Thu Jan 22, 2009 2:44pm EST
By Thin Lei Win
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Business should use the global downturn to forge ahead with green technologies that will save hard pressed firms money as well as the planet, a U.N. environment agency said on Thursday.
Proven and commercially available technologies can cut buildings' energy use by 30 percent without a significant increase in investment cost, said Angela Cropper, deputy executive director of the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP).
"Now is the time to pick up the pace in our efforts to address both climate change and economic development," she told a climate change business forum in Bangkok.
A 2008 UNEP report found venture capital and private equity investment in sustainable energy rose 34 percent in the second quarter of 2008 from the same period in 2007.
Although the report was released last July before the credit crisis really bit, some executives backed Cropper's call for more green innovations in the business world.
Teresa Au, head of HSBC's corporate sustainability in the region, said the bank's climate sustainability products, such as financing for green equipment, had done very well in the second half of 2008 despite the credit crunch.
Cropper said micro-finance could also help developing countries pursue environmentally friendly policies. In Bangladesh, small loans have allowed female entrepreneurs to install solar panels and bring electricity to 100,000 homes.
"Adaptation is not only big ticket items," Cropper said. "It can also be done and it has to be done in household and community levels."
With 11 months to go before climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, where a successor to the Kyoto Protocol may be hammered out, speakers at the Bangkok forum were optimistic about the year ahead.
They pointed to South Korea's $38 billion plan to invest in green projects, and President Barack Obama's ambitious plan to double the output of renewable energy in the United States within three years.
Nevertheless, many embattled Asian firms are looking to cut their corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, some of which benefit environmental causes, said Richard Welford, chairman of CSR Asia, a Hong Kong-based consultancy on sustainable business practices.
Environmentalist Sunita Narain opposed government bailouts for troubled car companies, who have received billions of dollars from the U.S. taxpayer.
"If you are really serious about green business, give bailouts perhaps to bus companies or putting money into rail works instead of roadworks," she said.
(Editing by Darren Schuettler and Jon Boyle)
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE50L53M20090122
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Drought, heat killing trees in western N.America
Thu Jan 22, 2009 8:45pm EST
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Trees in the western United States and Canada are dying twice as quickly as they did just 30 years ago, with rising average temperatures almost certainly to blame, researchers reported on Thursday.
These thinner and weaker forests will become more vulnerable to wildfires and may soak up less carbon dioxide, in turn speeding up global warming, they said.
The U.S. and Canadian researchers from a variety of agencies and universities studied trees in old-growth forests for more than 50 years to document the die-off, which they say is beginning to outpace replacement by new trees.
Warmer temperatures may be encouraging pine beetles and other organisms that attack trees, the researchers said. That, along with the stress of prolonged droughts, may be accelerating death rates.
"Average temperature in the West rose by more than 1 degree F (half a degree C) over the last few decades," said Phillip van Mantgem of the U.S. Geological Survey, who helped lead the study.
"While this may not sound like much, it has been enough to reduce winter snowpack, cause earlier snowmelt, and lengthen the summer drought."
Writing in the journal Science, the researchers said they found trees of various species, ages and sizes are dying faster at every elevation.
"Wherever we looked, mortality rates are increasing," Nathan Stephenson of the USGS told reporters in a telephone briefing.
'CARBON SOAKS'
Forests are usually called "carbon soaks" because plants take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen, removing carbon from the atmosphere. But when trees die or burn, this carbon is released back into the atmosphere.
So a dying forest adds to the carbon that in turn helps warm the planet's surface.
The findings fit in with other studies and with changes that have become obvious -- such as the 3.5 million acres (1.4 million hectares) of pine forest that has been destroyed by mountain pine bark beetles in northwestern Colorado.
Thomas Veblen of the University of Colorado said new regulations may be needed to help the forests survive.
"We need to consider developing land-use policies that reduce the vulnerability of people and resources to wildfires," Veblen said.
"Activities include reducing residential development in or near wildland areas that are naturally fire-prone and where we expect fire risk to increase with continued warming."
