U.S. urges Americans to help feed their neighbors

Reuters, by Jasmin Melvin, Tue Nov 24, 2009 6:15pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Tuesday urged Americans to volunteer to help feed their neighbors, noting that almost 15 percent of the country's households had a hard time getting enough to eat last year.

Every American can chip in to fight hunger, the Agriculture Department said as it unveiled the Obama Administration's new Feed a Neighbor initiative, encouraging activities such as volunteering time at local food banks, helping the elderly get fresh produce, and planning ways to feed children who depend on free school lunches when school is out.

A USDA survey last week found one in seven Americans struggled to get enough to eat in 2008, the highest level since the report began in 1995.

More than 49 million people "had difficulty obtaining food...due to a lack of resources" during 2008, the report said. This includes 17 million children.

"It was a wake up call," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a conference call about the initiative, predicting the worst is yet to come.

"It's likely, given the recession, that the 2008/09 figures, which will be published next year, will paint an even more unsettling picture."

The USDA has created a "toolkit" of ideas to get people involved in helping their neighbors, available at www.serve.gov.

The USDA will spend $58.3 billion next year on food stamps to help poor people buy groceries, up from about $54 billion this year. It will spend $16.9 billion on school lunch and other feeding programs, up from $15 billion this year.

Vilsack said USDA wants to improve school lunch programs, and the government stimulus package has given more money to food stamps to help people hit by the recession.

"But the money is just part of it. It is important for people in communities across the country to understand that this is a problem in their community," he said.

The Obama administration has said it sees ending childhood hunger by 2015 as a top priority, Special Assistant to the President Joshua DuBois said.

Feeding America has been forced to turn people away from more than half of the more than 200 food banks in its network, said DuBois, who heads the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

The Meals-on-Wheels program that provides food and company for the elderly needs a million more volunteers to clear its waiting list, DuBois said.

"This initiative piggybacks on the president's call to get more people involved in service and will help reverse the trend of increased hunger," DuBois said.

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Analysts speculate Israeli-Iranian war scenario in wake of Iran defense maneuver

www.chinaview.cn, David Harris, 2009-11-24 04:30:29

Clergymen watched a missile during war games Thursday near Qum, Iran. The exercise was conducted by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. (NYT, Fars News Agency, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

JERUSALEM, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- Iran's military is staging five days of exercises this week in an attempt to test its defenses, particularly around its nuclear installations. Amongst other issues, it is trying to establish, in the eyes of analysts, whether it could survive any strike by Israel.

Israel and the United States have consistently refused to rule out the possibility of military strikes against Iran over its refusal to halt its nuclear program. While Iran has said on numerous occasions that if it is attacked by Israel or the United States it will destroy the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.

These bring suppositions being made about how the two sides would act in the event of warfare.

DEFINING THE SCENARIO

The war game will cover about 600,000 square kilometers of central, western and southern parts of Iran, Iran's state television reported, adding that both the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and Iran's regular armed forces will participate in the exercises dubbed "Asemane Velayat 2."

Brigadier General Ahmad Miqani, head of the air-defense headquarters of Iran's armed forces, said Saturday that the maneuver is aimed at developing the country's aerial defense against any potential attacks -- especially on the country's nuclear plants.

During the practice "we will experience an authentic war situation and we will harness all our defensive facilities and the systems for an electronic war," the semi-official Fars news agency quoted IRGC's air force commander Amir-Ali Hajizadeh as saying, where he mentioned the possible offensive on Iran by Israel.

However, what follows is pure speculation, with the analysts stressing that their guesswork is based on what information is currently available on the Israeli and Iranian militaries.

The analysts who spoke with Xinhua do not suggest the Iranians would launch a pre-emptive strike, but rather assume that if there were to be military action it would be an Israeli attempt to destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities.

The war scenario as it unfolds below is the combination of the thoughts of Francis Tusa, the editor of the London-based newsletter Defense Analysis and Barbara Opall-Rome, the Israel bureau chief for Defense News.

ISRAEL STRIKES

An Israeli attack on Iran would be led by the Israel Air Force, with backing from the Israel Navy and potentially with additional fire power supplied by ground-based intermediate-range ballistic missiles, according to analysts.

The target bank is constantly being updated by Israel's military intelligence staff and the military believes it is very much on top of its game, as opposed to its 2006 war with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, where there were clear disagreements between the soldiers and the politicians as to the best way to fight against the enemy.

"The Israel Defense Forces is very confident that if called by the political leadership to respond militarily they could do so," said Opall-Rome.

The working assumption is that Israel would have to hit multiple targets, presumably at roughly the same time. The sites, that would have to be taken out, number anywhere from six, according to Tusa, up to two dozen in Opall-Rome's estimate.

In terms of aircraft required, for every one strike fighter jet at least two more, or even three, would be needed to deal with Iranian military defenses, including aircraft, missiles, radar, ground forces and military headquarters.

Even then, Tusa does not believe Israel would have sufficient strike power. In his opinion, Israel could not commit all of its aircraft to Iran, and it would have to retain some at home in the event that Hezbollah to the north, Hamas to the south and even Syria to the northeast were to attack Israel in retaliation to its strikes against Iran.

Tusa also wonders whether Israel lacks the refueling aircraft necessary for such a mission. One solution would be for aircraft to take with them larger long-range supplies of fuel, but that would mean a reduction in the size of their attack payload. Another factor to be taken on board is whether Israel would be granted permission to fly over Saudi Arabia or the Gulf states, to dramatically reduce the flight time required to reach Iran and return home.

Given that Israel's airpower may be insufficient, it would therefore also have to rely, for example, on cruise missiles fired from the sea. It has been reported that Israeli submarines have been investigating waters close to Iran. These missiles would most likely not be used to hit underground nuclear facilities but rather to destroy Iranian ground defenses.

Israel could also consider deploying ground forces but they would have to be in situ for several weeks, if not months, beforehand to prepare for any strike, said Opall-Rome.

Another option available to Israel is its own nuclear arsenal, something it will not confirm exists, but whose existence is internationally agreed. Tusa thinks it highly unlikely Israel would use nuclear weapons in an initial strike.

What Israel would have to be certain of is its ability not to damage Iran's nuclear capabilities but to destroy them. Merely taking down power lines, for instance, would achieve little.

IRAN BEFORE AND AFTER S-300s

Iran has been preparing for Israeli or other foreign attacks for some time now and, according to Tusa, has been talking with other states that have been attacked by the West about their experiences.

Iran's most obvious response to any airborne attack, including missiles fired from sea, would be with aircraft and missiles.

It is assumed that Iran's air force pilots are not in the same league as their Israeli counterparts. "I think you'll have the Israel Air Force pilots queuing up to be the guys to do the air-superiority role because they would end up being combat aces in the first three minutes," said Tusa.

If Iran has done its preparation work properly it will also adopt deception techniques, analysts suggest. One example would be by creating dummy nuclear sites with lots of activity that would be picked up by Israeli radar. It would require the installation of large blast doors in a hillside and trucks arriving and departing from the site. Israeli aircraft would then waste their weaponry attacking such non-existent facilities.

Israel remains confident of its capabilities as the military balance stands today. However it is concerned that the potential delivery of Russian-made S-300 surface-to-air missiles could make the guarantee of success that bit smaller. The S-300s are used to defend against aircraft, cruise and ballistic missiles.

"They make Patriots look pretty old fashioned. The radars are incredibly powerful and agile. They are very difficult to jam and once there's engagement you are talking about simultaneously guided surface-to-air missiles," said Tusa.

However, for the time being Iran has not taken receipt of the S-300s. As it stands, the analysts believe the question of the success of an Israeli attack depends more on Israel's capabilities than Iran's defenses.

There is one additional factor though. Iran could call on its regional allies, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas to attack Israel at home. While their combined prowess would not normally be much of a challenge to Israel, if its focus was entirely on Iran, it could suffer serious damage before coming to terms with the new front, analysts suggest.

While Opall-Rome does not believe Iran could successfully thwart an Israeli attack, she does see psychological warfare coming into play. If the Iranians were to down a single Israeli plane, even an unmanned drone, or capture just one Israeli pilot and display, that would be a "devastating blow" to Israeli moral and public opinion.

All of this guesswork is trying to extrapolate what might happen if Israel decided to attack Iran. However, as war planners are sitting in bunkers in Tel Aviv, Tehran and elsewhere doing precisely the same thing, Opall-Rome believes both Israel and Iran are very wrong to be conducting highly-publicized military exercises.

"This is just more of the psychological operation that both sides are irresponsibly waging to deflect serious attention from the type of negotiations that need to be done, it's getting out of control," she said.

Tusa does not believe it is beyond the realms of possibility that Israel will attack Iran, especially if Israel feels its back is against the wall in the international arena.

Israel fears that when Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks of wiping Israel off the world map he is not joking. When he adds messianic messages in to mix it only increases the concern amongst Israel's decision-makers that Iran has or will very soon have nuclear weapons, said Tusa.

