

* Some 150 - 550 additional millions at risk of hunger

* 1 - 3 million more people die from malnutrition

* Onset of Amazon forest collapse (some models only)

* Rising risk of collapse of West Antarctic Ice Sheet

* Rising risk of collapse of Atlantic Conveyor of warm water

* Rising risk of abrupt changes to the monsoon

4 DEGREES

* Agricultural yields decline by 15 - 35 percent in Africa

* Up to 80 million more people exposed to malaria in Africa

* Loss of around half Arctic tundra

5 DEGREES

* Possible disappearance of large glaciers in Himalayas, affecting one-quarter of China's population, many in India

* Continued increase in ocean acidity seriously disrupting marine ecosystems and possibly fish stocks

* Sea level rise threatens small islands, coastal areas

EC to propose Europe-wide ban on smoking

2007-01-31T09:20:00.000Z

The European Commission discusses whether to introduce legislation that, in its most stringent form, would totally ban smoking at work and in public places

An EU-wide ban on smoking in public spaces could be put in the pipeline after the European Commission on Tuesday (30 January) launches a debate on whether to introduce a piece of smoke-free legislation binding on all member states.

EU health commissioner Markos Kyprianou is to issue a so-called green paper that takes a favourable view of the examples set by Ireland, Italy, Malta and Sweden on public smoking.

There are two options laid down in the commission's paper, seen by EUobserver.

A most stringent approach envisages "a total ban on smoking in all enclosed or substantially enclosed workplaces and public places, including means of public transport".

Restrictions could also be extended to "outdoor areas around entrances to buildings and possibly to other outdoor place where people sit or stand close to each other, such as open air stadiums, bus shelters or train platforms", the paper says.

The second option—and "a less effective one" according to the commission's paper—proposes "exemptions granted to selected categories of venue", e.g. hospitality establishments that do no serve food.

Apart from the smoke-free initiative, how much Brussels has to say on the issue is also to be decided, with the paper suggesting several options ranging from no new activity on the part of the EU to rules that are legally binding.

Currently, at EU level, the issue of a smoke-free environment has been addressed mainly in work safety directives and in non-binding recommendations, which invite member states to ban smoking in indoor workplaces, enclosed public places and public transport.

However, national legislation differs widely across the 27-nation block.

Smoking in all enclosed public places and all workplaces has already been outlawed in Ireland and Scotland, with the UK coming on board by the summer of 2007.

Italy, Malta and Sweden have also walked down the ban route, although permitting employers to create specially sealed-off smoking rooms with separate ventilation systems.

France and Finland are set to take the same route in the coming days and weeks.

However, it is expected that EU capitals will prefer to manage the process themselves rather than granting powers to Brussels' executive body on the issue.

There have been concerns about possible harm to the hospitality industry in some EU member states, but current statistics prove rather ambiguous.

For instance, non-EU Norway has experienced a slight fall of 0.8 percent in sales in eating and drinking establishments, while in Ireland the volume of sales in bars and pubs increased by 0.1 percent.

But last polls—carried out in the EU-25 last year—show that 84 percent of Europeans favour a smoking ban in any indoor public space, with Ireland, Italy and Sweden leading the chart.

More than 79,000 adults die each year as a result of so-called second hand smoking.

Fwd: Google Alert - "sustainable development"

2007-01-30T11:20:00.001Z

Google News Alert for: "sustainable development"

Women key to successful and sustainable development
Canada NewsWire (press release) - Canada
"Sustainable development depends on the full partnership of women." Operation Eyesight is the original Canadian response to global blindness, committed to ...

Towards sustainable development respecting human rights, democracy ...
Ministry of Defence (press release) - Colombo,Western Province,Sri Lanka
Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the Sri Lanka Development Forum 2007 President Mahinda Rajapaksa pointed out that the economic development is the ...

IGNOU institutes chair on sustainable development
Hindu - Chennai,India
Apart from information on sustainable development, the chair will provide inputs on different schemes of the Central Government at these facilities. ...
See all stories on this topic

Ellorin: Reflections from the World Social Forum
Sun.Star - Philippines
Issues like access to land and other natural resources, global warming, good and accountable governance, sustainable development were being discussed and ...

Voices and Expressions on Sustainability.
E-Flux - New York,NY,USA
This exhibition explores the role of art in relation to sustainable development. The artists offer their personal reflections regarding this issue. ...

Sustainable Development imposed in Washington State
Canada Free Press - Canada
The President's Council on Sustainable Development, created by executive order, and consisting of appointed, not elected, individuals, decided that a new ...

Rapid industrialisation may lead to unrest
India Infoline.com - Mumbay,India
Responding to the theme of the session "Engaging with Communities for Sustainable Development," Prahalad mentioned that rapid industrialisation does not ...
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Fwd: Google Alert - Kyoto Protocol

2007-01-30T11:18:00.001Z

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Google Alerts <googlealerts-noreply@google.com>
Date: Jan 30, 2007 4:35 AM
Subject: Google Alert - Kyoto Protocol
To: joao.rei@gmail.com

Google News Alert for: Kyoto Protocol

Blair forecasts a breakthrough in climate deal
Earthtimes.org - USA
The Kyoto Protocol binds 35 developed countries to cut emissions of
greenhouse gases to 5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. But the
countries that have ...
See all stories on this topic

IPCC new climate change report due this week
Forest NewsWatch.com (subscription) - Montreal,QC,Canada
The Kyoto Protocol now covers 168 countries globally, including 35
industrialized nations with binding targets and numerous developing
countries that are ...

Guelph losing renown: May
Guelph Mercury (subscription) - Guelph,Ontario,Canada
May delivered a speech about the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas
emissions to nearly 400 people on the university's campus Saturday.
...

Green buzz: Cut carbon for dollar dreams
Lucknow Newsline - Lucknow,India
Carbon emissions trading is one of the ways in which countries can
meet their obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 international
treaty that took ...
See all stories on this topic

Masdar spearheads carbon management programme
Trade Arabia - Manama,Bahrain
Providing market-driven incentives by monetising emission reduction
under the Clean Development Mechanism framework of the Kyoto Protocol
(CDM). ...

Australian Environment Crusader Wins Award, Criticizes Government
Associated Content - Denver,CO,USA
Flannery said that Australia's refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol has
wasted an opportunity to completely isolate the US on the issue and
has critically ...
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Greens urge Cullen to push Kyoto protocol on Aussie
TV3 News - Auckland,New Zealand
But the Greens say New Zealand cannot get into bed with Australia,
while it refuses to sign the Kyoto agreement. Co-leader Russel Norman
says it is an ...

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Low Cost to link Palma with Madrid

2007-01-30T10:17:00.000Z

BRITISH-based low cost airline easyJet is to connect Palma with Madrid as it launches its first domestic routes in Spain. The no-frills carrier this week unveiled the first three of its Spanish domestic routes from its new hub at Madrid’s Barajas airport. It boasted that after launching the first low cost air services to Spain from Britain it was now looking to revolutionise the Spanish domestic holiday and business airline markets.

The Palma link will take off on February 26 just days after easyJet’s first services, linking Madrid to Oviedo and Asturias, take to the skies. Fares start at 25.99 euros including taxes and an easyJet spokesman said the 50 per cent discount for Balearic residents would apply.

The airline claimed it was linking three of Spain’s most commercially active regions with its hub in Madrid and more domestic routes are scheduled to be introduced.

This will enable Balearic residents to travel to France, Italy and Morocco via Madrid with connecting flights from the UK airline.

EasyJet will go head-to-head with Palma-based Air Berlin for a share of the Spanish domestic market.

Air Berlin already flies to many different destinations throughout Europe from its Palma hub. Passengers can fly from Portugal to various cities in Germany, Austria and Italy via Mallorca with Air Berlin and its associate company Nikki, founded by former Formula One racing champion Nikki Lauda.

Meanwhile, easyJet has announced new flights connecting the UK and the Balearics. It will link Ibiza with Belfast, Luton, London Stansted and Glasgow, while new services will be flying into Palma from Edinburgh this summer.

EasyJet flies to 73 different airports in 19 countries and operates 267 routes with its fleet of 120 aircraft. Last year the company carried over 33 million passengers.

Serbian Polls To Decide if Country's Future Will be European

2007-01-21T10:22:00.000Z

Will Serbia take a step towards the EU?

Serbians vote Sunday for a new government in polls pitting pro-western and ultra-nationalist forces against each other. The West says Serbia must now decide if it wants its future to be European.

Taking advantage of unseasonably warm winter weather, voters began trickling in to some of the more than 8,500 polling stations across the Balkan nation, including Serbs in ethnic-Albanian dominated Kosovo.

Serbia's 6.6 million electorate, which excludes ethnic Albanians in its disputed southern province, is voting for 250 parliamentary deputies from 20 political groups.

Serbia's EU membership hopes at stake

At stake is Serbia's hope of eventual European Union membership, which hinges on Belgrade's war crimes cooperation, namely by capturing former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, who is wanted for genocide.

Ratko Mladic remains a sticking point between the West and Serbia

Brussels froze talks on closer ties last year and said it would restart them only when Mladic was on trial.

Some Western officials accuse hardline nationalists in Serbia's military and police of helping Mladic to hide and evade trial by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

"We sincerely hope the voters will turn out in large numbers and choose a European future for their country," said British ambassador Steven Wordsworth.

German ambassador Andreas Zobel said the elections "are of an extraordinary importance because they will determine the direction in which Serbia wishes to develop."

The parliamentary elections come the year after the death of former autocratic president Slobodan Milosevic and the independence of Serbia's traditional partner Montenegro in a historic referendum.

"Uncertain" outcome

The decisive race is expected to be between President Boris Tadic's reformist Democratic Party (DS), the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS), and conservative Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS).

"These elections are a turning point between the past, old-fashioned, traditional and incapable politics and a strategy which solves problems ... and leads Serbia to the EU," Tadic said during campaigning.