Mark Harmon, a professor of forest ecology at Oregon State University, said the overall mortality rates are low but they add up.
"We may only be talking about an annual tree mortality rate changing from 1 percent a year to 2 percent a year, an extra tree here and there," Harmon said in a statement.
"Forest fires or major insect epidemics that kill a lot of trees all at once tend to get most of the headlines. What we're studying here are changes that are much slower and difficult to identify, but in the long run extremely important."
(Reporting by Maggie Fox; Editing by Will Dunham and John O'Callaghan)
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE50L5UQ20090123
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Trees in the western United States and Canada are dying twice as quickly as they did just 30 years ago, with rising average temperatures almost certainly to blame, researchers reported on Thursday.
These thinner and weaker forests will become more vulnerable to wildfires and may soak up less carbon dioxide, in turn speeding up global warming, they said.
The U.S. and Canadian researchers from a variety of agencies and universities studied trees in old-growth forests for more than 50 years to document the die-off, which they say is beginning to outpace replacement by new trees.
Warmer temperatures may be encouraging pine beetles and other organisms that attack trees, the researchers said. That, along with the stress of prolonged droughts, may be accelerating death rates.
"Average temperature in the West rose by more than 1 degree F (half a degree C) over the last few decades," said Phillip van Mantgem of the U.S. Geological Survey, who helped lead the study.
"While this may not sound like much, it has been enough to reduce winter snowpack, cause earlier snowmelt, and lengthen the summer drought."
Writing in the journal Science, the researchers said they found trees of various species, ages and sizes are dying faster at every elevation.
"Wherever we looked, mortality rates are increasing," Nathan Stephenson of the USGS told reporters in a telephone briefing.
'CARBON SOAKS'
Forests are usually called "carbon soaks" because plants take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen, removing carbon from the atmosphere. But when trees die or burn, this carbon is released back into the atmosphere.
So a dying forest adds to the carbon that in turn helps warm the planet's surface.
The findings fit in with other studies and with changes that have become obvious -- such as the 3.5 million acres (1.4 million hectares) of pine forest that has been destroyed by mountain pine bark beetles in northwestern Colorado.
Thomas Veblen of the University of Colorado said new regulations may be needed to help the forests survive.
"We need to consider developing land-use policies that reduce the vulnerability of people and resources to wildfires," Veblen said.
"Activities include reducing residential development in or near wildland areas that are naturally fire-prone and where we expect fire risk to increase with continued warming."
Mark Harmon, a professor of forest ecology at Oregon State University, said the overall mortality rates are low but they add up.
"We may only be talking about an annual tree mortality rate changing from 1 percent a year to 2 percent a year, an extra tree here and there," Harmon said in a statement.
"Forest fires or major insect epidemics that kill a lot of trees all at once tend to get most of the headlines. What we're studying here are changes that are much slower and difficult to identify, but in the long run extremely important."
(Reporting by Maggie Fox; Editing by Will Dunham and John O'Callaghan)
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE50L5UQ20090123
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Palestinians stunned by first presidential phone call
PATRICK MARTIN
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
January 21, 2009 at 8:09 PM EST
JERUSALEM — U.S. President Barack Obama's first full day in office certainly made a big impression on some people. His first action – the suspension of the Guantanamo system for alleged Islamic terrorists – caught the attention of Muslims around the world. And his first overseas telephone call, to Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, stunned Palestinians and many Israelis as well.
“We were not expecting such a quick call from President Obama, but we knew how serious he is about the Palestinian problem,” said a very excited Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior adviser to Mr. Abbas.
Faced with a struggle to regain control of the Gaza Strip, and growing popular support for the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, in the West Bank, the beleaguered PA president could take particular comfort from the call.
“The speed of the call is a message signalling to all concerned parties that the Palestinian people has one address and that's president Abbas,” Mr. Abed Rabbo said.