Israel, the United States and some other countries have accused Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program. Iran has denied the charges and insisted that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Editor: Mu Xuequan

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China families protest mine disaster; toll hits 104

Reuters, by Maxim Duncan, Mon Nov 23, 2009 10:39am EST

Relatives of miners who were killed in a gas explosion wait to meet officials at the entrance of Xinxing Coal Mine in Hegang, Heilongjiang province, November 23, 2009. (REUTERS/Aly Song)

HEGANG, China (Reuters) - Relatives of miners killed by a gas blast at a coal pit in northeast China scuffled with police and demanded answers from the owners on Monday as the toll hit 104 and hopes faded that any more survivors would be found.

The protest came a day after another 11 miners were killed in a blast at a pit in the southern province of Hunan, the official Xinhua agency said. China's stability-obsessed government is nervous about protests, and keen to control discontent.

China has the world's deadliest coal-mining industry with more than 3,000 people killed in mine floods, explosions, collapses and other accidents in 2008 alone.

Saturday's explosion at the mine in Hegang in the frigid province of Heilongjiang came as more than 500 miners were underground, though most were rescued.

Mine operators were at fault because they failed to evacuate workers fast enough after dangerously high gas levels were detected in the mine, said Luo Lin, head of the country's safety watchdog, the State Administration of Work Safety

(SAWS).

Nearly an hour before the explosion, a gas detector showed levels five times the trigger for an evacuation, Xinhua said. An official said the mine was too big for workers to escape in time.

Four miners were still unaccounted for on Sunday with almost no hope for survival, but even as smoke drifted out of the mine mouth near the site of the explosion, other miners were heading into undamaged parts of the pit to start the evening's shift.

A dozen women, relatives of the dead, had braved the freezing temperatures on Monday morning to take their complaints about a lack of information to the mine's entrance, where they argued and scuffled with police and mine security.

"None of the officials have died, all of the dead are the workers," one shouted. "Not one of those officials has even been down into that mine."

Some of the women were taken inside the mine compound, while others were put into a large white van. Men who declined to identify themselves tried to stop reporters speaking to the women, putting their hands in front of cameras.

SUFFERING FAMILIES

Anxious families were also milling around the hospital where 54 miners, six of them seriously injured, are being treated. Hospital staff were trying to calm tensions.

"When the patients see their families going through this suffering, they become very emotional, overemotional, and they can become restless," said Wang Jun, Director of the surgical department at Hegang mining hospital.

In 2007, after more than 180 miners died in a flooded coal mine in the northern province of Shandong, relatives stormed the offices of the company that operated the mine, smashing windows and accusing managers of not telling families what was happening.

Compared with other manual jobs, Chinese coal miners can earn relatively high wages, tempting workers and farmers into rickety and poorly ventilated shafts.

The Xinxing mine in Hegang lies near China's border with Russia and produced more than a million tonnes of coal in the first 10 months of this year, local reports said.

It is owned by the Heilongjiang Longmei Mining Holding Group, making it larger than most operations where accidents occur.

(Additional reporting by Emma Graham-Harrison in BEIJING, Writing by Ben Blanchard)

Philippine gunmen 'kill' 21 politicians and journalists

BBC News,

Twenty-one politicians and journalists abducted in the southern Philippines have been found dead, the army says.

The group were seized on the southern island of Mindanao early on Monday.

The military said they were taken by armed men as they tried to file a nomination for a candidate for forthcoming elections.

The Philippines is to hold national elections in May 2010. Registration for local and national positions began earlier this month.

According to local reports, those killed were on their way to an election office in Maguindanao to file papers on behalf of a candidate in the gubernatorial race.

The military blamed armed men loyal to a rival politician - the incumbent - for the attack.

"Our army troopers have reached the area where the vehicles and those held were taken... they were shot by the armed men," Maj- Gen Alfredo Cayton told local radio.

"We have recovered 21 bodies. Our men are continuing to scour the area to find the others."

The bodies of 13 women and 8 men were found, the military said.

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Gold hits new record high on weakening dollar

BBC News,

The price of gold has hit a new all-time high, boosted by continued concerns about the weakening dollar.

Gold hit a record of $1,167.35 an ounce, up by about $15 from Friday's closing prices.

The expectation that US interest rates will remain low has put pressure on the dollar, making gold more attractive as an investment.

Growing demand from emerging markets, particularly in Asia, is also helping to drive the price of gold higher.

Emerging market governments are looking to diversify their foreign exchange holdings and are buying gold as a result.

"Sentiment is very upbeat and gold is looking increasingly attractive," said Stefan Graber at Credit Suisse.

Analysts expect the price of gold to continue rising.

"It looks like $1,200 will be seen much sooner than expected," said Afshin Nabavi at gold bullion refiner MKS Finance.

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The 16 Ships Create As Much Pollution As All Cars in The World

Kompas, SUNDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2009 | 7:52 AM

Waiting game: Tankers moored off Devon waiting for oil prices to rise even further

KOMPAS.com - Last week it was revealed that 54 oil tankers are anchored off the coast of Britain, refusing to unload their fuel until prices have risen.

But that is not the only scandal in the shipping world. Today award-winning science writer Fred Pearce – environmental consultant to New Scientist and author of Confessions Of An Eco Sinner – reveals that the super-ships that keep the West in everything from Christmas gifts to computers pump out killer chemicals linked to thousands of deaths because of the filthy fuel they use.

We've all noticed it. The filthy black smoke kicked out by funnels on cross-Channel ferries, cruise liners, container ships, oil tankers and even tugboats. It looks foul, and leaves a brown haze across ports and shipping lanes. But what hasn’t been clear until now is that it is also a major killer, probably causing thousands of deaths in Britain alone.

As ships get bigger, the pollution is getting worse. The most staggering statistic of all is that just 16 of the world’s largest ships can produce as much lung-clogging sulphur pollution as all the world’s cars.

Because of their colossal engines, each as heavy as a small ship, these super-vessels use as much fuel as small power stations. But, unlike power stations or cars, they can burn the cheapest, filthiest, high-sulphur fuel: the thick residues left behind in refineries after the lighter liquids have been taken. The stuff nobody on land is allowed to use.

Thanks to decisions taken in London by the body that polices world shipping, this pollution could kill as many as a million more people in the coming decade – even though a simple change in the rules could stop it. There are now an estimated 100,000 ships on the seas, and the fleet is growing fast as goods are ferried in vast quantities from Asian industrial powerhouses to consumers in Europe and North America.

The recession has barely dented the trade. This Christmas, most of our presents will have come by super-ship from the Far East; ships such as the Emma Maersk and her seven sisters Evelyn, Eugen, Estelle, Ebba, Eleonora, Elly and Edith Maersk. Each is a quarter of a mile long and can carry up to 14,000 full-size containers on their regular routes from China to Europe.

Emma – dubbed SS Santa by the media – brought Christmas presents to Europe in October and is now en route from Algeciras in Spain to Yantian in southern China, carrying containers full of our waste paper, plastic and electronics for recycling.

But it burns marine heavy fuel, or ‘bunker fuel’, which leaves behind a trail of potentially lethal chemicals: sulphur and smoke that have been linked to breathing problems, inflammation, cancer and heart disease.

James Corbett, of the University of Delaware, is an authority on ship emissions. He calculates a worldwide death toll of about 64,000 a year, of which 27,000 are in Europe. Britain is one of the worst-hit countries, with about 2,000 deaths from funnel fumes. Corbett predicts the global figure will rise to 87,000 deaths a year by 2012.

Part of the blame for this international scandal lies close to home. In London, on the south bank of the Thames looking across at the Houses of Parliament, is the International Maritime Organisation, the UN body that polices the world’s shipping.

For decades, the IMO has rebuffed calls to clean up ship pollution. As a result, while it has long since been illegal to belch black, sulphur-laden smoke from power-station chimneys or lorry exhausts, shipping has kept its licence to pollute.

For 31 years, the IMO has operated a policy agreed by the 169 governments that make up the organisation which allows most ships to burn bunker fuel.

Christian Eyde Moller, boss of the DK shipping company in Rotterdam, recently described this as ‘just waste oil, basically what is left over after all the cleaner fuels have been extracted from crude oil. It’s tar, the same as asphalt. It’s the cheapest and dirtiest fuel in the world’.

Bunker fuel is also thick with sulphur. IMO rules allow ships to burn fuel containing up to 4.5 per cent sulphur. That is 4,500 times more than is allowed in car fuel in the European Union. The sulphur comes out of ship funnels as tiny particles, and it is these that get deep into lungs.

Thanks to the IMO’s rules, the largest ships can each emit as much as 5,000 tons of sulphur in a year – the same as 50million typical cars, each emitting an average of 100 grams of sulphur a year.

With an estimated 800million cars driving around the planet, that means 16 super-ships can emit as much sulphur as the world fleet of cars.

A year ago, the IMO belatedly decided to clean up its act. It said shipping fuel should not contain more than 3.5 per cent sulphur by 2012 and eventually must come down to 0.5 per cent. This lower figure could halve the deaths, says Corbett.

It should not be hard to do. There is no reason ship engines cannot run on clean fuel, like cars. But, away from a handful of low-sulphur zones, including the English Channel and North Sea, the IMO gave shipping lines a staggering 12 years to make the switch. And, even then, it will depend on a final ‘feasibility review’ in 2018.

In the meantime, according to Corbett’s figures, nearly one million more people will die.

Smoke and sulphur are not the only threats from ships’ funnels. Every year they are also belching out almost one billion tons of carbon dioxide. Ships are as big a contributor to global warming as aircraft – but have had much less attention from environmentalists.