Official poll monitors, the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID), said they believed the outcome of the election was one of the most "uncertain" in the country's history.

"There are some 250,000 new voters (since 2003 elections) and their ballots can be decisive as they are expected to vote for reformist forces," the head of CeSID, Zoran Lucic, said ahead of voting.

Opinion polls have shown none of the three leading parties are likely to win enough votes to form a government alone, with Tadic and Kostunica widely expected to put old differences behind them and join ranks in a coalition.

Fate of Kosovo

The election is set to have a strong bearing on Kosovo, the UN-run province of Serbia that remains the most sensitive issue left over from the bloody 1990s breakup of the former Yugoslavia.

It comes just five days ahead of the presentation of UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari's plans for the status of Kosovo, the ethnic-Albanian majority province of Serbia that has been run by the United Nations since 1999.

Ahtisaari, who led nine months of mostly fruitless talks between Belgrade and Pristina last year, chose to present his plans after the poll for fear it could boost the ultra-nationalists.

Merkel with Serbian President Tadic in Berlin in Dec. 2006

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country heads the EU's six-month rotating presidency, said in an interview with news agency Reuters this week that any decision on Kosovo must bring "maximum" satisfaction to the citizens of the province without stirring unrest in Serbia.

"We need maximum satisfaction in Kosovo but also satisfaction, or at least no turbulence, in Serbia," Merkel said ahead of Sunday's Serbian elections. "First we want to see the democratic powers in Serbia strengthened after the election and then we will do everything we can to negotiate astutely while still moving ahead with political decisions."

Ethnic Albanians, who comprise about 90 percent of Kosovo's two million people, want nothing less than independence, a demand Belgrade staunchly opposes, instead offering them wide autonomy.

The major parties say they will not accept the loss of Kosovo, but the Democratic Party of President Boris Tadic -- the party favored by the West -- has come closest to telling Serbs that it might be inevitable.

Jaded voters

Despite the importance of the poll, a large number of voters are expected to abstain, fed up with politics and Serbia's protracted transition from communism, which has been delayed by the wars of the 1990s and their aftermath.

More than six years since the ouster of former strongman Milosevic, the impoverished country lags behind its neighbours with an average monthly salary of about 250 euros ($320) and about one million unemployed.

Some 500 international and 5,000 local observers were monitoring the vote. Unofficial preliminary results were expected late Sunday, while the final outcome is to be presented by January 25.

Serbs vote for a new Parliament

2007-01-21T10:20:00.000Z

BELGRADE: Serbs voted Sunday in a closely contested parliamentary election between pro-Western democrats and nationalists to determine whether the Balkan nation drifts toward mainstream Europe or returns to its wartime nationalist past.

The vote was the first since the breakup of Serbia's union last year with Montenegro, its last partner from the former Yugoslavia, which split up in the 1990s. Turnout was about 46 percent in the first 10 hours of voting, according to Cesid, an independent Serbian polling group, indicating strong interest among the electorate of 6.6 million. Parties must receive a minimum 5 percent of the vote to enter the 250-seat Parliament.

Shortly after the vote, a United Nations plan for the future of Serbia's breakaway Kosovo province is expected to be published. Many in the West fear that Europe could face a crisis if the nationalist Serbian Radical Party emerges as the outright winner Sunday and the UN plan calls for the independence of Kosovo.

"We will win and make sure that Kosovo remains part of Serbia," Tomislav Nikolic, leader of the Radicals, said Sunday after he cast his ballot.

Challenging the Radicals in the vote were the Western-backed Democratic Party of President Boris Tadic and the center-right Popular Coalition, led by Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica.

Tadic and Kostunica have lobbied internationally to keep Kosovo within Serbia, offering broad autonomy to its majority ethnic Albanians, who are insisting on full independence. Unlike the Radicals, Tadic and Kostunica have pledged to resolve the Kosovo crisis by peaceful means.

Kosovo has been an international protectorate since the 1998-99 war between Serbian troops and separatist ethnic Albanians.

Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president who is overseeing talks on the future of the region, is expected to present a proposal for Kosovo's future to diplomats on Friday that many say will include some sort of conditional independence.

None of the top three groups in the vote Sunday was likely to win an outright majority to govern alone, surveys have shown. Analysts have predicted that a new cabinet could be a coalition of Tadic's and Kostunica's parties, possibly backed by a few groups representing ethnic minorities.

But Kostunica, who headed Serbia's government over the past three years, has not ruled out forming a coalition with the Radicals in order to stay in power.

Tadic said Sunday that his Democrats would win most votes "but will not be able to form a government alone."

Serbs Vote in Key Parliamentary Election

2007-01-21T10:18:00.000Z

Serbs voted Sunday in parliamentary elections closely watched by European Union leaders hoping the troubled Balkan nation will keep pursuing Western-style reforms and a peaceful solution to the dispute over Kosovo.

The vote was the first since Serbia became independent last year with the end to its union with Montenegro, its last partner from the former Yugoslav federation. Soon after the vote, a U.N. plan for the future of Serbia's breakaway Kosovo province is expected to be proposed.

More than 6.6 million voters were choosing among 20 political parties, ranging from ultranationalists and conservatives to pro-Western reformists and liberals. Parties must get a minimum 5 percent of the total vote to earn a place in the 250-member parliament.

Nearly 57 percent of registered voters had cast ballots one hour before polls closed, said CeSID, an independent Serbian polling group, indicating a strong interest among the electorate.

Challenges facing the next parliament and government include Western demands for the arrest of war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic and the dispute over Kosovo, where a predominantly ethnic Albanian population seeks independence over the strong opposition of most Serbs.

Opinion polls indicated the vote would be a close race between the nationalist Serbian Radical Party, loyal to late ex-leader Slobodan Milosevic, and the Western-backed Democratic Party of President Boris Tadic.

But neither of the two groups was expected to win an outright majority, forcing them to partner with smaller parties to form a governing coalition.

Ranking third in recent polls was the center-right Popular Coalition, led by Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. In campaigning, he navigated a central course, advocating EU integration but refusing to denounce Milosevic-era parties. He has pursued Western-advised reforms but failed to arrest Mladic.

Tadic has pledged that a government led by his Democrats would work harder to arrest the fugitive.

The elections came a day before talks between EU foreign ministers in Brussels where Kosovo was to top the agenda. The 27-nation bloc will look closely at elections' results, hoping that pro-Western parties will win and push ahead with democratic and economic reforms and fully cooperate with the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and other EU officials said last week that stability in the Balkans was a priority, including working closely with Belgrade to find a peaceful solution to Kosovo's status.

On Friday, U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari is expected to present a proposal that will include some sort of conditional independence for the province, which has been an international protectorate since the 1998-99 war between Milosevic's troops and separatist ethnic Albanians.

Tadic and Kostunica have lobbied internationally to keep Kosovo within Serbia, offering broad autonomy to its ethnic Albanians. The two have pledged to resolve the Kosovo crisis peacefully, a promise the Radicals have refused to make.

``We will win and make sure that Kosovo remains part of Serbia,'' Serbian Radical Party leader Tomislav Nikolic said Sunday.

Could this be the final chapter in the life of the book

2007-01-21T10:09:00.000Z

The world's libraries are heading for the internet, says Bryan Appleyard. If this means we lose touch with real books and treat their content as 'information', civilisation is the loser

‘The majority of information,” said Jens Redmer, director of Google Book Search in Europe, “lies outside the internet.”

Redmer was speaking last week at Unbound, an invitation-only conference at the New York Public Library (NYPL). It was a groovy, bleeding-edge-of-the-internet kind of affair. There was Chris Anderson, editor of Wired magazine and author of The Long Tail, a book about the new business economics of the net. There was Arianna Huffington, grand panjandrum of both the blogosphere and smart East Coast society.

But this wasn’t just another jolly. There were also publishers and Google execs, two groups of people who might one day soon be fighting for their professional lives before the Supreme Court.

For Unbound was another move in a strange, complex and frequently obscure war that is being fought over the digitisation of the great libraries of the world. The details of this war may seem baffling, but there is nothing baffling about what is at stake. Intellectual property — intangibles like ideas, knowledge and information — is, in the globalised world, the most valuable of all assets. China may be booming on the basis of manufacturing, but, overwhelmingly, it makes things invented and designed in the West or Japan. Intellectual property is the big difference between the developing and developed worlds.

But intellectual property rights and the internet are uneasy bedfellows. Google’s stated mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. The words “universally accessible” carry the implicit threat that nobody can actually own or earn revenue from any information since it will all be just out there.

Furthermore, Redmer’s point indicates that, for Google, the mission has barely left base camp. Himalayas of information are still waiting to be conquered. And the highest peaks of all are the great libraries of the world, the repositories of the 100m or more books that have been produced since Johann Gutenberg invented movable type in the 15th century.

In December 2004, Google announced its assault on these peaks. It had made a deal with five libraries — with the NYPL and at the universities of Stanford, Harvard, Michigan and Oxford — to scan their stocks, making their contents available online via Google Book Search (books.google.com). Ultimately, it is thought, some 30m volumes will be involved. Microsoft, meanwhile, has made a deal with the British Library to scan 100,000 books — 25m pages — this year alone. Google has now scanned 1m books.

The first thing to be said is that Google Book Search, though still in its “beta” or unfinalised form, is an astonishing mechanism. Putting my own name in came up with 626 references and gave me immediate access to passages containing my name in books, most of which were quite unknown to me. Moreover, clicking on one of these references brings up an image of the actual page in question.

But the second thing to be said is that I could read whole passages of my books of which I own the copyright. At once a huge intellectual property issue looms. The Americans are ploughing ahead with this, scanning in material both in and out of copyright. The British — at Oxford’s Bodleian Library and the British Library — are being more cautious, allowing only the scanning of out-of-copyright books. This may, of course, mean nothing, since the big American libraries will, like the Bodleian and the British Library, contain every book published in English, so they will all ultimately be out there on the net.

