The US, China and four of the other largest-polluting countries yesterday opened a "counter-Kyoto" conference by declaring that voluntarily adopted technological advances could solve the problem of climate change. After the first day of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, the US Energy Secretary, Samuel Bodman, said that even without financial incentives, coal, gas and energy companies were capable of reducing harmful emissions.

"The people who run these companies - they do have children, they do have grandchildren; they do live and breathe in the world," Mr Bodman said at the meeting in Sydney.

But his assertions were challenged by environmentalists, who see the gathering as merely a fig leaf and a gimmick. The main purpose, the green lobby claims, is to divert attention from the refusal of the US and Australia to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol.

"The conference will fail unless it puts into place regulations and strong financial incentives for the industry to spend billions and billions of dollars on clean energy today," the Australian Conservation Foundation said.

This week, Australia is hosting the first climate-change conference for a new Asia-Pacific environmental alliance that includes the US, China and India. Critics are warning of an end-run around the Kyoto accords.

For years now, the US has been criticized by the environmental community for its refusal to sign the Kyoto Agreement, which calls for certain countries to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

US President George W. Bush only recently admitted a connection between greenhouse gases and global warming, and has said Washington needs to set goals to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions.

Along with the US, Australia, Japan and South Korea, both of the world's most populous countries -- China and India, with their burgeoning economies -- are taking part as well. Together, these six countries are responsible for nearly 50 percent of the world's greenhouse gas production.

Focus on storage technologies

One of the focal points of the group's first conference will be the development of climate-protection technologies. In September, the US developed a strategic plan as part of its four-year-old Climate Change Technology Program (CCTP).

Environmentalists, however, dismissed the conference as a political stunt and warned that no technological quick fix could resolve the problem of climate change.

Speaking before the opening session in Sydney, Samuel Bodman, the US energy secretary, said it was better for industry to devise more efficient technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions rather than impose binding targets that hamper economic development.

"I believe that the people who run the private sector, who run these companies, they do have children, they do have grandchildren, they do live and breathe in the world," Mr Bodman declared.

"Those of us in government believe it is the job of government to create an environment such that the private sector can really do its work. It's really going to be the private sector, the companies ... that are ultimately going to be the solvers of this problem."

The six participating states - who account for 45% of the world's population and nearly half of the world's greenhouse gas emissions - are expected to announce a series of measures aimed at developing cleaner technologies.

Among schemes under discussion will be "geosequestration", a process for capturing carbon dioxide and storing it underground, and "clean coal", a technology for treating fossil fuel so that it releases fewer harmful gases.

What started as a vegetarian co-operative in Texas is now America's biggest natural food supermarket chain. And it has its sights set on Britain.

The trick is to try to keep your eyes down. As you enter a Whole Foods store, take a tip from Odysseus and his crew, who plugged their ears with wax as they sailed past the Sirens, and do your best to block off the sensual delights that suddenly surround you.

Everywhere you look, every breath you inhale, will result in sensory overload. The fruit and vegetable section of a Whole Foods store - always located at the entrance - is like no other. The perfect-looking produce is immaculately presented, gleaming under bright lights. Much, if not most of it, is organic. There are splendid yellow Bartlett pears from Chile, orange and green mangoes from elsewhere in South America and large, luscious limes from California. It's food as art; fruit and vegetables as pornography.

Of course, none of this splendour comes cheap. All too often, a quick trip to buy a loaf of bread can leave you $30 or $40 worse off after you fall temptation to just one or two of all those splendid things you had promised yourself you would ignore.

Indeed, since its inception 26 years ago, Whole Foods - which owns Fresh and Wild, a similar but smaller chain of upmarket natural grocers in Britain, where it is set to open its first store under its own name next year - has done very nicely indeed selling wholesome, healthy products to wholesome, wealthy people. Today, with around 180 stores, it is the biggest natural food supermarket in the US. Last year, sales topped $3.9bn.

(AP) Ethiopian, American and European researchers have observed a fissure in a desert in the remote northeast that could be the "birth of a new ocean basin," scientists said.

Researchers from Britain, France, Italy and the United States have been observing the 37-mile long fissure since it split open in September in the Afar desert and estimate it will take a million years to fully form into an ocean, said Dereje Ayalew, who leads the team of 18 scientists studying the phenomenon.

The fissure, now 13 feet wide, formed in just three weeks after a Sept. 14 earthquake in a barren region called Boina, some 621 miles north east of the capital, Addis Ababa, said Dereje on Friday.

"We believe we have seen the birth of a new ocean basin," said Dereje of Addis Ababa University. "This is unprecedented in scientific history because we usually see the split after it has happened. But here we are watching the phenomenon."

The findings have been presented at a weeklong American Geophysical Union meeting taking place in San Francisco that ends Friday.