Many in the Arab world had taken encouragement from Mr. Obama's address the day before in which he specifically called on “the Muslim world” to join him in “a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”
Young Jordanians and Palestinians were ready to join him. They flooded radio programs and YouTube with their comments.
“I'm ecstatic,” said Omar Jibril from Ramallah. “The world is fed up with Bush,” said a teenaged Jordanian. “Don't we deserve a better future?” another asked.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak wrote Mr. Obama to congratulate him. “This region is looking forward to your handling of the Palestinian cause from the first day of your tenure,” he said. “It is an urgent priority and the key to all the other difficult crises of the Middle East.”
Even Iran appeared to have noticed Mr. Obama's offer to “extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”
“We are ready for new approaches by the United States,” said Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, even allowing that “a new Middle East is in the making.
“The new generation in this region seeks justice and rejects domination,” Mr. Mottaki explained, referring to U.S. domination.
Hamas was non-committal about the message of the new President. “We will judge him by his policies and actions on the ground and how he will learn lessons from the mistakes of the previous administrations, especially that of George Bush and his criminal and unjust policies,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum, in Gaza.
He said Hamas expects Mr. Obama “to respect the will of the Palestinian people, support their usurped rights and their right to defend themselves, away from any pressure or bias in favour of Israel.”
You can be sure that every Israeli watching the Obama inaugural address Tuesday was listening carefully to hear their country named. They were disappointed.
“He only mentioned ‘Iraq' and the ‘Muslim world,'” said Eytan Gilboa, a specialist on American-Israeli relations at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv, who had been keeping careful track. “But I take that to mean that these are his priorities.
“I don't believe there's any cause for concern,” he said.
Many Israelis disagreed.
“Does he [Mr. Obama] have a solution to the greatest threat to the free world – Islamic fundamentalism?” asked the lead editorial in yesterday's Maariv newspaper. Islamic extremists “are not looking for a free world that understands them; they want to eliminate the free world.”
The respected Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea, writing in Yediot Ahronot, Israel's most popular daily, said that there were moments in his address Tuesday when Mr. Obama looked “like a bar-mitzvah boy who found himself at a grown-up game – impressive, but not presidential; a rock star – not the CEO of the world.”
Mr. Barnea zeroed in on the Obama foreign policy appointments as a more concrete way to judge the new President's performance. He railed against the expected appointment of former senate majority leader George Mitchell as a new Middle East envoy.
Mr. Mitchell, appointed by Bill Clinton to examine the events surrounding the Palestinian uprising in 2000, had concluded that the spread of Israeli settlements, as well as terrorism carried out by Palestinians, had contributed to the tensions.
Mr. Mitchell's report “was received with great anger by [Ariel] Sharon's government,” Mr. Barnea wrote. “[Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert's government also does not consider him a friend.”
Mr. Barnea goes on to conclude: “Since it is reasonable to assume that the next government will be more right-wing than the current government, it is doubtful whether it will feel as comfortable in Washington as the Sharon and Olmert governments felt.”
Moshe Arad, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington, is much more positive about the appointments.
“Obama hasn't put a foot wrong,” he said. “George Mitchell is a very skilled, patient, fair man. He is opposed to settlements, yes, but he is in favour of Israeli security, and he knows both sides quite well.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090121.wobama_mideast22/BNStory/International/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20090121.wobama_mideast22
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
January 21, 2009 at 8:09 PM EST
JERUSALEM — U.S. President Barack Obama's first full day in office certainly made a big impression on some people. His first action – the suspension of the Guantanamo system for alleged Islamic terrorists – caught the attention of Muslims around the world. And his first overseas telephone call, to Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, stunned Palestinians and many Israelis as well.
“We were not expecting such a quick call from President Obama, but we knew how serious he is about the Palestinian problem,” said a very excited Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior adviser to Mr. Abbas.
Faced with a struggle to regain control of the Gaza Strip, and growing popular support for the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, in the West Bank, the beleaguered PA president could take particular comfort from the call.
“The speed of the call is a message signalling to all concerned parties that the Palestinian people has one address and that's president Abbas,” Mr. Abed Rabbo said.