American publishers are not happy. Before its 2004 announcement, Google had been doing deals with individual publishers to scan their books. But digitising the libraries would seem to render these deals defunct. Furthermore, since Google is acquiring copyright material at no cost, it seems to be treating books quite differently from all other media. It is prepared to pay for video and music, but not, apparently, for books. The Google defence is that their Book Search system is covered by the legal concept of “fair dealing”. No more than 20% of a copyright book will be available, the search is designed to show just relevant passages, and it will provide links to sites where the book can be bought.

Unimpressed, the Authors Guild, supported by the Association of American Publishers, has started a class action suit against Google. A deal may yet be done, but neither side sounds in a compromising mood, and it looks likely that this will go all the way to the Supreme Court, whose ruling on this case may prove momentous.

But still, we are only in the foothills of the library digitisation issue. When Google made its 2004 announcement, Jean-Noël Jeanneney, president of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, experienced “neither distress nor irritation at the project. Just a healthy jolt”. He welcomed the idea that “a treasure trove of knowledge, accumulated for centuries, would be opened up to the benefit of all,” but he was also “seized by anxiety”. Driven by this anxiety, he wrote a short book, Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge.

Though he declines to talk of “a crusade or a cultural war”, the book is a clear case of “aux armes, citoyens!” The citizens in question are, in this case, European rather than just French, for Jeanneney sees the Google project as an act of American cultural hegemony. He has won the backing of Chirac for a project to develop a European search engine to rival Google, the so-called “Airbus solution” — the creation of Airbus was a deliberate attempt to combat the ascendancy of Boeing in aircraft manufacture.

Jeanneney says that Google is not what it seems. Its search results are biased by commercial and cultural pressures. He has a point. Try this: go to Google Book Search and enter Gustave Flaubert. The first results are full of English translations of Madame Bovary.

The books of the English-speaking world are given overwhelming priority. Equally, Google’s main search engine produces paid-for sites. Google is a profit machine. Nothing wrong with that, as long as we don’t delude ourselves into thinking it is an entirely neutral source of information.

But there are even deeper issues revolving around the distinction between information and knowledge. “A search engine,” says John Sutherland, professor of English at UCL, “is not an index.”

An index is the work of a mind with knowledge, search engine results are the product of an algorithm with information. Parents will already have seen the power of the algorithm. Google has supplanted the textbook as the source of homework research.

Furthermore, with the advance of library digitisation, students will increasingly get through their degrees on screen rather than in libraries. Indeed, Bill Gates expects in the very near future that Microsoft will be able to give all undergraduates a $400 hand-held device that will contain all the text books they need for their course. We are, it seems, about to lose physical contact with books, the primary experience and foundation of civilisation for the last 500 years.

Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library, refuses to see this in apocalyptic terms. With 100,000 of her books being scanned by Microsoft this year, she regards the ultimate digitisation of the library’s entire 150m-item collection (journals included) as “a wonderful outcome, though I suspect I’ll be long dead by then”.

Brindley disagrees with Jeanneney about having to fight off American hegemony. She points out that search engines are still in their infancy. Google has competitors that are bound to eat into its monopoly. Furthermore, improved technologies will make search results more like indexes, working more precisely as knowledge providers than simple information dispensers. The British Library has no choice, she believes, but to go with this technological flow. The alternative is to become little more than “a book museum”.

Back at the NYPL, David Worlock of Electronic Publishing Services said, “Ultimately it’s not up to Google or the publishers to decide how books will be read.

It’s the readers who will have the final say.”

No, it is the teachers who will have the final say. They will determine whether people will read for information, knowledge or, ultimately, wisdom. If they fail and their pupils read only for information, then we are in deep trouble. For the net doesn’t educate and the mind must be primed to deal with its informational deluge. On that priming depends the future of civilisation. How we handle the digitising of the libraries will determine who we are to become.

Climate 2006: Rhetoric up, action down

2007-01-19T21:42:00.000Z

"The gap between what the science tells us is necessary and what the politics is delivering is still significant."

Not the words of an environmental campaigner or a frustrated climate scientist, but the plain assessment from Britain's Environment Secretary David Miliband as the 2006 round of United Nations climate negotiations whimpered to a close.

But environmental campaigners obviously agreed. Some groups even began direct action during the year, something which has traditionally been associated with a completely different power source, nuclear fission.

Coal-fired power stations in the UK, including Europe's biggest, Drax, were blockaded and attempts made to occupy them.

There's a long distance between saying you're committed and making changes in factories and power plants and automobiles

Jonathan Lash, WRI

Tens, probably hundreds, of thousands marched on a co-ordinated day of action in November.

Musicians and actors joined the fray, as they did on poverty 20 years ago.

Climate change has started to become a popular cause.

Ups and downs

Their argument is simply that the world's political leaders are failing to take the scientific evidence seriously.

As represented most importantly by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the consensus suggests that global emissions of greenhouse gases need to fall by about 60% on a timescale of a few decades in order to be sure that the most graphic of climate consequences are averted.

Emission growth accelerates

Yet at the end of the year, the trend was pointing in the opposite direction.

The rate of emissions growth for carbon dioxide, the most important gas in the man-made greenhouse, is increasing; a decade ago emissions were climbing by less than 1% per year, now the rate is above 2% per year.

"The [greenhouse gas] concentrations in the atmosphere are going up, so it hasn't been a year of success in terms of having an impact on this process," observes Jonathan Lash, president of the World Resources Institute, an environmental think-tank based in Washington DC.

"We have world leaders who say they're committed; but there's a long distance between saying you're committed and making the actual changes in the factories and power plants and automobiles that create the emissions; and that process is still moving very slowly."

Off target

The UN talks in Nairobi ended with no deal on targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions when the current Kyoto Protocol quotas expire in 2012, and no firm timetable for agreeing such targets.

Slow progress at Nairobi talks

Whether the UN process can ever deliver further cuts is an open question. In order to get the juggernaut of Kyoto procedures pointing in a new direction by 2012, targets need to be tied up perhaps two years, perhaps three years, before that.

The European Union is publicly committed to a new round of targets.

But some member states are a world away from meeting their existing ones; and even as delegates were boarding the planes to Nairobi, many EU governments submitted plans for the second phase of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) which would have raised their emissions, not cut them, in the years running up to 2012.

What of the other processes which have sprung up in the last two years with the declared intention of turning the rising tide of emissions?

The Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate brings together six countries whose emissions account for roughly half the global total - Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the US - in a pact which aims to reduce emissions by assisting the private sector to create clean technologies and transfer them to developing countries.

The people who run the private sector - they too have children, they too have grandchildren, and they would like things dealt with

Samuel Bodman

It held its first ministerial meeting in Sydney in January. I have rarely seen a room-full of journalists as stunned as the group there were, as US energy secretary Samuel Bodman told us that private companies would solve climate change because the people in charge of them cared.

"I believe that the people who run the private sector, who run these companies - they too have children, they too have grandchildren, they too live and breathe in the world, and they would like things dealt with effectively; and that's what this is all about," he said.

The single word "Enron" traversed a hundred brains.

According to an Australian government report commissioned for the Sydney meeting, the Partnership does not in fact expect to cut global greenhouse gas emissions - it expects them to double over the next 50 years, even if all its projects come to fruition.

Business deal or bright idea?

There were already suspicions in the NGO community that the Partnership was really about trade, not climate. Since the Sydney meeting we have seen two major deals tied up between members which will result in the US exporting nuclear technology to India, and Australia exporting uranium to China.

Let us fast forward then to Monterrey in Mexico, and the second ministerial session of the Dialogue on Climate Change, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development, which brings the G8 countries together with major developing nations including Brazil, China, and India.

The conclusions of this potentially very powerful group were that climate change was really serious, we needed to do something, but we were not making any firm commitments as yet.

That might have a familiar feel by now.

Costing the Earth

Two other initiatives burst on to the global stage during 2006; one, a movie from a former politician, the other a weighty report from a leading economist.

Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth is a masterpiece of communication - wherever you stand on climate science, to make it engaging for an hour and a half is surely some feat. As a tool to change policies, however, its value must be doubtful, as it is largely the converted that will see it.

Stern: Wait now, pay later

Sir Nicholas Stern's review of climate change economics should hit a little harder. Certainly, Tony Blair thought so, commenting: "It proves tackling climate change is in fact a pro-growth strategy.

"It shows that if we fail to act, the cost of tackling the disruption to people and economies would cost at least 5%, on the worst case scenario as much as 20%, of the world's output. In contrast, the cost of action to halt and reverse climate change would cost just 1%."

As the year ended, Mr Blair's government was, by his own logic, deciding to risk growth by approving expansion plans for major airports.

Sir Nicholas took his review on a tour of world capitals. But even as he breakfasted with officials in Beijing and Delhi, a report from the Asian Development Bank warned that Asia's emissions would triple over the next 25 years.

Boxing clever

The single biggest obstacle to progress in negotiations has been the reluctance of the US to engage and to accept that the international community has any right to restrict its emissions.

But signs emerged that something was changing in Washington with the mid-term elections in November, which returned the Democrats to power in both houses of Congress.

Jonathan Lash believes this is already having an impact on how climate issues are debated.

Gore's dissection of disaster

"A year ago the chairman of the Senate committee that's in charge of environment, Mr Inhofe from Oklahoma, held a climate change hearing and his first witness was a science fiction writer, Michael Crichton, whose theory is that climate change is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the world," he recalls.

"Now, the chair will be Senator Boxer, who has already committed herself to very strong legislation making mandatory reductions. We'll see the same kind of shift in the House of Representatives; so we're going to see the leadership pushing ahead instead of setting up obstacles."

Below the federal level, states and cities are also pressing ahead with various initiatives, laws and measures on emissions caps, carbon trading, energy efficiency and carbon burial.

None of this is likely to change the US stance in international negotiations, though rumours persist in Washington that President Bush may announce some new measures during his next State of the Union address.

Heated debate

Of course, not everyone is convinced by the scientific arguments of the IPCC or the economic ones of Sir Nicholas Stern.