Both international shipping and aviation are exempt from the Kyoto Protocol rules on cutting carbon emissions. But green pressure is having its effect on airlines. Ahead of next month’s Copenhagen climate talks, airlines have promised to cut emissions by 50 per cent by 2050.

But shipping companies are keeping their heads down. A meeting of the IMO in July threw out proposals from the British Chamber of Shipping, among others, to set up a carbon-trading scheme to encourage emissions reductions.

Amazingly, they pleaded poverty. Two-thirds of the world’s ships are registered in developing countries such as Panama. These are just flags of convenience, to evade tougher rules on safety and pay for sailors.

But at the IMO, governments successfully argued that ships from developing countries should not have to cut carbon emissions. IMO secretary-general Efthimios Mitropoulos insisted: ‘We are heavily and consistently engaged in the fight to protect and preserve our environment.’ Yet without limits, carbon emissions from shipping could triple by 2050.

The failure brought calls for the IMO to be stripped of its powers to control the world’s ships. Colin Whybrow, of Greenwave, a British charity set up to campaign for cleaner shipping, says: ‘The IMO is drinking in the last-chance saloon.’

Burning low-sulphur fuel won’t cut carbon emissions from ships. But there are other ways. More efficient engines could reduce emissions by 30 per cent, according to British marine consultant Robin Meech.

Cutting speed could reduce emissions by as much again. And there are even wackier ways, such as putting up giant kites to harness the wind as in the days of sailing ships. However you look at it, the super-ships are rogues on the high seas, operating under pollution standards long since banished on land; warming the planet and killing its inhabitants. Santa’s sleigh, they are not.

Robert Pedersen, of Maersk, said: ‘The sulphur content varies according to where you get your fuel. Our average sulphur content is, I believe, 2.5 per cent. It’s rather rare you get anything close to 4.5 per cent.’ He added that ‘the sulphur issue is one for the whole industry’ and that there would be a ‘huge cost implication’ to switch to cleaner fuel.

Editor: jimbon

Source : The Daily Mail

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Ireland battles severe flooding

Google/AFP

Cork city centre under water (Sky News)

DUBLIN — Ireland battled floods on Saturday described as a "once in 800 years event", with the government rushing to provide shelter and drinking water and soldiers sent to assist those affected.

Rivers burst their banks, coastal towns were threatened by sea flooding, 18,000 households were left without water in Cork, Ireland's second city -- and forecasters warned of more heavy rain to come.

"We have been told this is a once in 800 years event. We have had no fatalities and that is a blessing," Environment Minister John Gormley told RTE state radio as he toured some of the worst hit areas.

Prime Minister Brian Cowen chaired a meeting of the national emergency coordination committee, and said the main concern was to help people evacuated from their homes and to maintain water supplies.

"Clearly we are very concerned about maintaining the priority of helping those who have been displaced or have to be looked after in accommodation. Also making sure that people have access to clean drinking water," he said.

"There is also a situation where major installations have to be protected, hospitals for example."

Troops were drafted in to assist emergency services in the worst hit areas, particularly Cork in the south and towns in the south, midlands and west of the republic, as forecasters predicted more heavy rain to come.

In Cork where the River Lee burst its banks, RTE reported that 18,000 homes had their water cut off following extensive damage to the city's main pumping station, and said it was unlikely to be restored for at least a week.

Cork City manager Joe Gavin described the disruption as "unprecedented, grave and posing a potential health risk", it reported.

Fears of pollution in other areas have led to boil notices being issued for water supplies.

In Galway to the west, local authorities warned flood waters were still rising and urged motorists to avoid travelling, amid widespread road closures.

Thousands of hectares of farmland were submerged and the Irish Farmers Association warned of severe economic repercussions.

The Meteorological Office has issued a weather alert and warned of severe gales.

It said its stations at Sherkin Island, County Cork and Claremorris, County Mayo in the west have already had more rain than in any previous full November.

Meteorologist Gerry Fleming added: "The run of wet summers and wet winters we been having in the last two years are unprecedented."

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Team set up to calculate losses by Timor Sea pollution

Antara News, Sunday, November 22, 2009 03:30 WIB

The partially collapsed Montara well head platform and the West Atlas mobile offshore drilling unit smoldering in the Timor Sea. (Reuters Photo)

Kupang (ANTARA News) - Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa has set up a national team to calculate the material losses Indonesia has suffered from pollution in the Timor Sea by an explosion at the Montara oil field, a source here said.

"The minister has already set up a national team to calculate the material losses incurred by Indonesia because of the pollution in the Timor Sea," Ferdi Tanoni, chairman of the Care West Timor Foundation (YPTB) said on the sidelines of a discussion on reform in the security sector here on Saturday.

Some 500,000 liters of crude oil spilled into the Timor Sea following an explosion at the Montara oil field on August 20, 2009.

Ferdi appreciated the establishment of the team after the East Nusa Tenggara legislative assembly (DPRD) and regional administration did not give serious attention to the problem.

"We welcome the establishment of the team from which we hope we will know how much Indonesia has lost because of the incident," he said.

Ferdi said "the East Nusa Tenggara provincial government and legislative assembly have not paid a serious attention to the problem by not conducting a profound study on it."

So far the central and regonal governments have ignored the rights of the East Nusa Tenggara population, the fishermen in particular while other countries in Europe had supported the YPTB to continue to fight in the case. "Our movement is supported by countries in Europe," he said.

As a result of the explosion, a lot of coral reefs and fish in the area have been polluted, he said.

He said he hoped after calculation of the loss were made Indonesia would claim compensation from the Australian government.

Earlier he said that the pollution problem was not a bilateral problem between Indonesia and Australia but a trilateral problem because Timor Leste was included in the discussion of the problem.

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Hacked E-Mail Is New Fodder for Climate Dispute

The New York Times, By ANDREW C. REVKIN, Published: November 20, 2009

Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change.

The e-mail messages, attributed to prominent American and British climate researchers, include discussions of scientific data and whether it should be released, exchanges about how best to combat the arguments of skeptics, and casual comments — in some cases derisive — about specific people known for their skeptical views. Drafts of scientific papers and a photo collage that portrays climate skeptics on an ice floe were also among the hacked data, some of which dates back 13 years.

In one e-mail exchange, a scientist writes of using a statistical “trick” in a chart illustrating a recent sharp warming trend. In another, a scientist refers to climate skeptics as “idiots.”

Some skeptics asserted Friday that the correspondence revealed an effort to withhold scientific information. “This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud,” said Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist who has long faulted evidence pointing to human-driven warming and is criticized in the documents.

Some of the correspondence portrays the scientists as feeling under siege by the skeptics’ camp and worried that any stray comment or data glitch could be turned against them.

The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument. However, the documents will undoubtedly raise questions about the quality of research on some specific questions and the actions of some scientists.

In several e-mail exchanges, Kevin Trenberth, a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and other scientists discuss gaps in understanding of recent variations in temperature. Skeptic Web sites pointed out one line in particular: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t,” Dr. Trenberth wrote.

The cache of e-mail messages also includes references to journalists, including this reporter, and queries from journalists related to articles they were reporting.

Officials at the University of East Anglia confirmed in a statement on Friday that files had been stolen from a university server and that the police had been brought in to investigate the breach. They added, however, that they could not confirm that all the material circulating on the Internet was authentic.

But several scientists and others contacted by The New York Times confirmed that they were the authors or recipients of specific e-mail messages included in the file. The revelations are bound to inflame the public debate as hundreds of negotiators prepare to negotiate an international climate accord at meetings in Copenhagen next month, and at least one scientist speculated that the timing was not coincidental.

Dr. Trenberth said Friday that he was appalled at the release of the e-mail messages.

But he added that he thought the revelations might backfire against climate skeptics. He said that he thought that the messages showed “the integrity of scientists.” Still, some of the comments might lend themselves to being interpreted as sinister.

In a 1999 e-mail exchange about charts showing climate patterns over the last two millenniums, Phil Jones, a longtime climate researcher at the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, said he had used a “trick” employed by another scientist, Michael Mann, to “hide the decline” in temperatures.

Dr. Mann, a professor at Pennsylvania State University, confirmed in an interview that the e-mail message was real. He said the choice of words by his colleague was poor but noted that scientists often used the word “trick” to refer to a good way to solve a problem, “and not something secret.”

At issue were sets of data, both employed in two studies. One data set showed long-term temperature effects on tree rings; the other, thermometer readings for the past 100 years.

Through the last century, tree rings and thermometers show a consistent rise in temperature until 1960, when some tree rings, for unknown reasons, no longer show that rise, while the thermometers continue to do so until the present.

Dr. Mann explained that the reliability of the tree-ring data was called into question, so they were no longer used to track temperature fluctuations. But he said dropping the use of the tree rings was never something that was hidden, and had been in the scientific literature for more than a decade. “It sounds incriminating, but when you look at what you’re talking about, there’s nothing there,” Dr. Mann said.

In addition, other independent but indirect measurements of temperature fluctuations in the studies broadly agreed with the thermometer data showing rising temperatures.

Dr. Jones, writing in an e-mail message, declined to be interviewed.

Stephen McIntyre, a blogger who on his Web site, climateaudit.org, has for years been challenging data used to chart climate patterns, and who came in for heated criticism in some e-mail messages, called the revelations “quite breathtaking.”