"It's amazing," the BBC quoted one of the Afar researchers, Cindy Ebinger of the Royal Holloway University of London, as saying in San Francisco. "It's the first large event we've seen like this in a rift zone since the advent of some of the space-based techniques we're now using, and which give us a resolution and a detail to see what's really going on and how the earth processes work.

· Brussels tells Britain to cut spending or increase taxes
· Treasury claims budget is below ceiling in EU pact

The chancellor, Gordon Brown, came under renewed pressure yesterday to raise taxes or cut government spending in his spring budget after the European commission gave him a year to bring Britain's public borrowing under control.

Mr Brown, who is normally prone to lecturing his fellow EU finance ministers on their sorry performance, faces the embarrassment of seeing the tables turned when they meet on January 24 to endorse a reprimand by the commission yesterday that Britain's budget deficit is excessive.

But the Treasury signalled that the chancellor would defy Brussels and insist that the deficit was already under control and set to fall below the 3% ceiling, imposed by the EU's stability and growth pact, in the fiscal year starting in April.
"This year we expect to have a treaty deficit of 3%, falling to 2.7% next year, and down to 1.5% by 2010," said a Treasury spokesman. "The government's projections are therefore fully consistent with a prudent interpretation of the stability and growth pact."

"The UK continues to have the lowest average debts and deficits of any other major European economy ... We make no apologies for investing in vital public services," he added.

Even so, Mr Brown saw his stewardship of the economy lumped with that of France, Germany and Italy - serial sinners against the guidelines - when Joaquín Almunia, economic and monetary affairs commissioner, said Britain would breach the deficit limit for four successive years.

So far, there has been no concrete proof of secret CIA prisons in Europe. But now, a Swiss newspaper says it has evidence. What is the next step?

The latest clue of alleged secret CIA interrogation centers in Europe comes from Egyptian sources. And of course, EU Justice Minister Franco Frattini found out about it exactly the way the European public did: through the media.

And while there remains little concrete proof of the existence of these prisons, the problem is, is that the EU has little legal room to maneuver begin searching for such evidence -- to settle the issue once and for all.

"We have no clear provision in EU law to handle something like this," said Friso Abbing, Frattini's spokesman. "The compliance with human rights is left to the member states. And when they breach the human rights conventions, then it is the province of the Council of Europe to investigate."

The Strasbourg-based organization is not an organ of the EU but an independent body of states whose chief mission is to monitor compliance to the European conventions on human rights and prohibiting torture.

The organization has 46 members including Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Ukraine, Poland and Serbia-Montenegro, the states in which the alleged prisons were being operated.

I would not trust a word of what a national regulator says on its pan-European counterpart in suhc circumstances...

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

French rock icon Johnny Hallyday is bidding to become a Belgian citizen.

The 62-year-old singer lodged a naturalisation application in November last year, Belgian officials confirmed.

Pierre-Dominique Schmidt, the country's ambassador in Paris, told Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure: "He adores France... but he has our spirit."

Hallyday, real name Jean-Philippe Smet, whose father was Belgian, only recently realised he did not have dual nationality.

According to the ambassador, Hallyday had presumed he had dual nationality.

But his father, Leon Smet, had not been married to his mother but another woman at the time of Hallyday's birth and so could not pass on his citizenship.

Discontent broke out yesterday in the ranks of Italy's centre-left opposition, in a threat to the unity that experts view as a precondition of a leftist victory in April's national election.

Senior politicians in Communist Refoundation, a hardline communist party, denounced a draft election programme prepared by moderate strategists close to Romano Prodi, who will challenge Silvio Berlusconi for the premiership.

The communist offensive, if sustained, would be a disturbing development for Mr Prodi, because the communists' refusal to align themselves with other centre-left parties contributed to Mr Berlusconi's election victory in May 2001.

Anxious to avoid a second such split and defeat, Mr Prodi is trying to make his centre-left forces - known as the Union - into as broad a church as possible, incorporating more than 10 parties from the centre to the far left.

But Marco Ferrando, a former Trotskyite and current member of Communist Refoundation's national leadership, said the centre-left's draft programme contained too many concessions to liberalism and capitalism and his party should not support it.

I suppose the implication is that the English word "query" is awkward, too?

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

Pax

Night and day you can find me Flogging the Simian

The man who proposed the amendment mentioned above, did so in the final moments of discussion (and I have observed him do the same thing for the current copyright law discussions - he waits for the last moment and drops some hardcore amendment for which no one is prepared, that no one has thus had any time to study and position themselves on) ...

This man is none other than Christian Vanneste, a soon-to-be-condemned homophobe (said that homosexuals needed to be reeducated and that they were inferior to heterosexuals) and furiously conservative old man. ps: the homophobe declarations did not get him evinced from parliament ... Sarkozy, the UMP president, said that everyone is entitled to their opinions, or something along those lines ... but Vanneste is due in court soon, and I'm quite sure that the courts will happily disagree with Sarkozy.