The diverse community of "climate sceptics" were visible and vocal during 2006, and registered at least one blow for an alternative way of explaining global warming when a Danish research group showed in a laboratory experiment that highly energetic particles could enhance the formation of water droplets in air.

The solar theory of global warming gained a little evidence

Their theory is that temperature changes result from variations in the intensity of cosmic rays coming from the Sun. Cosmic rays affect the formation of water droplets, which in turn form clouds, which in turn change global temperatures with no help from greenhouse gases.

A number of economists lined up to dispute the Stern Review's methods and conclusions. These voices will surely remain vocal as 2006 turns into 2007.

But shouting loudest of all next year will be the Fourth Assessment Report from the IPCC. It will have been five years in the making, and will present the current consensus on climate science, on impacts and costs, as determined by its committees of experts.

Its headline projections are expected to differ little from those contained in its last report, issued in 2001; rising temperatures, rising sea levels, and major specific impacts such as the irreversible drying out of the Amazon.

Once again we will hear demands from climatologists to keyboard players, from theoretical physicists to thespians, for more action.

Perhaps we will get it. But the omens are not promising.

Russia lashes out at Estonia over Soviet victory monument

2007-01-19T21:40:00.000Z

Russia lashed out angrily at Estonia on Thursday over legislation allowing for the removal of a monument marking the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany from Estonia's capital, calling it part of a "blasphemous escapade" that could badly damage relations.

The Foreign Ministry summoned Estonia's ambassador to hear a strongly worded complaint about the law, which has further frayed strained ties by bringing vastly different views of the role of the Soviet Union and its military in the Baltic nation into sharp relief.

Signed by the Estonian president last week, the law permits the relocation of statues and monuments from sites deemed unsuitable and allows for the removal from Tallinn of a 1947 statue of a Soviet soldier. The bodies of several Soviet soldiers are buried underneath the monument.

The ambassador was told that "efforts to create a legislative basis for plans to exhume remains and dismantle monuments to Soviet warriors continue in Estonia," the ministry said, calling such moves "a blasphemous escapade and glaring show of contempt for the memory of warriors who freed the world from fascism."

It warned that the removal of any monuments or remains would have "serious consequences" for relations, but did not say what they would be. The Kremlin-loyal Russian parliament adopted a resolution Wednesday calling on President Vladimir Putin and the government to reconsider bilateral cooperation with Estonia.

The victory over Nazi Germany is a source of profound pride for millions of Russians, and Putin has repeatedly, publicly stressed the role of the Soviet army as a liberator of nations that came under Nazi control during World War II.

Many people in the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, however, see Soviet soldiers as culprits in an often abusive five-decade occupation of their countries, which gained independence in the 1991 Soviet collapse and have joined the European Union and NATO.

A symbol for both sides, the monument in Tallinn has deeply upset many Estonians but has been a rallying point for war veterans and supporters who meet annually to commemorate the victory — though the government banned meetings there after numerous clashes between ethnic Estonians and native Russian-speakers.

In a separate statement Thursday that also drove home the deeply divergent attitudes toward history, the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed that Moscow will reject any demands from the Baltic nations for compensation for wrongs or losses suffered under Soviet rule.

"Pronouncements about the 'occupation' of Lithuania by the Soviet Union and claims of any character linked with them ignore the legal, historical and political realities and ... are completely devoid of any basis," the ministry said.

New UK standards for offsetting carbon emissions

2007-01-19T14:33:00.000Z

The UK launched a new set of standards for schemes that allow people and companies to offset their carbon emissions, on Thursday.

The move will link offsetting schemes to the UN Kyoto Protocol. It could more than double costs for people or companies wanting to be "carbon neutral" by paying others to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

The UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has also named four offset providers that meet its new standards: Pure, Global Cool, Equiclimate and Carbon Offsets.

Companies have been quick to jump on carbon offsetting as a way to flag their efforts to curb climate change. Individuals have also become more carbon aware, wanting to offset their car and plane journeys. But there have been fears that the offsetting industry boom could be fuelling schemes with dubious environmental credentials.

Providing certainty

Carbon offsetting involves paying others to cut emissions on your behalf, by planting trees or building wind farms for example, with the ultimate objective of offsetting all your emissions and going carbon neutral.

"People need to be sure that the way they offset is actually making a difference," said environment minister David Miliband. "The government's standard and code of practice, with a quality mark so people can check easily before they choose an offsetting product, will help to provide that certainty."

Miliband maintains that offsetting schemes are not the solution to climate change but that the new standards would "raise the bar". A code should be in place by autumn 2007, after a consultation.

Right to emit

Environmental group Friends of the Earth says the move was unhelpful if it encouraged people to think they could buy their way out of cutting their own contribution to climate change. "We urgently need to cut our emissions, but offsetting schemes encourage individuals, businesses and governments to avoid action and carry on polluting," says director Tony Juniper.

Under the voluntary UK standard, people will have to buy the same carbon credits that countries use when trying to meet Kyoto Protocol emissions targets. They will buy these credits in a market overseen by the UN.

An unregulated market currently supplies most offsets and is less expensive: the UK environment ministry estimates that the right to emit 1000 kilograms of carbon dioxide costs roughly £8 ($16) on an unregulated market, versus £17 per tonne of UN-type carbon credits.

UK officials say unregulated markets will not qualify for the new scheme because they cannot guarantee a standard. One concern about projects in the unregulated sector is that people may be paying for projects to make emissions cuts that would have happened anyway.

Journalist shot dead in Istanbul

2007-01-19T14:30:00.000Z

A prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist who spoke out against the killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire early last century was shot to death Friday, according to CNN Turk.

Hrant Dink, 53, editor of the Armenian-Turkish language weekly Agos newspaper, was shot dead in front of the Istanbul publication as he was leaving.

Authorities are looking into a lead that he was shot four times by a young man who appeared to be 18 or 19 years old.

Described as a "well-known commentator on Armenian affairs," Dink has faced a number of cases in connection with "insulting" the Turkish state for his writings.

"Some of the trial hearings have been marred by violent scenes inside and outside the courtrooms, instigated by nationalist activists calling for Dink to be punished," said a profile on the Web site of Pen American Center -- the writers' group that promotes free expression.

Agos, an Armenian-Turkish language weekly, was established in 1996.

Pen's profile said that in 2005, Dink "had been charged for an article published in Agos in which he discussed the impact on present day Armenian diaspora of the killings of hundreds of thousands of Armenians by the Ottoman army in 1915-17."

This is a hot-button issue in the region, Pen notes.

Armenians and other countries regard the killings of Armenians in the early 20th century as a a genocide, a claim rejected by the Turkish government, which says Armenians and Turks were killed in civil warfare.

Dink was one of the most prominent voices of Turkey's shrinking Armenian community.

A Turkish citizen of Armenian descent, he had received threats from nationalists, who viewed him as a traitor.

In an earlier interview with The Associated Press, Dink had cried as he talked about some of his fellow countrymen's hatred for him, saying he could not stay in a country where he was unwanted.

Private NTV television said police were searching for the suspected murderer, believed to be a teenager wearing a white hat and a denim jacket, but the identity and motivation of the shooter were unknown, AP reported.

Dink's body could be seen covered with a white sheet in front of the newspaper's entrance. NTV said four empty shell casings were found on the ground and that he was killed by two bullets to the head.

Fehmi Koru, a columnist at the Yeni Safak newspaper, said the murder was aimed at destabilizing Turkey.

"His loss is the loss of Turkey," Koru said.

Kyoto, Heal Thyself

2007-01-19T10:27:00.001Z

Visit the temples that grace the hills of Kyoto, Japan's ancient capital, and it's not hard to see why the city seems like the perfect birthplace for the global-warming pact that was named for it. At the end of my trip last November, I toured the grounds of Nanzenji, a Buddhist complex that sprawls through the wooded slopes to the east of the city, and watched red and gold leaves fall upon a rock garden, where they were swept up by monks. Kyoto's temples show how humans can live in nature and actually add to it, not just take from it.

Then I caught a cab back to the city center. The moment we left the temple, we struck gridlock on Kyoto's narrow streets. As we crawled toward the train station, I had ample time to look at the garish neon signs that seemed to sprout from every rooftop, transforming the scenery even as they spent energy. It was a reminder that while Kyoto embodies the aspirations of that famous protocol, it is still a modern city, with all the energy, cars and carbon that implies.

So it is with all of Japan. The world's second largest economy is undeniably its most efficient wealthy energy user, burning barely more than half as much oil per capita as the U.S. does and producing half as much carbon per person. What's more, it's not just energy hogs like the U.S. that Japan puts to shame; it even beats stridently green countries like Germany. But while Japan takes its Kyoto Protocol commitments seriously, it's still likely to fall far short of those goals.

Across the country, carbon emissions have actually grown more than 8% since 1990, a pattern reflected in Kyoto itself, where the number of cars increased from 1.3 million in 1990 to 2 million in 2002. The nation as a whole will need to slash emissions about 14% to achieve its targets. Which raises the obvious question: If ultra-efficient Japan can't wean itself from the carbon habit, what hope does the rest of the world have?

In an island country that has always had too many people on too little land, conservation has long been a part of life. The shoguns of the Edo era saved Japan's rapidly dwindling forests--and perhaps the country itself--through strict logging regulations. Although less likely than their samurai forebears to enforce conservation with decapitation, Japan's modern leaders do take a frugal approach to energy. Since 1973, Japan has nearly tripled its industrial output while holding energy consumption in the manufacturing sector roughly flat. Household appliances have increased in size while using less energy, thanks to a government program called Top Runner that constantly raises efficiency standards, making Japanese homes twice as efficient as their American counterparts.