But several scientists whose names appear in the e-mail messages said they merely revealed that scientists were human, and did nothing to undercut the body of research on global warming. “Science doesn’t work because we’re all nice,” said Gavin A. Schmidt, a climatologist at NASAwhose e-mail exchanges with colleagues over a variety of climate studies were in the cache. “Newton may have been an ass, but the theory of gravity still works.”

He said the breach at the University of East Anglia was discovered after hackers who had gained access to the correspondence sought Tuesday to hack into a different server supporting realclimate.org, a blog unrelated to NASA that he runs with several other scientists pressing the case that global warming is true.

The intruders sought to create a mock blog post there and to upload the full batch of files from Britain. That effort was thwarted, Dr. Schmidt said, and scientists immediately notified colleagues at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. The first posts that revealed details from the files appeared Thursday at The Air Vent, a Web site devoted to skeptics’ arguments.

At first, said Dr. Michaels, the climatologist who has faulted some of the science of the global warming consensus, his instinct was to ignore the correspondence as “just the way scientists talk.”

But on Friday, he said that after reading more deeply, he felt that some exchanges reflected an effort to block the release of data for independent review.

He said some messages mused about discrediting him by challenging the veracity of his doctoral dissertation at the University of Wisconsin by claiming he knew his research was wrong. “This shows these are people willing to bend rules and go after other people’s reputations in very serious ways,” he said.

Spencer R. Weart, a physicist and historian who is charting the course of research on global warming, said the hacked material would serve as “great material for historians.”

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Société Générale tells clients how to prepare for potential 'global collapse'

Société Générale has advised clients to be ready for a possible "global economic collapse" over the next two years, mapping a strategy of defensive investments to avoid wealth destruction.

Telegraph.co.uk, by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard,18 Nov 2009

Explosion of debt: Japan's public debt could reach as much as 270pc of GDP in the next two years. A bullet train is pictured speeding past Mount Fuji in Fuji city, west of Tokyo Photo: Reuters

In a report entitled "Worst-case debt scenario", the bank's asset team said state rescue packages over the last year have merely transferred private liabilities onto sagging sovereign shoulders, creating a fresh set of problems.

Overall debt is still far too high in almost all rich economies as a share of GDP (350pc in the US), whether public or private. It must be reduced by the hard slog of "deleveraging", for years.

"As yet, nobody can say with any certainty whether we have in fact escaped the prospect of a global economic collapse," said the 68-page report, headed by asset chief Daniel Fermon. It is an exploration of the dangers, not a forecast.

Under the French bank's "Bear Case" scenario (the gloomiest of three possible outcomes), the dollar would slide further and global equities would retest the March lows. Property prices would tumble again. Oil would fall back to $50 in 2010.

Governments have already shot their fiscal bolts. Even without fresh spending, public debt would explode within two years to 105pc of GDP in the UK, 125pc in the US and the eurozone, and 270pc in Japan. Worldwide state debt would reach $45 trillion, up two-and-a-half times in a decade.

(UK figures look low because debt started from a low base. Mr Ferman said the UK would converge with Europe at 130pc of GDP by 2015 under the bear case).

The underlying debt burden is greater than it was after the Second World War, when nominal levels looked similar. Ageing populations will make it harder to erode debt through growth. "High public debt looks entirely unsustainable in the long run. We have almost reached a point of no return for government debt," it said.

Inflating debt away might be seen by some governments as a lesser of evils.

If so, gold would go "up, and up, and up" as the only safe haven from fiat paper money. Private debt is also crippling. Even if the US savings rate stabilises at 7pc, and all of it is used to pay down debt, it will still take nine years for households to reduce debt/income ratios to the safe levels of the 1980s.

The bank said the current crisis displays "compelling similarities" with Japan during its Lost Decade (or two), with a big difference: Japan was able to stay afloat by exporting into a robust global economy and by letting the yen fall. It is not possible for half the world to pursue this strategy at the same time.

SocGen advises bears to sell the dollar and to "short" cyclical equities such as technology, auto, and travel to avoid being caught in the "inherent deflationary spiral". Emerging markets would not be spared. Paradoxically, they are more leveraged to the US growth than Wall Street itself. Farm commodities would hold up well, led by sugar.

Mr Fermon said junk bonds would lose 31pc of their value in 2010 alone. However, sovereign bonds would "generate turbo-charged returns" mimicking the secular slide in yields seen in Japan as the slump ground on. At one point Japan's 10-year yield dropped to 0.40pc. The Fed would hold down yields by purchasing more bonds. The European Central Bank would do less, for political reasons.

SocGen's case for buying sovereign bonds is controversial. A number of funds doubt whether the Japan scenario will be repeated, not least because Tokyo itself may be on the cusp of a debt compound crisis.

Mr Fermon said his report had electrified clients on both sides of the Atlantic. "Everybody wants to know what the impact will be. A lot of hedge funds and bankers are worried," he said.

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Obama: Too much debt could fuel double-dip recession

Reuters, by Caren Bohan, Wed Nov 18, 2009 7:20am EST

BEIJING (Reuters) - President Barack Obama gave his sternest warning yet about the need to contain rising U.S. deficits, saying on Wednesday that if government debt were to pile up too much, it could lead to a double-dip recession.

U.S. President Barack Obama tours the Great Wall of China at Badaling, November 18, 2009. (REUTERS/Jason Reed)

With the U.S. unemployment rate at 10.2 percent, Obama told Fox News his administration faces a delicate balance of trying to boost the economy and spur job creation while putting the economy on a path toward long-term deficit reduction.

His administration was considering ways to accelerate economic growth, with tax measures among the options to give companies incentives to hire, Obama said in the interview with Fox conducted in Beijing during his nine-day trip to Asia.

"It is important though to recognize if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession," he said.

Fox News, which released a transcript of the interview, showed that comment by Obama on Wednesday morning and said the full discussion would be broadcast later in the day.

JOBS FORUM

Obama is scheduled to hold a forum with U.S. business leaders and financial experts on December 3 to discuss ways to lift the economy.

He said he had not decided yet whether any measures to boost the economy should be deficit neutral, with that being one of the things to be examined at the forum.

"Our first job was to get the economy to recover. And we're now seeing that," Obama said.

"We've seen economic growth (in the third quarter). We anticipate economic growth next quarter as well. I always said the job growth would lag behind economic growth. The question now is how can we accelerate it."

In an interview with NBC News, Obama said "there are a whole range of ideas out there" about how to kick-start hiring by businesses starting to invest and show profits again.

"We've examined a lot of them but one of the benefits of convening this group is it gives us a chance to talk directly to small businesses, medium-size businesses, the main drivers of employment to find out what exactly is going on."

Asked whether the jobs forum should have been held sooner, Obama said the focus after he took office in January was "to make sure we didn't slip into a Great Depression."

"We've gotten that job done," he told NBC. "Our next job is to make sure that we can accelerate the job growth because I recognize that people are really hurting right now."

Obama told Fox that one of his messages on his trip was that the United States should look for further export opportunities, especially in fast-growing areas of the world like the Asia-Pacific region.

"If we just boosted our share of exports by 1 percent, that might be 250,000 well-paying jobs in the United States. So export promotion would be an example of something we could do without spending money," he said.

"There may be some tax provisions that can encourage businesses to hire sooner rather than sitting on the sidelines. So we're taking a look at those."

(Editing by John O'Callaghan)

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War-torn nations 'most corrupt'

BBC News

War-torn nations remain the world's most corrupt, Transparency International (TI) has said.

Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia are the lowest-ranked countries in TI's annual global survey. They were all at the bottom of the list last year as well.

Corruption can take money away from hospitals in places like Iraq, says TI

"When essential institutions are weak or non-existent, corruption spirals out of control," TI said.

New Zealand was the least corrupt, with last year's winner Denmark as runner-up and Singapore third.

It said this was a result of "political stability, long established conflict of interest regulations and solid, functioning public institutions".

The issue of corruption in Afghanistan is particularly pressing. Widespread fraud marred the country's last elections, while the US is still debating whether to increase troop levels.

WORLDWIDE CORRUPTION 2009

2009 - Transparency International uses estimates of the size and frequency of bribes as well as survey evidence and expert assessments.

The UK ranked 17th, down one place from last year. The US also fell one place to 19th.

The organisation said tackling public sector corruption was even more pressing now, as governments worldwide had spent huge amounts of public money bailing out banks and public institutions.

"At a time when massive stimulus packages, fast-track disbursements of public funds and attempts to secure peace are being implemented around the world, it is essential to identify where corruption blocks good governance and accountability," TI said.

TI also welcomed action by the OECD and G20 group of richest nations to tackle tax havens and other places where corrupt government officials often harbour their money.

"Corrupt money must not find a safe haven," it said. "The OECD's work in this area is welcome, but there must be more bilateral treaties on information exchange to fully end the secrecy regime."

Toyota plant workers sheltered from the downturn

Reuters, by Nick Carey, 1:43 November 16th, 2009

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – When the call came in on July 4, 2008 that Toyota was going halt production for three months, Wes Woods was getting ready to watch a fireworks display with his children.

“I was told that not only were we going to stop production, but that we had to come up with a three-month training plan for all our team members within two days,” said Woods, assistant general manager at the Toyota engine plant here.