Many in the Arab world had taken encouragement from Mr. Obama's address the day before in which he specifically called on “the Muslim world” to join him in “a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”
Young Jordanians and Palestinians were ready to join him. They flooded radio programs and YouTube with their comments.
“I'm ecstatic,” said Omar Jibril from Ramallah. “The world is fed up with Bush,” said a teenaged Jordanian. “Don't we deserve a better future?” another asked.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak wrote Mr. Obama to congratulate him. “This region is looking forward to your handling of the Palestinian cause from the first day of your tenure,” he said. “It is an urgent priority and the key to all the other difficult crises of the Middle East.”
Even Iran appeared to have noticed Mr. Obama's offer to “extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”
“We are ready for new approaches by the United States,” said Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, even allowing that “a new Middle East is in the making.
“The new generation in this region seeks justice and rejects domination,” Mr. Mottaki explained, referring to U.S. domination.
Hamas was non-committal about the message of the new President. “We will judge him by his policies and actions on the ground and how he will learn lessons from the mistakes of the previous administrations, especially that of George Bush and his criminal and unjust policies,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum, in Gaza.
He said Hamas expects Mr. Obama “to respect the will of the Palestinian people, support their usurped rights and their right to defend themselves, away from any pressure or bias in favour of Israel.”
You can be sure that every Israeli watching the Obama inaugural address Tuesday was listening carefully to hear their country named. They were disappointed.
“He only mentioned ‘Iraq' and the ‘Muslim world,'” said Eytan Gilboa, a specialist on American-Israeli relations at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv, who had been keeping careful track. “But I take that to mean that these are his priorities.
“I don't believe there's any cause for concern,” he said.
Many Israelis disagreed.
“Does he [Mr. Obama] have a solution to the greatest threat to the free world – Islamic fundamentalism?” asked the lead editorial in yesterday's Maariv newspaper. Islamic extremists “are not looking for a free world that understands them; they want to eliminate the free world.”
The respected Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea, writing in Yediot Ahronot, Israel's most popular daily, said that there were moments in his address Tuesday when Mr. Obama looked “like a bar-mitzvah boy who found himself at a grown-up game – impressive, but not presidential; a rock star – not the CEO of the world.”
Mr. Barnea zeroed in on the Obama foreign policy appointments as a more concrete way to judge the new President's performance. He railed against the expected appointment of former senate majority leader George Mitchell as a new Middle East envoy.
Mr. Mitchell, appointed by Bill Clinton to examine the events surrounding the Palestinian uprising in 2000, had concluded that the spread of Israeli settlements, as well as terrorism carried out by Palestinians, had contributed to the tensions.
Mr. Mitchell's report “was received with great anger by [Ariel] Sharon's government,” Mr. Barnea wrote. “[Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert's government also does not consider him a friend.”
Mr. Barnea goes on to conclude: “Since it is reasonable to assume that the next government will be more right-wing than the current government, it is doubtful whether it will feel as comfortable in Washington as the Sharon and Olmert governments felt.”
Moshe Arad, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington, is much more positive about the appointments.
“Obama hasn't put a foot wrong,” he said. “George Mitchell is a very skilled, patient, fair man. He is opposed to settlements, yes, but he is in favour of Israeli security, and he knows both sides quite well.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090121.wobama_mideast22/BNStory/International/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20090121.wobama_mideast22
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Israel admits troops may have used phosphorus shells in Gaza
Amnesty warns Israel could be guilty of war crimes
* Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem
* guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 January 2009 11.58 GMT
* larger | smaller
* Article history
White phosphorus shells
Israeli soldiers prepare white phosphorus 155mm artillery shells (light green) as troops keep position on the Israel-Gaza border. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images
Israel has admitted – after mounting pressure – that its troops may have used white phosphorus shells in contravention of international law, during its three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip.
One of the places most seriously affected by the use of white phosphorus was the main UN compound in Gaza City, which was hit by three shells on 15 January. The same munition was used in a strike on the al-Quds hospital in Gaza City the same day.