Mindful of Kyoto, the government has lately shifted the focus to cutting greenhouse gases. That gave birth to the Cool Biz policy in 2005, under which offices save energy by keeping summer temperatures at a stifling 82.4°F (28°C). To beat the heat, salarymen are told to doff their black suits in favor of light colors and open collars. The result made the Prime Minister occasionally look as if he were addressing parliament from a beach in Waikiki, but at least Cool Biz had more style than a similar Japanese idea from the 1970s: the short-sleeved business suit. Sartorial concerns aside, Cool Biz saved about 79,000 tons of carbon dioxide in 2005.

The launch of Vista, did anyone notice?

2007-01-19T10:22:00.000Z

The launch of a new version of Microsoft Windows, called Vista, is not quite the event it used to be. Has the software giant reached the pinnacle of its power?

AROUND the time of the release of Windows 95, Microsoft discreetly sold a small subsidiary that made its packaging. A decade ago that decision seemed to fit with the progression of computing and the nascent internet. Although people all over the world stood in long lines to be the first to buy boxed and shrink-wrapped copies of Microsoft's latest operating system, it was thought that such products would in future be delivered direct to their computers over high-speed networks.

On January 30th Microsoft releases to consumers the newest version of its operating system, called Windows Vista. Although the company said on January 17th that it would make Vista available for sale and download online, most people will buy the upgrade in old-fashioned boxes, just as they did back in 1995. But this time, despite plenty of razzmatazz, few customers will be queuing up to buy a copy.

This reflects the way in which Microsoft's dominance is slowly being eroded. Who produces the plumbing for a personal computer matters a lot less than it did in 1995. More PCs now talk to one another using open standards rather than proprietary ones. Many services and some programs are accessed online. People watch videos on YouTube, share photos on Flickr, check their e-mail and even work on files and spreadsheets, all using software that is based on the internet.

These changes are bad for Microsoft. Vista is being released with Office 2007, an update to its universally employed suite of word-processing, spreadsheet and other applications. Windows and Office are the backbone of the company. They represent nearly 60% of sales and 80-90% of its profits, estimates Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm. Close to 1 billion PCs are now in use and because Windows and Office sit on nearly all of them, the programs are the inescapable tithe on belonging to the information society.

The question for Microsoft is whether it can continue to collect these dues. Vista took five years and $6 billion to develop. Some 8,000 people worked on it. Yet it is two years late. A corporate version was released in November—just before the holidays when few firms would install it. This gave Microsoft the chance to complete small bits of ancillary code to make it run smoothly. Most users are expected not to bother upgrading (see article), but to acquire Vista only when they buy a new computer. With hindsight, the release of Vista may mark the moment when Microsoft's Windows and Office are seen as having reached the zenith of their supremacy.

Toppling the software Babel

Computing has changed radically since Microsoft rose to prominence 25 years ago with its operating system for IBM's personal computer. Microsoft unified standards, which made life easier for users and software writers. Both Windows and Office were employed by software developers as platforms for their own applications, nudging Microsoft further towards ubiquity. Now three trends are changing this.

First is the rise of open-source software. The code for this is written largely by volunteers rather than a single company. The programs are usually free to use and open to continual enhancements. Companies ranging from start-ups to giants like IBM commercialise open-source software by selling services that support it.

As a collaborative venture, open-source can speed up development, make it easier to add features and save users money. The most popular web-server software, Apache, is open-source. So too is the Linux operating system, which is also widely used on servers. Firefox was unknown a few years ago, but now more than one in ten people use it instead of Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

The disadvantage of open-source is that some tedious bits of software development may not get much attention and programs end up a bit geeky. OpenOffice, an open-source version of Microsoft's Office, has been slow to catch on. Versions of Linux for PCs are still cumbersome. But, as Firefox shows, that could change.

The second trend confronting Microsoft comes from online applications and the rise of software as a service. The birth of the PC liberated users from their “dumb terminals” linked to giant mainframe computers. As a stand-alone device, the PC ran on its own software and networking was not important. Today the opposite is true.

More of the things that people want to do with computers now use the internet rather than a hard drive as a source of applications or to store data. So amorphous is the internet that many in the industry refer to it as “the cloud”. Beside e-mail, photograph archiving and music storage, Google and others offer free online word-processing and spreadsheet applications.

Clouds in the sky

For years Microsoft's Windows logo often appeared against a blue sky with cottony clouds. But the cloud has become one of the company's biggest threats. The operating system matters less when programs can be provided online. Moreover, online software can be delivered to customers more cheaply, there is immediate feedback from users and applications can continually be improved. Those are big advantages over software sold in a box, one version at a time.

In the past Microsoft tied its operating system and applications together by “commingling” the code (and ran afoul of antitrust authorities for doing so). The rise of online applications threatens the primacy of Windows because the network becomes the platform for the software. It does not mean PC operating systems are unnecessary, just that it is increasingly the cloud, and not the PC, that is the launch pad for computing.

This suggests new ways to sell software. Instead of charging for each shrink-wrapped box, firms can sell programs as a service, collecting monthly payments, or giving them away and earning money from advertisements.

The third difficulty facing Windows and Office is security. Much of the justification for Vista among Microsoft's managers was to improve security. Governments and large businesses had voiced concern about the omnipresence of Microsoft products and a rash of hacks and viruses that exploited holes in the firm's software.

But there was a big problem. In the past, each new version of Windows was written on top of earlier ones. The code became gangly. It resembled sedimentary rock with the occasional fossil of a long-lost feature or inadvertent vulnerability.

Vista was meant to clean up all this debris. Its code was written from scratch—a large part of the reason for its delay. Yet plans for ambitious new features, such as a powerful way of searching the computer and a new method of storing and retrieving files, called WinFS, were cancelled in 2004 when it became apparent the technology was too difficult. Already behind schedule, Microsoft decided to rush out a release. In December, within days of Vista's being made available to businesses, researchers identified security lapses—even though America's National Security Agency helped to harden it. Are there other vulnerabilities? Nobody will know until Vista is more widely used.

No matter how many resources Microsoft pours into making its software secure, some flaws are inevitable. But the company has also been trying to make security a source of revenue. It established a system ensuring that security updates go only to legitimate buyers rather than those with pirated copies. Yet any insecure PC can harm everyone, because all are vulnerable to one Typhoid Mary.

Microsoft initially planned to prevent other firms' security software from accessing the “kernel” of Vista, in effect the heart of the system. This could render rival products less effective. Although protecting the kernel from malicious code makes sense, some companies argued that it was yet another attempt by Microsoft to use its operating system as the ticket into another market, as it did with browsers and media players. After the European Union complained, Microsoft backed down and provided a form of access.

Although Microsoft is defending itself against some of the biggest trends in computing, it will not be unseated anytime soon. Indeed, the company has often said its biggest competitor is itself: previous versions of its products worked well enough, so many customers would not bother to upgrade to newer ones.

This time Microsoft has put aside any complacency. In the past 18 months the company has reorganised its divisions and put managers from a commercial background in charge instead of their technical colleagues. This counts as a big shift in what was always an engineering culture.

Bill Gates, who as chief software architect was in large part responsible for the earlier, failed vision of Vista, has given up his role. His successor is Ray Ozzie, a relative outsider who joined when Microsoft bought his company in 2005. Mr Ozzie is trying to “webify” Microsoft's products. Greater discipline is expected too. Steve Ballmer, the chief executive, vows that there will be no more long delays between new product introductions.

A little more open

Microsoft is trying to turn threats into advantages. It has responded to the rise of open-source software with both accommodation and demonisation. Last year it struck a deal with an open-source software firm, Novell, to make both companies' products work smoothly together. Microsoft lets big customers inspect its code, but the firm also raises questions about whether open-source programs infringe others' intellectual property.

The company is moving into services with things like Office Live, a set of additional services to help small businesses set up websites, and Windows Live, which provides online features. Microsoft's Hotmail, for example, has recently been rebranded as Windows Live Mail.

Company executives point to Windows Update, which sends updates over the internet, to suggest it has long been in the online-services business. The majority of large businesses buy Windows and Office as multi-year subscriptions with access to all upgrades and support. So Microsoft is at least taking steps in this direction. In the area of online computer games, its Xbox Live service has more than 5m subscribers, suggesting that the company is capable of supplying innovative services.

Chris Capossela, who manages Microsoft's business-products group, believes the firm's “unique” strength is that it straddles both the consumer and business markets at a time when innovations often start at home rather than in the office. Most of the company's competitors, be they Google or Apple on the consumer side, or IBM and Oracle in business, concentrate on only one market.

Microsoft has been written off before, but always remained on an upward trajectory. Its persistence has eventually paid off in some new markets, such as SQL database software and server software, where it started from behind. Its software for mobile devices is also starting to gain traction. Still, in recent years its share price has been steady while the market grew (see chart).

The diffident adolescent that tested the pride and patience of regulators is changing as another generation of employees contribute their ideas. Around 60% of Microsoft's 70,000 employees have been with the company for fewer than six years. For them the past is old history. They joined after the company was found guilty in 2000 of anti-competitive practices and ordered to be split. This was overturned on appeal and a settlement was later reached.

Yet as the importance of the PC operating system declines, it shifts the potential chokehold of computing to the software on the network servers. Here Microsoft is making big strides—and it is where European regulators are concentrating their attention to ensure the company discloses details of its code so that rival products can work alongside it.

Some observers suggest that Vista and Office 2007 will be the last monolithic software releases—a sort of hangover from the great age of PC computing. Vista should be easier to update online. Nevertheless, Microsoft plans to retain Big-Bang moments to help with its marketing. “We want to have signature events where we can rally the entire industry to what we are doing,” says Mr Capossela.

It is probably impossible to find a pair of products with franchises as lucrative as Windows and Office. Much of Microsoft's activities over the past decade can be seen in the context of trying to diversify away from them. The firm has extended its software into other devices, like television set-top boxes and mobile phones, created (and later sold) web businesses in travel and media, and moved into new areas. It even launched devices, including the Xbox and its Zune media player—which, despite trailing Apple's iPod, introduced innovations like sharing music wirelessly.