The extreme slump in auto sales, which peaked at 17 million in 2005 but are expected to barely pass 10 million this year, forced domestic auto companies GM and Chrysler into government-led bankruptcy, and they shuttered plants, slashed their dealership networks and cut tens of thousands of jobs in order to receive government aid.

This Toyota plant, which began production in 2003 and makes big truck engines, did things differently.

“I don’t think anyone anywhere in the auto industry has ever been through anything like this,” said plant president Jim Bolte.

Although the plant shut down for three months to help cut inventory levels, no permanent workers were laid off, though temporary workers were let go and overtime was cut.

Instead, Toyota came up with a three-month training, improvement and cost-cutting plan starting in August 2008 for its 900 employees here in Huntsville.

“I was very relieved when I heard they were not going to lay us off,” said Kim Jordan, who works in the plant’s tool shop. “There are not many companies that would do that for its employees.”

Joe Hereford, a trainer at the plant, which has a capacity of 400,000 engines a year, said that Toyota was also upfront with employees throughout the process.

“I was scared at first, but Toyota kept us informed about how things were going,” he said. “They told us the good, the bad and the ugly. We all made the same sacrifices and we all stuck together through this.”

The improvement part of the program was focused on having employees look for Kaizen – Japanese for “continuous improvement – or ways in which to make their work more efficient. Kaizen has been adopted by employees here as both noun and verb, as have other terms like muda (waste) and yokoten (borrowing the best practices of others).

“I came up with a couple of Kaizens for my work,” said Karen Abernathy, who works on the assembly line. “I found that there was a fair amount of motion muda at my work station.”

She suggested to management that the location of her tools and parts be rearranged, shaving 3 seconds off her work per engine.

“Toyota opened up a lot of doors for us and allowing us to participate has been a great experience,” Abernathy said.

Assistant production manager Tim Miles said that the collective improvements from employees on the assembly line that Abernathy works on – a few seconds here, a few there – totaled 416 seconds.

“Individually the small improvements don’t like sound much, but together they really add up,” he said.

During the three-month down period the plant came up with 3,500 Kaizens. Employees were also encouraged to look for financial waste. Lisa O’Neill, an accounting specialist at the plant, said so far employees had come up with ideas that have cut plant annual expenses by $1.2 million so far.

“If I have 30 managers that means I have 30 auditors looking at expenses,” Bolte said. “But if I have 900 auditors out on the plant floor then I know the results are going to be better.”

In August this year Toyota decided to have four-cylinder engines for its Camry and RAV4 models at the Huntsville plant, which will create an additional 240 jobs.

Bolte said that the way Toyota handled the plant’s down time last year showed employees that they can trust their employer.

“When we made our initial announcement about our non-production time and told our team members that they would not lose their jobs, we could see that many of them maybe didn’t believe us,” he said. “And probably they had heard the same from management at other companies and then were fired two weeks later.”

“Now they know that when we say things we really mean them,” he added.

Obama meets Yudhoyono to improve ties

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Singapore | Sun, 11/15/2009 10:05 PM

President Obama meets with President Yudhoyono of Indonesia.

US President Barack Obama met with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Singapore on Sunday to boost bilateral ties.

Obama said that bilateral relations would be enhanced with the completion of a comprehensive partnership agreement that would cover a wide range of areas like education, working on clean energy issues, expanding the Peace Corps' presence in Indonesia and counterterrorism issues.

"As many of you know, I have some historic ties to Indonesia, but I am also extraordinarily impressed with the progress that Indonesia has made in developing its democracy," Obama said after the meeting.

"Indonesia is not only regionally important, but as a member of the G20, as one of the world's largest democracies, as one of the world's largest Islamic nations, it has enormous influence and really is, I think, a potential model for the kind of development strategies, democracy strategies, as well as interfaith strategies that are going to be so important moving forward," he added.

Yudhoyono, meanwhile, said that both leaders were committed to elevating bilateral relation at "higher level" through the comprehensive partnerships.

"I welcome also the future cooperation between Indonesia and the United States in various fields such as trade and investment, education and technology, climate change, food and energy security, countering communicable diseases and also counterterrorism and people-to-people contact," he said.

The business of climate: A look to technology

By Kevin Voigt, CNN, November 14, 2009

Singapore (CNN) -- Tim Flannery believes the future peace and stability of the world rides on action at next month's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

"Really, Copenhagen is really a question between peace and prosperity versus war and chaos," Flannery, chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council, told delegates at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO Summit on Saturday. "Food security, water security, mass migration and political instability" are at risk if the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere isn't mitigated, he said.

Bjorn Lomborg, director of the similarly named Copenhagen Consensus Center, has a very different view -- not about the potential consequences of climate change, but about the "scary stories" approach of Flannery and others. He says the "end of days" approach is ineffective because the projections of potential damage so widely vary -- with ocean levels this century projected to rise anywhere from 18 centimeters to six meters.

"Panic is a pretty poor way to respond, which results in poor policies which don't get enacted," Lomborg told APEC delegates. "If you make the wrong policy decisions, you don't fix the problem and you waste much money."

Flannery, author of "The Weather Makers," said that climate models show that 80 percent chance in the next 100 years will be "moderate to severe," whereas there is a 10 percent chance on either end that "nothing will happen" or there will be "catastrophic consequences."

"To quote Rupert Murdoch, 'You've got to give the planet the benefit of the doubt'," Flannery said.

He argues that the opportunity for businesses and investors to get on the ground floor of new green technology is now.

"Some may want to wait for the discount factor (of investing in established technology) but I liken it to being told you have five years to live ... do you buy the medicine now, or do you wait four years for the price of the medicine to go down?" Flannery said.

"Business is the entity that is going to do much of the heavy lifting toward a clean energy environment," Flannery said.

Lomborg, author of the book "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming," believes the cap-and-trade approach favored by Flannery and others is doomed to failure.

Under this plan, governments cap total emissions and require pricey permits and hefty fines for emissions. Industry finds ways to reduce emissions to decrease costs and with leftover polluting allocations sell to the highest bidder on the open market.

Lomborg doesn't believe cap-and-trade will work because of the past failures of agreements in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and in Kyoto in 1997, and predicts "accounting tricks" will ultimately hobble its effectiveness.

Lomborg said his group had 31 top environmental economists evaluate the most cost effective ways to reduce global warming. A stop-gap measure could be "geo-engineering" a solution by seeding marine clouds to reflect more light.

"That could avoid 100 years of warming for $9 billion, but that's a band-aid approach," he said.

Ultimately, both agree new clean energy technology is the only permanent solution to climate change. "We will never succeed in making dirty energy clean and inexpensive," Lomborg said.

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'Large amounts' of water on Moon

BBC News

Nasa's experiment last month to find water on the Moon was a major success, agency scientists have announced.

The agency smashed a rocket and probe into a large crater at the lunar south pole, hoping to kick up ice.

Scientists who have studied the data now say instruments trained on the impact plume saw copious quantities of water vapour.

One researcher described this as the equivalent of "a dozen two-gallon buckets" of water.

The 1.6km-high plume of debris was kicked up by the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) last month when it crashed into a crater near the Moon's south pole.

"We're unlocking the mysteries of our nearest neighbour and, by extension, the Solar System," said Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist at Nasa's headquarters in Washington DC.

"The Moon harbours many secrets, and LCROSS has added a new layer to our understanding."

The identification of water-ice in the impact plume is important for purely scientific reasons, but also because a supply of water on the Moon would be a vital resource for future human exploration.

The impact into Cabeus crater threw up a large plume composed of water vapour and debris, which rose quickly.

An additional curtain of lunar debris was sent out laterally by the impact, and cloud moved more slowly.

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The moon sets above the snowcovered Alp Salaz above Untervaz in the rhine valley, Switzerland, 05 November 2009. EPA/ARNO BALZARINI

Medvedev calls for economy reform

BBC News

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev spoke during his annual address to the federal assembly in Moscow, Thursday. (Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty Images)

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has called for profound reform of the economy in his annual state of the nation address.

The Soviet model no longer worked, he said, and Russia's survival depended on rapid modernisation based on democratic institutions.

An oil and gas-based economy had to be reworked with hi-tech investments.

Inefficient state giants should be overhauled and issues of accountability and transparency addressed, he said.

"Instead of a primitive economy based on raw materials, we shall create a smart economy, producing unique knowledge, new goods and technologies, goods and technologies useful for people," Mr Medvedev said.

"Instead of an archaic society, in which leaders think and decide for everybody, we shall become a society of intelligent, free and responsible people."

Corruption

A year ago, in his first such address, Mr Medvedev made a surprise announcement about deploying missiles close to Poland.

This time the focus was on transforming Russia into a more modern and open country, by introducing sweeping reforms.

More than one million Russians were at risk of losing their jobs, he said, and pressing social issues needed to be addressed.

"We can't wait any longer. We need to launch modernisation of the entire industrial base. Our nation's survival in the modern world will depend on that," Mr Medvedev said.

Government had to become more transparent, he said, and corruption should be punished. The giant state companies created by his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, had "no future", he said.

"Inefficient enterprises must go through bankruptcy proceedings or leave the market," he said. "We won't be protecting them forever."