Anyhow, so this Vanneste proposes a late amendment, by then everyone is tired, half the people have left already, and the majority votes without thinking twice about it, because secretly they all admire the glorious colonisation days (as these politicians, most of them over 45/50, were all brought up in an environment in which not a single history book explained that slavery was awful, that colonization was 99% bad, that Napoleon did not only win glorious defensive battles and do some positive civic things, but was also a monumental butcher and invader etc etc).

In comes the indignation of all the left-wing parties, of the DOM-TOM ... and eventually Chirac asks for this article to be re-written.

So Al-Jazeera's formulation is somewhat cheap ...

PS: this Vanneste is the "rapporteur" for the current DADVSI discussions (copyright stuff for digital works). He has come up with some pretty ugly amendements there too ... such as one, another last minute one, that says that you are responsible for what other people do on your computer and that if you do something illegal voluntarily or even accidentally (yes, it uses the word accidentally), then you're guilty. This would be the very first time that the notion of "guilty before proven innocent" is introduced in French law. I doubt the Conseil Constitutionnel would let something so cheap pass, but you never know these days ...

The decision by Iran to resume research at one of its nuclear sites is cause for concern, not because Iran should or should not be allowed to develop its own nuclear industry -- both sides have valid arguments -- but it because it ratchets up the stakes in the nuclear stand-off. Another full-scale international crisis is the last thing the Middle East needs at the moment.

The US and the EU have both condemned the move to resume research on producing enriched uranium, which can be used for both for peaceful and military uses, and it is quite clear that they, along with the UN and the IAEA, are not going to sit back and do nothing about it. There will be consequences. The EU and the US will make sure of it, the EU in particular; it is driving the issue and on this, unlike Iraq, it is united. The French and Germans are just as determined as the British to get the Iranians to back down. Washington appears to be happy to let them take the lead. But it is not just the Europeans and Americans that Iran will have to contend with. It has also the UN and the IAEA against it, and they are not Washington's and Brussels' puppets on this issue. It would be a serious mistake to imagine that.

Four months ago, shortly after talks between the EU and Iran broke down and Iran resumed nuclear conversion at Isfahan, the IAEA demanded it cease all nuclear operations and threatened to refer it to the Security Council if it did not. That threat must now be a lot closer, although it is difficult to see what the UN could do in terms of punitive action. Sanctions do not seem particularly realistic; Russia, which has provided Iran with much of its nuclear technology and is trying to present itself as Iran's ally, would probably veto any such move. Nonetheless, the atmosphere is certain to become more poisonous as the accusations and counteraccusations fly, and all that is going to do is make the Iranians more bitter and more determined, and their detractors likewise. It is going to be a nasty business.

This is a struggle not about international law but about attitudes and intentions. There is no doubt that as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran, like any other signatory, has the right to pursue nuclear research energy for peaceful purposes. But there is the rub. Iran's detractors are suspicious about its intentions.

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair says Iran's decision to resume its nuclear activities is likely to result in a referral to the UN Security Council.

Speaking in parliament, Mr Blair said European ministers meeting in Berlin on Thursday would decide how to proceed.

A US state department spokesman also said it was now "more likely than ever" that the case would be sent to the UN.

But Iran's leader dismissed the threat. He said the research would go on despite the Western "fuss".

'Spoiling for a fight'
Tehran says it broke the United Nations seals on the Natanz nuclear research facility on Tuesday because it wants to produce electricity, not because it is pursuing nuclear weapons.

The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has said Tehran is about to start small-scale nuclear enrichment.

Addressing MPs in the House of Commons, Mr Blair described the current situation as "very serious indeed".

"I don't think there is any point in us hiding our deep dismay at what Iran has decided to do," he said.

"So what should Europeans and Americans do on the edge of this Persian precipice? First, Europeans should take the threat of an unpredictable, fragmented Islamic revolutionary regime obtaining nuclear weapons very seriously indeed. Second, we should share all the information, knowledge and intelligence that we have. We need to share all this information and reach a common analysis. But it is the case that Iranian society is potentially our greatest ally - indeed, probably the most pro-western society in the Middle East outside Israel."

All righty then, sounds like a wrap...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1684549,00.html

Do you mean in the game, or in real life?  If the latter, well... what happened?!?  You've piqued my curiosity!

Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes

ANALYSIS: By Anders Åslund
The Action Ukraine Report (AUR), #640, Article 5
Washington, D.C., Thursday, January 12, 2006

The originally secret Russian-Ukrainian gas agreement that was concluded on January 4 was published on January 6 by former Ukrainian PrimeMinister Yulia Tymoshenko. It appears very different from the originalpresentation of the agreement, and it seems totally rudimentary, with major aspects missing. Admittedly, secret appendices and additional agreements are possible, but the salient features of the now publicized agreement are:

• This is not a five-year agreement but a half-year agreement. The key paragraph says that in 2006 Rosukrenergo will sell gas at the price of $95 per mcm during the first half of 2006. For the second half of 2006, the gas price is regulated

• The agreement only specifies the sale of 34 bcm to Ukraine in 2006, while Ukraine will need at least 21 bcm more (a total gas need of 75 mcm of which 20 mcm is domestically produced). Naftohaz and Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov have stated that Ukraine will buy the rest from Turkmenistan for $50 per mcm during the first half and $60 per mcm during the second half. The transit fee of this gas through Russia might remain an open issue.

• No other binding price specification for gas is given. The only statement is that Rosukrenergo will buy up to 17 bcm of Russian gas at the price $230 per mcm and export (to the West) 15 bcm. Thus, it appears as if the Russian gas is to be exported by Rosukrenergo to the West and that Ukraine will hardly import any Russian gas, only Central Asian gas.

• The main feature of this trilateral agreement between Gazprom, Rosukrenergo and Naftohaz Ukrainy is that Gazprom's export arm Gazexport (headed by the decent Alexander Medvedev) is giving up lots of commercial interest to Rosukrenergo. Gazexport is to provide Rosukrenergo this year with: 41 bcm of Turkmen gas, up to 7 bcm of Uzbek gas and up to 8 bcm of Kazakh gas, that is a total of 56 bcm.

• Turkmenistan produces enough gas to supply Ukraine with an additional 20 bcm or so. Rosukrenergo shall be the sole seller of Gazprom-owned gas to Ukraine, but it is not stated that Central Asian states cannot sell directly to Ukraine.

• Oddly, the transit fee through Ukraine is fixed in dollar terms till the end of 2010, which is the only long-term commitment. The agreement does not specify that it shall be paid in cash, but Alexei Miller's statement makes that clear, which means the abolition of barter.

• Importantly, Russia has not gained any control over the Ukrainian pipeline system, which was a major Russian objective.

The conclusions of this reading are rather curious. Very little has been resolved, only the price of 60 percent of Ukraine's gas import during the first half of 2006 and the transit fee through Ukraine.

The main substance of the agreement is that the relatively transparent and decent Gazprom has given up substantial commercial interests to the shady intermediary Rosukrenergo. Tymoshenko, who might know, claims that Rosukrenergo has been taken over entirely by Russian interests, which would make sense.

The main fight thus appears to have taken place between Gazprom's public management and Rosukrenergo's unknown owners. According to plausible rumors, Rosukrenergo is controlled by the Igor Sechin circle, which may thus have won over Dmitri Medvedev and Alexei Miller, while Putin is likely present on both sides.

Ukraine rather appears an onlooker, and it has been given gas for half a year at a better price than anybody but Belarus for minimal concessions - the fixed transit fee for five years. One little noticed aspect is that Ukraine appears to have utilized the low prices last year to fill its huge underground storage of up to 20 mcm.

Yulia Tymoshenko is claiming that this agreement is criminal because it replaces the agreement of summer 2004, which set the price of Ukrainian purchase of gas at $50 per mcm and tied it to the transit tariff. Formally, she has a good point, but it is difficult to believe that such an absurdly agreement would be honored, even if it is supposed to be subject to international arbitration in Stockholm.

The ouster of the Ukrainian government does not mean that the agreement was bad for Ukraine but that a group of party factions in Ukraine has found it a good excuse to oust the government, and thus weaken it, before the elections.

One of the most important outcomes of this vote might be that Tymoshenko managed to line up with Victor Yanukovich, Victor Medvedchuk and the Communists. A change of political alliances in Ukraine might be under way.

To sum up, the key results of the gas agreement appear to be:

1. Rosukrenergo has taken control over more of Gazprom's and Central Asia's gas export. This can only benefit the owners of Rosukrenergo, and to the disadvantage of Gazprom's minority shareholders.

2. Ukraine has got low gas prices, but only for half a year.

3. Gazprom has achieved somewhat higher prices and stabilized its access to the European markets in the long run.

4. Russia has lost the international beauty contest and shaken its credibility in Europe as a reliable energy supplier, tilting the energy debate toward nuclear energy and LNG rather than gas through pipelines.

NOTE: Dr. Anders Åslund is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for
International Economics (IIE) in Washington, D.C. Contact:
aaslund@iie.com; website: www.iie.com.

Aslund is one of the most notorious Western advisors that pushed for "shock therapy" in the early 90s, and thus his writings on Russia must be interpreted through that lense, but what he writes here makes sense to me.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

The latter, they claim, almost all intelligence services did.

We will see what they really did...

_______________________________________________

"Those who fight might lose, those who don't fight have already lost." - Berthold Brecht