Windows and Office go together like salt and pepper. The question now is whether there will be a decoupling. That could happen if consumers buying a new computer take Windows Vista but decline to buy Office 2007, because they can get similar applications elsewhere, even free. The next step might be for computer-makers to start pushing PCs with Linux rather than Windows installed on them.

Some big companies do have the wealth and talent to remain competitive even as their industry lurches from one incarnation to the next—IBM has done it before, moving from hardware to services. Now its old partner probably has to do the same. The primacy of Windows and Office is waning, even if Microsoft's immediate power is not. “Icebergs melt”, as one Silicon Valley veteran notes. “But they melt extremely slowly.”

Student clashes in Greek capital

2007-01-19T10:15:00.001Z

Greek riot police have clashed with angry students on the streets of the capital, Athens, during a protest over proposed education reforms.

Violence broke out during a march on parliament attended by some 3,000 people, mainly university students.

There were no reported injuries or arrests during the scuffles during which masked youths threw petrol bombs.

Students, backed by university and education unions, claim the reform would lower the quality of education.

Constitutional amendment

The demonstration is one of several taking place across Greece to protest against a proposed change to education policy, which would require a constitutional amendment.

The proposal would allow private universities to operate fully in Greece and for the degrees they award to be recognised by the state.

Students and members of the academic community say this will threaten the quality of education for all and divert much-needed funds away from state universities.

But the government says that the changes would give more access to a university education and improve the quality of teaching.

Northern Europe swept by storms

2007-01-19T10:13:00.000Z

A violent storm lashing northern Europe has hit the Netherlands and Germany after passing over Britain and France.

At least 28 people have been killed, as the high winds have sent debris flying and brought down trees and power lines.

Ten people were killed in Britain as rain and gusts of wind up to 99mph (159km/h) swept much of the country.

In Germany, hurricane-force winds claimed at least seven lives. Other deaths were reported in France, Poland, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands.

The severe weather has thrown transport systems into chaos, with hundreds of flight, rail and ferry cancellations and roads and schools ordered closed.

Passengers stranded

Meteorologists at London's Meteorological Office said the winds reached "severe gale force" as they crossed Britain and were the highest recorded since January 1990.

As the storm moved east over the continent, people in the Netherlands and Germany were warned to stay indoors.

Meteorologists in Germany said the storm was the worst in five years, with winds gusting up to 190km/h (118mph).

The national rail company suspended all its services, leaving passengers stranded at stations.

Air traffic too has been badly affected with many flights cancelled.

Berlin's new central station was evacuated after the winds tore off a section of steel support.

Tens of thousands of emergency workers are on standby to deal with the widespread damage that is anticipated.

Two people in Germany were killed by doors blown off their hinges and in Riel, the Netherlands, an 11-year-old boy was killed when he was blown into a car, AFP reported.

Most of the other fatalities across Europe have been from traffic accidents and flying debris.

Tens of thousands of homes are without power.

The winds are only expected to weaken once they reach Russia and Ukraine.

Windows Vista vs who?

2007-01-19T09:22:00.000Z

What if they released an operating system and nobody cared?

Five years after the release of Windows XP and costing a staggering $9 billion to create, Windows Vista has been released to manufacturing by Microsoft. The mighty marketing machine has swung into action. "Microsoft's most important product launch ever" blare the headlines in the trade press. Yet the silence from businesses and customers is deafening. No one cares. Contrast this with what most people would consider Microsoft's most successful Windows launch ever: Windows 95. People actually queued outside stores to be the first to buy this exciting new product, the launch itself was covered as news; real news, actually covered by the mainstream press as a real media event; not just in the computer trade press.

No matter how much spin is put on this launch, it's a disaster. There's simply no excitement about it. Most quotes from businesses are about how much of a chore it will be to upgrade, with warnings about how much old software will be incompatible and how people will have to buy new machines just to run it. No one actually wants this new system, except Microsoft and some of the hardware vendors who are desperately hoping Vista will revitalize moribund computer sales.

I think the day of the big-bang operating system release will die with Vista. This kind of upgrade has become obsolete. It might have made sense in the age of disconnected computers, where an upgrade involved a PC technician going to each desktop with a CD-ROM, but with the advent of Internet-connected PCs it's crazy. People want to simply keep patching their existing systems remotely and securely until eventually all of the original code has been replaced and you're running a new operating system. This at least is something we in the Open Source/Free Software community have become very good at, as it mirrors the very environment we need to create our software in the first place.

Where are the new features?
Why is Vista such a catastrophe and how does this affect the Open Source/Free Software community? Part of the problem, I think, is that Vista essentially does nothing new, and has no new features that are of interest to the general computer using public. The veteran IT journalist Nicholas Petreley (now editor of Linux Journal) created his first law of computer journalism, which is "No technology exists until Microsoft invents it". This held true while Microsoft systems were so primitive that every new release was a vast improvement on the previous one. The public "oohed" and "ahhed" over such exciting new features as multi-tasking, and overlapping windows; even as people in the industry tried to point out that every new feature was merely copied from other, more sophisticated systems. The problem for Microsoft is that most of this copying has already been done. Windows XP actually has most of the features of Linux and the Mac, though I'd complain they're implemented poorly in Windows. Even if Vista has improved on the implementation, what kind of a marketing message is "we now do things properly"?

The second problem is the Vista hardware requirements. Windows has always been notorious for being created to run well only the next generation of hardware, and Vista is certainly no exception. This might have worked back in the day when PC hardware was relatively young, and had not reached saturation point, at least in the Western world. But now every office already has at least one PC for every employee, and businesses resent having to spend more money on new hardware simply to satisfy a basic operating system upgrade. Most businesses have at least learned to live with Windows XP and see no need to completely replace existing working systems. Linux vendors have learned this to their cost; it's really hard to get businesses to throw out existing Windows desktops and replace them with Linux desktops even though the Windows desktops are painfully insecure and vulnerable to viruses and other malware. The pain of change is just too great.

The problem for Microsoft is that they need to make people upgrade in order to get the license fees that fuel the massive profit machine up in Redmond. You can't spend $9 billion on a new system only to tell your customers "we made a mistake, we'll just keep adding patches to Windows XP" even if most of their customers would rather they do just that. Microsoft needs to obsolete Windows XP and force people to upgrade to Vista, and as fast as possible. Microsoft's real competitor isn't Linux or Apple, it's the hundreds of millions of old Windows systems already out there that they have to replace -- or watch their income stagnate. This is going to get ugly.

It's a delicate balancing act. They have to replace these old systems and migrate customers onto a dependence on new features whilst still allowing interoperability with their old systems out there. But they can't allow too much interoperability, or people will chose to stay with their existing systems. And they can't allow too little, or people will look at alternatives such as Linux or the Mac if they feel they're going to have to replace everything anyway. This is the tipping point, and it's a time of great opportunity for Linux and Apple.

Get a refund
Over the next year or two, businesses will be looking long and hard at Vista. Consumers will use Vista, they'll have no choice. Microsoft's partnership with OEMs will ensure that. When you buy a new PC for home you'll get Vista – like it or not. My only advice to the home user is to do what my good friend Dave Mitchell in Sheffield, U.K. did and get yourself a refund for Windows from the vendor; Dell in Dave's case. It's hard work. Getting a refund is so rare that he's still coping with his 15 minutes of fame as media such as the BBC call him up for interviews.

Businesses have more options than consumers. The bigger ones do side agreements with Microsoft to allow them to have "obsolete" systems like Windows XP pre-installed on their new computers even though they're licensed for Vista and Microsoft hates allowing them to do that. Smaller businesses don't get that choice. But if they don't consider Linux or Mac systems, then I can guarantee that they'll end up wincing at the cost of implementing Vista. As I usually say in my talks "if you're not at least running a pilot Linux implementation you're paying too much for your Microsoft software."

What should the Open Source/Free Software community do about Vista? In my opinion, we need to just keep doing what we're doing. Various pundits have predicted doom and gloom if we don't compromise on our principles and adopt proprietary drivers, or license proprietary media codecs to allow Apple iPods to work with Linux. I don't agree. You don't change a winning strategy just as you're starting to succeed. Linux has become completely dominant in some areas such as high performance computing and outshines Windows in areas like Web serving. It's just in the workgroup server space, which is tied into the Windows desktop, that the Microsoft monopoly still holds. We need to keep improving our products and, most importantly, keep offering the one feature that only we have, the one that Microsoft can't copy without completely changing their businesses model. We need to keep offering our users software Freedom. If Microsoft wants to copy that, then I'd welcome it and welcome them to our community. But I think they have to go through the tipping point with Windows Vista first.

Skype eyeing domestic calling service in 24 countries

2007-01-19T09:18:00.000Z

Internet phone firm Skype is introducing new domestic calling plans for 24 countries where users will pay a monthly subscription and a connection fee but no per-minute charges, an Associated Press report said.

The Associated Press report said the monthly fees for the new Skype Pro plans have not yet been finalized, but they were expected to be set at less than 5 euros ($6.50).

The per-call connection fee for Skype Pro calls within a given country to a regular phone or mobile device within that same country will be 3.9 euro cents ($0. 5) said Stefan Oberg, general manager for Skype Telecoms.

Skype calls are dialled over a high-speed Internet connection using either a personal computer, a cordless handset configured to communicate directly over a broadband modem, or certain cell phones with Wi-Fi capability, the report said.

The report also said the new options were being launched a month after Skype, a subsidiary of eBay, introduced a North American service offering unlimited calls within the US and Canada with no connection or per-minute fees for about $30 per year, or less than half as much as Skype Pro appears likely to cost.

The countries where Skype Pro is being offered are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and the UK, the report said.

'Thinking different' no longer an Apple priority

2007-01-19T09:16:00.000Z

Apple's latest line of commercials portrays itself as unique, youthful, and edgy in a world of stale, curmudgeonly conformists. But is this an accurate description?

As recently as 2000, buying an Apple computer was a powerful way of sending a message to the PC industry. By opting for a Macintosh, you could take a stand against attempts to corner the market by cramming everything but the kitchen sink into the bloated Windows operating system.