Mr Medvedev promised to strengthen democratic institutions but warned that any attempts to disrupt national stability with "democratic slogans" would be stopped.

"Freedom means responsibility and I hope everyone understands that," he said.

And he promised a pragmatic foreign policy that would focus on improving Russians' living standards.

In other comments, Mr Medvedev

• Called for a "joint reliable platform" to strengthen Europe's security, saying such a body would have prevented the war with Georgia
• Described the situation in the North Caucasus as Russia's most serious internal problem and pledged to fight "terrorist crimes" there
• Suggested that the number of time zones in Russia - currently 11 - should be reduced

Putin's shadow

The Russian president gave a bleak assessment of the current situation and issued a clarion call for change, reports the BBC's Richard Galpin in Moscow.

There was much in the speech that implied deep criticism of Mr Putin, who is now prime minister.

The president is keen to prove he is his own man and has his own identity as a political leader, rather than remaining under Mr Putin's shadow.

But the question is whether the president can deliver on his pledges and bring about real significant political and economic reform, our correspondent adds.

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World Bank: yuan to become alternative reserve currency

Reuters, Tue Nov 10, 2009 9:19pm EST

An employee checks U.S. dollar banknotes at a branch of Bank of China in Hefei, Anhui province November 2, 2009. China will refer to changes in capital flows and fluctuations in the values of major currencies when guiding the value of the yuan, the central bank said on Wednesday, in a departure from past language. (REUTERS/Stringer)

SINGAPORE, Nov 11 (Reuters) - World Bank President Robert Zoellick said on Wednesday that the U.S. dollar's role as a reserve currency was "relatively secure", but the Chinese yuan will provide an alternative over time.

"Over the next 10-15 years, you will firstly see renminbi to be internationalised and provide an alternative," he said at a World Bank conference in Singapore.

Zoellick also said the U.S. should not be complacent about the dollar. (Reporting by Kevin Lim and Kevin Yao; Editing by Neil Chatterjee)

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Brazil's 2 largest cities hit by blackouts

The Jakarta Post, Rio de Janeiro | Wed, 11/11/2009 8:21 AM

Looking pale: The Copacabana beach is seen during a blackout in Rio de Janeiro. A massive power failure threw Brazil's largest cities into darkness Tuesday night along with other parts of the country affecting millions of people. AP/Felipe Dana

Brazil's two largest cities have been hit by a massive blackout that has also affected other parts of Latin America's largest nation.

Media reports say problems at a huge hydroelectric dam are to blame for the electrical outages affecting large parts of Rio de Janeio, Sao Paulo and other cities in several states.

The G1 Web site of Globo TV says Brazil lost 17,000 megawatts of power after an unspecified problem happened at the Itaipu dam that straddles the border of Brazil and Paraguay.

Officials did not immediately comment on Tuesday's outages. The blackouts came three days after CBS's "60 Minutes" news program reported several past Brazilian power outages were caused by hackers. Brazilian officials played down the report.

Source: The Associated Press

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Abbas criticizes Arab League for not boycotting Hamas

www.chinaview.cn 2009-11-10 01:28:05

RAMALLAH, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday criticized the Arab League (AL) for not boycotting his bitter rival Islamic Hamas movement which rules the Gaza Strip.

Abbas told a group of Palestinian businessmen at his Ramallah headquarters that the AL should boycott Hamas movement "because it is the one which obstructs reaching an inter-reconciliation agreement."

"There has been a previous decision made by the Arab League one year ago saying that it would boycott the party which blocks or obstructs the inter-dialogue and the reconciliation," Abbas said.

He accused Hamas for having not so far accepted an Egyptian-drafted reconciliation pact, which was supposed to be signed by all Palestinian factions on Oct. 24, adding "they (Hamas) blocked reconciliation, so where is the boycott?"

Abbas' Fatah party accepted the Egyptian pact although it has some reservations. However, Hamas movement said that it will not sign on the pact until the text of the pact is amended.

Abbas said "Egypt is not biased, and it doesn't stand to the side of Fatah or the Palestinian National Authority (PNA)."

Abbas wondered "what is the position of the Arab League now after Hamas rejected to sign on the reconciliation pact," adding "we had demanded the Arab League follow-up committee to convene on Nov. 12 to say its final word."

Egypt, which sponsors the inter-Palestinian dialogue, announced in late October that signing on reconciliation was postponed "until a further notice" after Hamas said it will not sign on the pact before amending it.

Editor: Mu Xuequan

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China pledges $10bn Africa loans

BBC News

China has cultivated strong economic ties with Africa

China has pledged to give Africa $10bn (£6bn) in concessional loans over the next three years, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has said at a summit in Egypt.

The Chinese leader is attending a two-day forum on China-Africa cooperation in Sharm el-Sheikh, attended by officials from 50 nations.

"We will help Africa build up financing capacity," Mr Wen told the summit.

Several heads of state and government are attending the meeting, including the Presidents of Sudan and Zimbabwe.

Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak inaugurated the forum, the fourth of its kind, and spoke of "peace, security and growth," and of "boosting cooperation between China and Africa."

Mr Wen also said China is planning to create environmental programmes for Africa, including 100 clean energy projects.

China pledged $5bn (£3bn) of assistance at the last cooperation summit in Beijing in 2006, and signed agreements to relieve or cancel the debt of more than 30 African countries.

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Commentary: Diversity of civilizations deserves respect

www.chinaview.cn, by Xinhua writers Lin Liping, Feng Jian, 2009-11-08 05:15:42

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao delivers a speech at the headquarters of the Arab League in downtown Cairo Nov. 7, 2009. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

Photo Gallery>>>

CAIRO, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- Delivering a speech at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, capital of Egypt, on Saturday, visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao described the world as full of colors and with different civilizations which constitute cultural diversity.

The history of human civilization has testified that cultural diversity is necessary for human prosperity, and dialogue, exchange and integration among different civilizations have formed an irreversible historical trend and a necessity for the improvement and continuous development of civilizations.

"Dialogue, exchange and integration among different civilizations form the powerful current of human civilization surging ahead ceaselessly," Wen said.

Today's world is home to over 200 countries and regions, more than 2,500 ethnic groups and 6,000-plus languages, the Chinese premier cited just a few numbers to demonstrate the diversity.

Under the current international circumstance which is undergoing profound and complex changes featuring increasingly deepened world multi-polarization and economic globalization, peace and development remain the two main themes facing the human society.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (R) stands with Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa at the headquarters of the Arab League in downtown Cairo Nov. 7, 2009. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

Photo Gallery>>>

The maintenance of world peace and the pursuit of social stability and common development have become the common and shared aspiration of all peoples. Therefore, dialogue on equal footing between different civilizations is of great practical significance.

Dialogue among civilizations as conducive to enhancing mutual understanding and harmonious co-existence among peoples, to promoting constant progress of human society, to promoting the establishment of a just and rational new international order, and to promoting diversification of the world and the sharing of human civilization.

In 1956, seven years after its founding, the People's Republic of China established contacts with the Arab League. Over the next few decades, mutual understanding and support gained momentum. In the recent decade, the two sides have witnessed even closer ties and have maintained coordination and mutual support in international affairs.

In January 2004, during Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, China and the Arab League announced the establishment of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum.

In the following several years, a variety of cultural exchange activities has deepened understanding between both sides, and the forum became a new platform for promoting China-Arab friendly relations.

With an accelerated pace of globalization, peoples of different cultural backgrounds have the urgent need for mutual understanding and learning from each other, only through which a solid foundation can be laid for sustainable cooperation between different nations.

China and the Arab countries are all developing countries, which share a common aspiration of peace, stability and development. In recent years, both sides have continued to strengthen economic and trade exchanges, high-level visits and cultural exchanges.

Both sides, therefore, have every reason to believe that through more dialogue and exchanges, the Chinese civilization and Islamic civilization will be able to continue to enrich themselves, respect each other, co-exist harmoniously and develop together in a world that embraces diversity, and both sides will adopt a strategic perspective and proceed from the long-term interests of the peoples on both sides to unswervingly promote the stable and comprehensive development of the China-Arab relations and open a new chapter for the China-Arab friendly and cooperative relationship.

Special report: Wen visits Egypt, attends China-Africa forum

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Mullah Omar's surprise for NATO

Radio Netherlands World, 6 November 2009 - 1:41pm | By Hans de Vreij

It is comparable to Adolf Hitler sending a message to Winston Churchill in the middle of World War II. "Let's chat, Winston." Mullah Omar, the elusive leader of the Taliban movement is reported to have sent a message through mediators to a NATO general at the Allied Joint Force Command Headquarters Brunssum in Brunssum (the Netherlands).

According to NATO General Egon Ramms, Mullah Omar expressed an interest in open talks with the alliance. General Ramms oversees alliance operations in Afghanistan:

"We have people living in Germany, Afghans who are going to Afghanistan, who have relationships with certain areas of the population of Afghanistan. From them I received the message that there would be a high-ranking interest to talk to ISAF."

Infidels

The big question, of course, is: why would the leader of the Taliban movement want to talk to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), routinely described as 'kafirs' and 'infidel crusaders’? The official line from NATO is that the Taliban might believe they are losing the population’s support. General Ramms:

"If you see the development during this year, if you see the measures taken to get the support of the population and all the other issues, I believe that to a certain extent the Taliban are going to fear that the support of the population could slip away from them, at least in the Southern part. And that would mean they would lose the ground to act further on Afghanistan itself."