In effect, you could "think different" by supporting the underdog and refusing to conform, and the feeling of smug well-being that came with such a purchase was at least somewhat legitimate.

To this day, owning a Mac is the quickest, easiest way to gain indie cred with your peers. After all, every dollar that goes to a customer-friendly, counterculture company with an emphasis on the consumer experience is a dollar that doesn't go to supporting "the machine," so to speak. But does this truly describe Apple? Or are indie kids the world over simply products of an exceedingly elaborate marketing campaign?

Search for "1984" on www.YouTube.com and you'll find the "revolutionary" ad that started it all. Since then, Apple's marketing execs have only gotten smarter, presenting the company as truly concerned with individual users, diametrically opposed to the other, "faceless" alternatives. Elitism ahoy!

Consumers have bought this myth hook, line and sinker. Check the Wikipedia page - quickly, now, before someone edits it! - and you can see this kind of preening behavior firsthand, complete with references to Apple's "avant-garde" user base, their challenging of "traditional" business notions, and the infamous "think different" motto.

The problem is that this reputation is either deserved or warranted. Apple is a business first and foremost, and its behavior in the past few years makes this fact more and more obvious.

The first few iPod generations were shoddy, and their irreplaceable batteries had much shorter lifespans than advertised. Digital rights management technology used on iTunes, masquerading under the pretense of protecting artist rights, actually serves no purpose other than to further Apple's domination of the mp3 player market. And Apple recently unveiled their new "iPhone," even though that trademark has been owned by Cisco since 2000.

These are just the tip of the iceberg. Run a search for "Apple" on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's website and cringe at the endless cascade of similar cases. The cold, hard truth is that Apple's business practices are anything but symptomatic of a desire to "think different." Behind the clean, white electronic exteriors and the friendly posturing beats the heart of a soulless business machine that wants your dollar just as badly as anyone else.

If this means infringing on someone else's trademark, they'll do it, as long as they can get away with it. If this means developing a near-monopoly on the mp3 player market, so be it. If this means releasing a sub-par product, that's not beneath them - though, to Apple's credit, iPods have generally improved in quality with each generation.

Of course, this isn't merely vitriol directed against Apple. Questionable practices are par for the course for successful businesses. Most importantly, Apple is still deserving of your money - but they should be judged by the same standards as everyone else.

If you favor the Mac interface to its Windows equivalent, buy a Mac. If you think iPods look nifty, snag one for yourself, and maybe get an iPhone to match. If you're yet another insane Apple loyalist, then buy their products because, in the end, having no reason at all is better than having a bad reason.

Supporting Apple solely for the sake of being nonconformist, or for the sake of upholding business ideals which aren't put into practice, is a bad reason. Apple deserves credit for revolutionizing marketing, but the evidence is there to suggest that they, too, have their eyes on the prize - your wallet - and not on their commitment to counterculture or individualism.

Don't make the mistake of jumping aboard the indie bandwagon (oh, the irony!). True nonconformity might require that you learn Linux, which actually requires a modicum of intelligence to use. In the meantime, know that, despite the propaganda, owning Apple products is not an indicator of your ability to "think different."

LG 'PRADA' - A direct competitor to Apple's iPhone

2007-01-19T08:54:00.000Z

LG Electronics on Thursday announced the launch of its first completely touch-screen mobile phone, KE850, in association with PRADA, one of the world’s leading brands in the luxury goods industry. The South Korean company said it will start selling the new mobile phones that incorporates a buttonless touch-screen next month.

With a large touch-screen display and little else, the ‘LG Prada’ at first glance looks a lot like the Cupertino, California based Apple Inc.’s recently launched iPhone, combining three products-a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, searching and maps-into one small and lightweight hand-held device.

LG's Prada Phone, which is a unique, sophisticated and elegant mobile phone with the first complete advanced touch interface, which eliminates the conventional keypad making the overall usage experience a highly tactile one, is a real breakthrough in the industry, and can be proved as a direct competitor to the Apple iPhone.

The KE850 is actually smaller than the iPhone and features a user interface built on top of Adobe's Macromedia Flash technology. Its extra wide LCD screen maximizes visual impact, allowing the user to benefit from several key features of the phone. Like the iPhone, it also includes 2 megapixel camera featuring Schneider-Kreuznach lens, and video player and document viewer capacity.

This ultra thin (just 12 mm, merely 0.4 mm more than the iPhone), sleek and simplistic phone has tri-band (900/1800/1900) and EDGE capabilities and can playback music files in MP3, ACC, ACC+, WMA, RA as well as MPEG4 video files.

The KE850 supports Bluetooth 2.0 and USB 2.0 connectivity and includes a Micro SD memory slot, which allows user to increase memory capacity for images, music and film clips.

The PRADA phone by LG will go on sale in late February for $US780 at mobile phone dealers and Prada stores in Britain, France, Germany and Italy, and comes to Asian countries, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, in March.

The company has no plans for US release, said Judy Pae, a spokeswoman for the company in Seoul. However, the Korean version of the KE850 phone is scheduled to launch in the second quarter of 2007.

Apple's revolutionary iPhone is due for release in U.S. markets in June with a cost of $US599 for the high-end model with 8 gigabytes of internal memory.

LG, maker of the hugely popular Chocolate Phone and the Italian fashion brand Prada have showed their immense efforts on every aspect of the product, from handset development to marketing, to provide an uncompromising quality of Prada design with the trademark technological innovation of LG mobile.

Internet TV underway

2007-01-18T13:31:00.000Z

The duo behind the blockbuster Internet applications Skype and Kazaa think they have the secret to online video: Make it more like TV.

Joost (pronounced "juiced") seeks to merge the best features of Internet file-sharing technology — such as its ability to deliver content efficiently — with a television-like viewing experience. Industry insiders who have seen an early version of the Internet television service extol the full-screen video quality and the simple interface, which is more of an electronic channel guide than the lists of videos on popular sites such as YouTube.

"Joost offers a very Mac-like experience," said Adam Ware, head of business development for United Talent Agency, who has been testing the service that was developed by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis and unveiled Tuesday.

There's no shortage of ways to watch TV shows delivered via the Internet. Apple Inc.'s iTunes Store sells 350 shows for download; YouTube offers short comedy bits from CBS' "Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson" along with its trademark user-created videos; and networks stream top shows for free online after they air, including ABC's "Ugly Betty."

Joost isn't about offering clips or downloads but creating a lineup of varied programming for high-speed Internet connections — a computer equivalent to cable or satellite television service. It is working with media partners, such as Warner Music Group and "Bridezillas" producer September Films, to make their programming available.

"It's not about finding a clip, it's about finding a channel that you like and watching it," said Joost Chief Executive Fredrik de Wahl. "This is where the traditional TV model is powerful. You can flip between channels and find something that interests you."

De Wahl said Joost had taken steps to thwart piracy. The video is encrypted, and individual users will not be able to contribute clips because of the difficulties of monitoring such user-generated content for copyright violations.

Michael Nash, Warner Music's senior vice president of digital strategy, said Joost shared the label's concerns about piracy. Warner has begun experimenting with Joost to create a Red Hot Chili Peppers channel, which includes a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the band's "Dani California" music video.

"This is a genius blend of Internet and television," Nash said. "People have been talking about this kind of convergence for a while. From my perspective, thinking about the user experience, it's a great blend of ondemand selection of linear programming mixed with interactive features and community features, like chat."

As with broadcast TV, the shows will be provided free to the viewer — with commercial ad support — when Joost becomes widely available later this year. Viewers will be able to take advantage of community features, rating the videos or chatting online with others using the community's chat channel.

Anton Denissov, a media and entertainment analyst for Yankee Group, said Zennstrom and Friis had a knack for innovating just as a technology reaches the mainstream — as they did with online file-sharing and Internet phone calls. Viewers ages 18 to 34 are spending more hours a day on the Internet than in front of a television, Denissov said. And on-demand Internet video is growing more accessible; 53% of American households have high-speed access.

Nonetheless, Denissov said Joost faced obstacles. It still needs content, an audience, revenue and a path to the living room TV. Getting high-quality video that will attract viewers is expensive — it's hard to afford without a healthy income, he said. But the needed advertising revenue won't come until the audience arrives.

"The Comcasts, the Verizons and the AT&Ts of the world are better positioned to handle the market. They have the audience, they've got positive profit, they've got a path to the living room," Denissov said. "Their weakness lies in their slowness to innovate. They might just open a hole small enough for guys like Joost to enter."

Adobe Updates Flash for Linux

2007-01-18T13:27:00.000Z

Adobe Systems has released Flash Player 9 for Linux, allowing users of the open-source operating system to create or use multimedia applications with the latest version of Flash.

The launch comes six months after the Adobe released versions for Windows and Mac OS X.

Updated Features

Version 9 of the Flash Player runs scripts up to ten times faster than previous versions, and also allows programmers to write portable applications exploiting more of the capabilities of Adobe's Flex 2 development platform, the company said Wednesday.

The player's arrival on the Linux platform will mean Web site developers exploiting the latest Flash features can be sure of reaching the small percentage of Web surfers running Linux on their desktop.

It will also give site developers using Linux access to more of the potential of Adobe's rich Internet application development environment, Flex 2, the company said.

With Flex, Adobe allows developers to build rich graphical applications that obtain data from a server and process it for presentation on the client or that can run in stand-alone mode on the desktop. The Flex platform includes server components for extracting data from business applications such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and, on the client side, integrates with the more recent versions of the Flash player.

Flash Player 9 for Linux can be downloaded for free from Adobe's Web site.

Adobe Likes Linux

Red Hat and Novell plan to bundle the new player with their distributions of Linux later this year, Adobe said.

Adobe recently contributed some of the code for its ActionScript Virtual Machine 2, the engine that interprets the scripts stored in Flash files, to a project hosted by the Mozilla Foundation. That project, Tamarin, aims to develop an open-source, standards-based, multiplatform engine for interpreting JavaScript, Adobe's ActionScript or other languages based on the ECMAscript standard, making it easier for browser developers to include support for rich scripting applications.

Alps at the peak of global warming

2007-01-18T13:25:00.000Z

As global warming takes hold we take a look at the impact around Europe. A recent study by the economic research group, the OECD, says climate change poses a serious risk to winter tourism in the Alpine region. It says recent warming there has been roughly three times the global average.

Elsewhere, unseasonable temperatures in the Russian city of St Petersberg are disrupting the hibernation of bears in the local zoo. Lev Karlin of St Petersberg's Meteorology University says it is a disturbing sight: "The latest figures prove that it's getting warm really quickly and that does allow us to think man himself is not without blame."

There is a similar tale in Greece, where temperatures topping 20 degrees have been recorded this January. Last month there was 20 times less rain than normal. Trees in bloom in mid-winter are further evidence the planet is heating up. Cristos Zerefos, President of the Athens National Observatory says maritime ecosystems are also affected: "There are changes that we see in general not only in water but in living species, we see changes that are remarkable in hydrotopes." Certain species of fish that would normally be found in Aegian waters this time of year have not arrived. The reproduction cycle of others has been interrupted.

On the other side of the Atlantic there has been extreme weather of another kind. The United States has been lashed by a cold snap that has brought freezing temperatures to parts of the continent that rarely see them. A state of emergency has been declared in California where orange crops have been devastated.

Despite what appears to be mounting evidence there is still debate about global warming in the scientific community. But there is a consensus is that effective action to counter climate change needs to be taken now

Russia sees red over Estonian war memorial

2007-01-18T13:20:00.000Z

Russia's relations with Estonia have taken a turn for the worse. The state parliament, the Duma, wants Moscow to take "decisive steps" if Tallin begins to dismantle a monument to the 50,000 Soviet soldiers who died fighting the Germans in World War II. Economic sanctions have not been ruled out. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was unequivocal.

"As far as we are concerned, this is akin to blasphemy," he said. "We are convinced that it was dictated by motives that have nothing in common with the necessity to learn lessons from the past and build a unified Europe without any borders, and to be guided, while building that Europe, by the interests of the people living in it and by today's interests."

Tallin says the monument, dating from 1947, has become a focus for public discontent and demonstrations. For many Estonians it is a reminder of their loss of independence after the Russian occupation of 1940. The authorities say they want to move it to a more secure site.

Former VW boss admits corruption

2007-01-18T13:16:00.000Z

Volkswagen's former personnel chief Peter Hartz has admitted making illegal payments to union officials.

The confession, made through his lawyers, came at the start of his corruption trial in Germany.

A one-time advisor to former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Mr Hartz faces 44 charges of breach of trust.

His confession means he is now likely to receive just a suspended sentence and a fine. He could have faced up to five years in jail.

Cash and perks

After meeting prosecutors and defence lawyers at the start of the trial, Judge Gerstin Dreyer said "we came to the result that an arrangement on the sentence is possible".

Mr Hartz, who left VW in 2005, is accused of showering key union bosses at the carmaker with cash and other perks such as holidays.

He was also initially accused of using company funds to pay for prostitutes, but prosecutors have dropped that charge.

The opinion of union leaders is important to German firms because under German law union bosses sit on a company's board of directors, and must be consulted on major new initiatives.

Mr Hartz' lawyer, Egon Mueller said that no-one else on the VW board knew of Mr Hartz's payments.

Mr Mueller said Mr Hartz admitted that he had illegally paid 1.9m euros ($2.5m; £1.2m) to Klaus Volkert, the former head of VW's powerful employee council.

Mr Volkert was arrested in November, but was subsequently released in December and no formal charges have been brought against him.

So far, the other main person to be charged in relation to the case is Hans-Juergen Uhl - now an MP for the centre-left Social Democrats.

A former member of VW's works council, he has been charged with two counts of being an accessory to breach of trust, and five counts of making false statements while under oath.

Although federal lawmakers have voted to lift his parliamentary immunity so he can be prosecuted, he currently remains in parliament and has denied any wrongdoing.

The verdict against Mr Hartz is due to be announced next week.

Six hostages released in Nigeria

2007-01-18T13:03:00.000Z

Five Chinese workers kidnapped in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta region have been freed, the Chinese foreign ministry said.

Unidentified gunmen seized the group of telecommunications engineers near the city of Port Harcourt on 5 January.

"Following efforts, the hostages were all safely rescued," the ministry said in a statement.

Earlier, the Italian authorities confirmed that an Italian oil worker seized in December had been released.

The Niger Delta region has been hit by attacks and kidnappings in recent months.

Militants seeking a greater share of the region's oil wealth have targeted foreign oil facilities and their workers since early 2006.

Rising violence

The Chinese workers were released on Wednesday, China's Xinhua news agency reported.

"The Chinese government appreciates support and assistance of relevant parties in Nigeria," the foreign ministry statement said.

The kidnapped men had been in the region to install telephone lines, Nigerian officials said at the time of their abduction.

Earlier, militants turned over Roberto Dieghi, an Italian oil worker seized last month, to a Bayelsa state government delegation.

The militants, a group called the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), said it had released him as a goodwill gesture.

But three of Mr Dieghi's colleagues seized at the same time as him - two Italians and a Lebanese man, all employed by Italian oil firm Agip - remain in captivity.

No discussions were going on concerning the remaining men, who would be held "indefinitely", a statement from Mend said.

In recent months attacks by the militants have escalated, causing oil multinationals to evacuate thousands of workers from the western side of the region.

On Tuesday, two oil workers - a Nigerian and a Dutch national - were killed when gunmen attacked a vessel near an oil export complex.

The instability in the region has reduced Nigeria's oil production, costing the country some $4.4bn (£2.2bn) last year, according to the government.

Climate resets 'Doomsday Clock'

2007-01-18T13:00:00.000Z

Experts assessing the dangers posed to civilisation have added climate change to the prospect of nuclear annihilation as the greatest threats to humankind.

As a result, the group has moved the minute hand on its famous "Doomsday Clock" two minutes closer to midnight.

The concept timepiece, devised by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, now stands at five minutes to the hour.

The clock was first featured by the magazine 60 years ago, shortly after the US dropped its A-bombs on Japan.

Not since the darkest days of the Cold War has the Bulletin, which covers global security issues, felt the need to place the minute hand so close to midnight.

'Perilous choices'

The decision to move it came after BAS directors and affiliated scientists held discussions to reassess the idea of doomsday and what posed the most grievous threats to civilisation.

Growing global nuclear instability has led humanity to the brink of a "Second Nuclear Age," the group concluded, and the threat posed by climate change is second only to that posed by nuclear weapons.

"When we think about what technologies besides nuclear weapons could produce such devastation to the planet, we quickly came to carbon-emitting technologies," said Kennette Benedict, executive director of the Chicago-based BAS.

The announcement was made at simultaneous events held by the magazine in London and in Washington DC that included remarks from the English Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees, and physicist Stephen Hawking.

"Humankind's collective impacts on the biosphere, climate and oceans are unprecedented," said Sir Martin.

"These environmentally driven threats - 'threats without enemies' - should loom as large in the political perspective as did the East/West political divide during the Cold War era."

A number of alarming nuclear trends led to a statement by the Bulletin that "the world has not faced such perilous choices" since the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The worries include Iran's nuclear ambitions, North Korea's detonation of an atomic bomb, the presence of 26,000 launch-ready weapons by America and Russia, and the inability to secure and halt the international trafficking of nuclear materials such as highly enriched uranium and plutonium.

Ice evidence

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, founded by former Manhattan Project physicists, has campaigned for nuclear disarmament since 1947.

Its board periodically reviews issues of global security and challenges to humanity, not solely those posed by nuclear technology, although most have had a technological component.

This is the first time it has included climate change as an explicit threat to the future of civilisation.

A less immediate threat, but included in the assessment, is the one posed by emerging life science technologies, such as synthetic biology and genetic modification.

While the harm done to the planet by carbon-emitting manufacturing technologies and automobiles was more gradual than a nuclear explosion, nonetheless, it could also be catastrophic to life as we know it and "irremediable", the board said.

It cited in support the conclusions of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Its broad assessment is that the warning over the last few decades is attributable to human activities, and that its consequences are observable in such events as the melting of Arctic ice.

In the years ahead, rising sea levels, heat waves, desertification, along with new disease outbreaks and wars over arable land and water, would mean climate change could bring widespread destruction, the board said.

It also warned against the use of nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels.

'Optimistic' view

While the technology had the potential to alleviate the climate warming effects of burning coal, its development raised the spectre that nuclear materials would be available for nefarious ends as well, the board argued.

Some scientists - even climate scientists - may not support the comparison of global warming to the catastrophe that would follow a nuclear engagement.

"Whether it's a threat of the same magnitude or slightly less or greater is beside the point," said Michael Oppenheimer, a geoscientist from Princeton University, US.

"The important point is that this organisation, which for 60 years has been monitoring and warning us about the nuclear threat, now recognises climate change as a threat that deserves the same level of attention," he said.

Both the nuclear menace and a runaway greenhouse effect were the result of technology whose control had slipped from humans' grasp, the BAS directors said. But it was also within our power to pull them back under control, they added.

"We haven't figured out how to do that yet, but the potential is within our institutions and our imaginations," said Dr Benedict.

Dr Oppenheimer agrees that people should not despair. After all, he said, for a long time the world took the nuclear threat seriously and reduced the numbers of weapons.

"I'm optimistic that we can address climate change," he said. "We've dealt with such problems before, and we can do it again."

Over the past 60 years, the Doomsday clock has now moved backwards and forwards 18 times. It advanced to two minutes before midnight - its closest proximity to doom - in 1953 after the United States and the Soviet Union detonated hydrogen bombs.

Its keepers last moved the clock's hand in 2002 after the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and amid alarm about the acquisition of nuclear weapons and materials by terrorists.