Taliban demands

But it may well be that the Taliban believe they are in a strong position to talk to ISAF. What Mullah Omar wants to talk about has not been made public. In previous statements, the Taliban have always demanded a full withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan as a precondition for talks. The fact that such a demand is now reportedly not included, could be seen as a new development.

But General Ramms makes it clear that real negotiations with the Taliban are a matter for the Afghan government, not for NATO. He has passed on the reported preliminary to a lower-ranked ISAF official in Kabul:

"ISAF has established someone who is dealing with reintegration issues. (...) I have handed over that hint to those people to deal with the issue in the country itself, because it doesn't make sense to do that from our end in Brunssum."

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U.S. jobless rate climbs to 10.2 percent

Reuters, Fri Nov 6, 2009 9:04am EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. employers cut a deeper-than-expected 190,000 jobs in October, government data showed on Friday, driving the unemployment rate to 10.2 percent, the highest in 26-1/2 years.

The Labor Department said the unemployment rate was the highest since April 1983. It revised job losses for August and September to show 91,000 fewer jobs lost than previously reported.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected payrolls to drop by 175,000 and the jobless rate to edge up to 9.9 percent from 9.8 percent in September.

The labor market is being watched for signs whether the economic recovery that started in the third quarter can be sustained without government support. The economy grew at a 3.5 percent annualized rate in the July-September period, probably ending the most painful U.S. recession in 70 years.

Payrolls have declined for 22 consecutive months now, throwing 7.3 million people out of work since December 2007, when the recession started.

However, the pace of layoffs has slowed sharply from early this year, when nearly three-quarters of a million jobs were lost in January. In October, job losses were across almost all sectors, with education and health services and professional and business services bucking the trend.

Manufacturing employment fell 61,000 last month, while construction industries payrolls dropped 62,000.

The service-providing sector cut 61,000 workers in October and goods-producing industries slashed 129,000 positions. Education and health services added 45,000 jobs, while government employment was flat.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

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U.S. tells Iran nuclear deal offer won't be changed

Reuters, Thu Nov 5, 2009 4:14pm EST

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton looks at members of her delegation before the start of a meeting in Islamabad, October 28, 2009. (REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday said a draft nuclear cooperation deal between Iran and three major powers will not be changed and urged Iran to accept it as is.

"This is a pivotal moment for Iran. We urge Iran to accept the agreement as proposed and we will not alter it and we will not wait forever," she told reporters in Washington.

Tehran and Washington have been at odds for years over Iran's nuclear program, which Western powers fear is a covert effort to develop nuclear weapons. Iran has denied that and says it needs nuclear technology to generate electricity.

Western powers want Iran to accept the draft deal under which it would send most of its low-enriched uranium (LEU) abroad by the end of the year for further enrichment to turn it into fuel for a reactor in Tehran.

But on Monday an Iranian diplomat said that additional talks were needed and that Tehran wants to import atomic fuel rather than send its own uranium abroad for processing.

The plan drafted by the U.N. nuclear watchdog calls for Iran to transfer the LEU to Russia and France to produce fuel for a Tehran reactor that makes isotopes for cancer treatment.

Russia, France and the United States, which would help modernize the reactor's safety equipment and instrumentation under the plan, see it as a way to reduce Iran's LEU stockpile below the threshold needed to get material for a bomb.

But since the October 19-21 talks, Iran has made clear it is loath to ship its own LEU abroad because of its strategic value, and would prefer buying the reactor fuel from foreign suppliers.

Western diplomats say the three powers do not want more talks and that Iran's demands would do nothing to remove the risk of nuclear proliferation in Iran.

"We are speaking with one voice on this critical issue," Clinton said, referring to the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany.

(Reporting by Paul Eckert; Editing by Xavier Briand)

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks alongside Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during their bilateral meeting in Singapore November 15, 2009. (REUTERS/Jason Reed)

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Obama pledge to Native Americans

BBC News

US President Barack Obama has vowed not to forget American Indian tribes, as representatives gathered for a White House conference on native issues.

The first annual White House Tribal Nations Conference brings together one delegate from each of the 564 federally recognised American Indian tribes.

President Obama fulfilled his campaign pledge regarding Native Americans

It is the first time in US history that they will all meet a sitting president.

The event is part of Mr Obama's efforts to build bridges with American Indian and Alaska Native communities.

In opening remarks, which received a standing ovation, Mr Obama said: "You will not be forgotten as long as I'm in this White House."

The event's agenda covers a variety of issues, from centuries old broken treaty promises to more modern issues such as healthcare, crime and poverty.

Mr Obama said he had asked every cabinet agency to provide him with a plan on how to improve relations between the government and tribes.

"We're not going to go through the motions and pay tribute to each other, then furl up the flags and go our separate ways," he was quoted as saying by Associated Press.

The president acknowledged the US federal government's history of ignoring the needs and rights of American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Election pledges

Mr Obama also said the widespread social and economic struggles faced by the communities were not acceptable and would change while he remained in office.

The historic summit is the first time such a large number of tribal leaders have attended a single gathering with the federal government.

Since taking office a year ago, the Obama administration has allocated $3bn (£1.8bn) in stimulus funding to American Indian programmes.

The president also appointed a member of the Cherokee Nation to his White House team as senior policy adviser for Native American affairs - fulfilling an election campaign pledge.

He also appointed an American Indian as director of the Indian Health Service within the Department of Health and Human Services - the first such appointment.

There are about two million Native Americans in the United States and one million in Canada.

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Israeli navy 'seizes arms ship'

BBC News

The vessel was taken to Ashdod for further inspection

Israel's navy has intercepted a ship carrying weapons some 160km (100 miles) off its coast, the military says.

Marines boarded the Antiguan-flagged vessel, discovered it was carrying weapons and towed it to the port of Ashdod, a military spokesperson said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the weapons were "destined to strike Israel's cities".

In recent months Israel has stepped up efforts to combat the smuggling of arms to Hamas and Hezbollah militants.

The Israeli military said the ship was "carrying a variety of weapons disguised as civilian cargo".

PM's congratulations

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak congratulated the military on its success in preventing "arms from reaching the northern terror arena".

The country's deputy defence minister, Matan Vilmai, said the consignment included Katyusha rockets and said the ship's crew were not thought to have been aware of the smuggling operation.

Israeli media quoted anonymous defence officials as saying the arms included anti-tank missiles and could have been bound either for Syria or for Hezbollah militants in Lebanon - with the source of the weapons assumed to be Iran.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated the Israeli army, navy and security forces on a successful action to prevent the supply of weapons that he said were destined to strike Israel's cities.

Since Israel's offensive in Gaza last December and January, the Israeli navy and air force have been have conducting intense searches in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea for ships smuggling weapons either to Hezbollah or to Hamas in Gaza.

In February, Israel said a vessel detained off Cyprus was carrying Iranian weapons to Hamas in Gaza. Iran denied the claim.

In 2002 the Israeli navy captured the Karin-A, which was carrying some 50 tonnes of arms thought to be destined for Gaza.

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Vietnam floods leave dozens dead

BBC News

Troops and officials have been helping to rescue stranded residents

The death toll from severe flooding in Vietnam triggered by a tropical storm has risen to about 90, officials say.

Tropical storm Mirinae caused widespread damage in central provinces when it struck on Monday.

Hundreds of houses were destroyed and tens of thousands of people stranded by flood waters, local reports said.

In the worst-hit province of Phu Yen, the disaster committee described it as "the most devastating flooding in more than 30 years".

Some 2,000 soldiers have been sent to help with the rescue effort. Disaster officials said information was still trickling in from isolated areas and the death toll could rise.

Food drops

Television images from affected areas showed residents stranded on top of their houses, as well as submerged trees and buildings.

Worst-hit provinces included Phu Yen, Kanah Hoa, Gia Lai and Binh Dinh, all in central Vietnam.

In Phu Yen, 65 people were known to have died and another 13 were missing, a local disaster official said.

Troops were using boats and helicopters to drop food supplies and to ferry residents to safety. Swaths of farmland are reported to have been ruined.

The storm brought an estimated 338mm (13ins) of rain when it hit on Monday.

More than 50,000 people were evacuated from coastal regions before it struck, the government said.

It arrived from the Philippines, where it killed more than 20 people and forced thousands into evacuation centres.

Dead fish drifting in Indonesia after oil leak

The Jakarta Post

The Associated Press | Fri, 10/30/2009 6:32 PM

Thousands of dead fish and clumps of oil have been found drifting near Indonesia's coastline more than two months after an underwater well began leaking in the Timor Sea, officials and fishermen said.

The West Atlas oil rig may fall into the sea, says PTTEP Australasia. (Photo: AP, PTTEP Australasia)

An estimated 400 barrels a day of oil has been leaking from a fissure that erupted on Aug. 21 at a rig about 150 miles (250 kilometers) off the Australian coast. PTTEP Australasia, a branch of Thai-owned PTT Exploration and Production Co. Ltd., has failed repeatedly to stop the leak but says it is still trying.

The head of the World Wildlife Fund Australia, Gilly Llewellyn, said Friday that the early impact of the spill is beginning to become clear.

"This is shaping up to be one of the largest (spills) in Australian history," Llewellyn said in an interview. "It is one of the most diverse marine habitats in the world. The impact could be over weeks, months, years."

It is still unclear how far the spill has actually spread because much of it may be undersea, Llewellyn said.

But a slick has drifted hundreds of miles (kilometers) toward the impoverished Indonesian province of East Nusatenggara, where fishermen say they have seen thousands of dead fish drifting.

Residents in the seaside villages of Nunkolo and Bandi, located on small islands off the coast of West Timor, were suffering skin problems and acute diarrhea after eating contaminated fish, local environmental groups said.

"Fishermen have been facing serious difficulties for the past month," Ferdi Tanoni, chairman of the West Timor Care Foundation, said. "Villagers' income dropped by 80 percent because many fish died or smelled oily."

If estimates of the amount of oil leakage per day are accurate, the current size of the spill would have reached nearly 1.2 million gallons (more than 5.3 million liters).

There are fears it could harm whales, turtles and dolphins - some of them rare - living in the deep waters.

Several dead sea snakes and birds have been found in oil and are believed to have been killed by the slick, although tests have not yet determined the cause of death, Llewellyn said.

Samples taken by West Timor's Regional Environmental Agency in waters roughly 20 miles (32 kilometers) off the coast found high concentrations of oil and, in one out of every four tests, dead fish.

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Obama to lift HIV/AIDS travel ban

CNN International, October 30, 2009 -- Updated 1805 GMT (0205 HKT)

"If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it," President Obama said Friday.

Washington (CNN) -- President Obama announced Friday that he will lift a 22-year-old ban on entry into the United States for people infected with HIV/AIDS.

The administration intends to publish a new federal rule next week eliminating the ban by the start of 2010, he said.

"We talk about reducing the stigma of this disease, yet we've treated a visitor living with it as a threat," he said at the White House. "If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it."

Obama said that lifting the ban is a "step that will encourage people to get tested and get treatment. It's a step that will keep families together, and it's a step that will save lives."

The United States, he said, is one of only a dozen countries that still bar the entry of people with HIV.

Obama made the announcement shortly before signing legislation extending federally funded HIV/AIDS treatment for hundreds of thousands of underinsured, low-income Americans.

The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act authorizes a 5 percent annual increase in federal support over the next four years. Funding under the law is scheduled to rise from more than $2.5 billion in fiscal year 2010 to nearly $3 billion in fiscal year 2013.

Among other things, the law helps ensure continued funding for the Minority AIDS Initiative, designed to address "the disproportionate impact of the disease on racial and ethnic minorities," according to a White House statement.

The measure easily passed both the Senate and the House of Representatives last week. Similar legislation first passed almost 20 years ago and was reauthorized in 1996, 2000 and 2006.

An estimated 1 million people in the United States have HIV, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Almost one-quarter of them are not aware that they are infected, the CDC says.

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Mysterious virus hits Ukraine

Radio Netherlands

A viral infection has killed 30 people in Ukraine.

The illness begins as an ordinary bout of flu, but after a week the symptoms get worse.

Almost 40,000 Ukrainians have contracted the disease. Around 100 are in hospital.

In the west of the country there has been a run on virus inhibitors and surgical masks. Schools and childcare centres in the city of Lvov are closed.

Test are being carried out to establish what kind of virus is causing the sickness.

The H1N1 virus which causes Mexican flu has been ruled out.

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US economy is growing once again

BBC News

The US economy grew at an annualised rate of 3.5% between July and September, its first expansion in more than a year, official data has shown.

Commentators say the growth was helped by President Obama's $787bn (£480bn) stimulus plan, and the fear is growth will now fall as this comes to an end.

The 'Cash for Clunkers' scheme gave the economy a boost

The US economy was also lifted by the "Cash for Clunkers" car scrappage scheme, which finished in August.

But with unemployment still high, the ongoing recovery is set to be slow.

The economic growth between July and September indicates that the US has likely exited a recession that first started in December 2007.

However, the official confirmation still has to come from the National Bureau of Economic Research, the agency which determines when the US enters and exits recession.

The US economy last expanded in the second quarter of 2008, when it grew 2.4%.

'Distorted by stimulus'

"It's good to have the economy growing again," said Brian Bethune, economist at IHS Global Insight.

"But we don't think that rate of growth is sustainable because it is distorted by all the government stimulus.

"The challenge here is to get organic growth - growth that isn't helped by fiscal steroids."

Analysts cautious about the slow nature of the US economic recovery point to the fact that the unemployment rate currently stands at 9.8%, and that the labour market traditionally lags behind any wider economic recovery.

They also highlight the fact that the big car firms have already reported a sharp fall in September sales following the conclusion of the popular $3bn cash for clunkers scheme at the end of September.

This scheme gave people trading in old cars $3,500 towards the cost of a new vehicle, pushing car sales up strongly in both July and August.

"You can say that the recession is over, but it sure won't feel like that," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Centre for Economic Policy Research.

"There is a lot of downward momentum that isn't going to go."

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From Rwanda to Bosnia: Devastating impact of world's tragedies

By Anouk Lorie and Stephanie Busari, CNN, October 28, 2009

London, England (CNN) -- Over the last two decades humanitarian organization International Medical Corps has cared for hundreds of thousands of victims of wars and natural disasters in more than 25 countries.

From the genocide in Rwanda to the the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan and Hurricane Katrina, the International Medical Corps (IMC), has witnessed first hand the devastating impact of each tragedy.

The IMC recently released a book titled: "A Thousand Words: Photos from the Field," which chronicles the organization's 25-year history.

IMC's CEO Nancy Aossey told CNN, in an exclusive interview, the stories behind some of the most powerful and dramatic images, spanning more than 20 years.

"I have witnessed some of our generation's worst human tragedies -- and the remarkable resilience of the human spirit," said Aossey.

"Each photograph in this book is a profound reminder of the incredible journey of International Medical Corps, and the exceptional efforts of our colleagues who have cared for hundreds of millions of people in these fragile, often dangerous environments."

Aossey was in Rwanda in 1994, when approximately 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered. "Rwanda was unlike anything I had ever seen," Aossey said.

"The scale, the swiftness and the brutality of the killing was staggering and bodies were piled up everywhere. Most of the organizations were providing services in the refugee camps on the border but we stayed inside Rwanda."

International Medical Corps is also present when natural disasters strike. After the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia, the California-based agency was one of the first organizations on the ground.

One of the problems it dealt with was mental illness. "After the tsunami we were involved with children who had post-traumatic stress, but also mental illness. So often, in these natural disasters or conflicts, people with mental illness have an especially difficult time," Aossey said.

International Medical Corps was founded in 1984 by American Dr. Robert Simon, who wanted to take action after seeing the tragic situation of the Afghan people following the 1979 Soviet invasion. According to IMC, only 200 of the country's 1,500 doctors remained alive and all relief agencies had been forced to leave the country, meaning civilians in need of basic health care had nowhere to go.

Dr. Simon therefore set up an Afghan medical training center in neighboring Pakistan. At the end of their training, "our Afghan medics could diagnose and treat 75 to 80 per cent of the injuries and illnesses they encountered in the field," IMC said.

Over the next two decades, IMC provided medical help in over 45 countries and was present at some of the most devastating man-made and natural disasters, including the famine in Somalia, ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, atrocities against children in Sierra Leone.

It is also one of few humanitarian agencies still working in Darfur and Iraq today.

Clinton arrives on Pakistan visit

BBC News

Mrs Clinton will stay in Pakistan for three days

The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has arrived in Islamabad at the start of a three-day visit to Pakistan.

The trip is being described as an attempt to turn a new page in the US relationship with the country.

As she arrived, she said that several civilian investment deals would be signed during her visit.

The US has concerns about the increasing numbers of militant attacks on the Pakistan authorities, and the security of its nuclear weapons.

This is Mrs Clinton's fifth visit to the country, and the first as US secretary of State.

During her visit, Mrs Clinton will visit mosques and shrines, meet Pashtun elders and university students and hold a record number of media interviews with local journalists.

The BBC's Kim Ghattas who is travelling with her says the visit comes at a crucial time for Pakistan and for Washington's relations with Islamabad.

The country is a key ally and its help is crucial to US core interests.

The Obama administration is currently debating how best to implement its strategy to defeat al- Qaeda and Taleban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

'Clear the air'

"We have a relationship that we want to strengthen," Mrs Clinton told reporters on arrival in Islamabad.

"It is unfortunate that there are those who question our motives, perhaps are sceptical that we're going to commit to a long-term relationship, and I want to try to clear the air on that."

Last week the US Senate passed a big defence spending bill which aims to ensure that military aid to Pakistan is used solely to fight America's "war on terror".

It sets tough new conditions which say that no resources given by the US to Pakistan may be used against India.

The bill also stipulates that US military hardware sent to Pakistan must be tracked to see where it ends up.

Correspondents say the bill is likely to fuel tensions over what Islamabad sees as US interference in its domestic affairs.

Earlier this month, US President Barack Obama signed into law a $7.5bn aid package for Pakistan tripling non-military US aid to an annual outlay of $1.5bn for five years.

The aid money will not be directly handed over to Pakistan but will be spent on different development projects through the US embassy in Islamabad, Washington says.

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