Under review by Colonel Shai Alkalai is the use of white phosphorus by a reserve paratroop brigade in northern Israel.
According to army sources the brigade fired up to 20 phosphorus shells in a heavily built-up area around the Gaza township of Beit Lahiya, one of the worst hit areas of Gaza.
The internal inquiry – which the army says does not have the status of the full investigation demanded by human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – follows weeks of fighting in which Israel either denied outright that it was using phosphorus-based weapons, or insisted that what weapons it was using "were in line with international law".
Dr Ahmed Almi from the al-Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis describes serious injuries and chemical burns, with victims covered in a white powder that continues to burn long after initial exposure Link to this video
Phosphorus is a toxic chemical agent that burns on contact with air and creates thick white smokes in order to hide troop movements. However phosphorus shells are largely indiscriminate scattering large numbers of fragments over a large area, which can cause severe damage to both human tissue and property.
As the Guardian reported yesterday, Palestinian doctors have reported treating dozens of cases of suspected phosphorus burns.
According to senior IDF officers, quoted today in the Ha'aretz newspaper, the Israeli military made use of two different types of phosphorus munitions.
The first, they insisted, was contained in 155mm artillery shells, and contained "almost no phosphorus" except for a trace to ignite the smoke screen.
The second munitions, at the centre of the inquiry by Col Alkalai, are standard phosphorus shells – both 88mm and 120mm – fired from mortars.
About 200 of these shells were fired during Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, and of these – say the IDF – 180 were fired on Hamas fighters and rocket launch crews in northern Gaza.
Alkalai is investigating the circumstances in which the remaining 20 shells were fired, amid compelling evidence on the ground that phosphorus munitions were involved in the attack on a UN warehouse and a UN school.
The mortar system is guided by GPS and according to Israel a failure of the targeting system may have been responsible for civilian deaths. However, critics point out the same explanation was used for mis-targeting deaths in Beit Hanoun in Gaza in 2006.
The brigade's officers, however, added that the shells were fired only at places that had been positively identified as sources of enemy fire.
The use of phosphorus as an incendiary weapon as it now appears to have been used against Hamas fighters – as opposed to a smoke screen – is covered by the Convention of Certain Conventional Weapons to which Israel in not a signatory.
However, Israel also is obliged under the Geneva Conventions and customary international humanitarian law to give due care to protecting the civilian population when deciding on appropriate military targeting and response to hostile fire, particularly in heavily built up areas with a strict prohibition on the use of indiscriminate force.
"They obviously could not have gone on denying the use of phosphorus," Donatella Rovera, Amnesty researcher for Israel and the Occupied Territories, told the Guardian yesterday. "There are still phosphorus wedges burning all over Gaza including at the UN compound and at the school.
"It is clear they are not using it as smoke screen as they claimed. They used it in areas where they had no forces, and there are much less problematic smoke screens that they could have used."
Amnesty on Monday warned that Israel could be guilty of war crimes, saying the use of the shells in a civilian areas was "clear and undeniable".
Rovera demanded too that Israel produce clear evidence that there were fighters in the areas it says its troops were fired upon when the phosphorus munitions were fired.
The admission that the shells may have been used improperly follows yesterday's demand by the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon for an investigation into the targeting of UN facilities – including by phosphorus weapons.
It also follows the decision by the IDF to protect the names of battalion and brigade commanders who participated in Operation Cast Lead.
According to Israel Army Radio on Wednesday the decision – ordered by defence minister Ehud Barak – was made in anticipation that war crimes charges may be filed against IDF officers, who could face prosecution when they travel overseas.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/21/gaza-phosphorus-shells/print
* Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem
* guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 January 2009 11.58 GMT
* larger | smaller
* Article history
White phosphorus shells
Israeli soldiers prepare white phosphorus 155mm artillery shells (light green) as troops keep position on the Israel-Gaza border. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images
Israel has admitted – after mounting pressure – that its troops may have used white phosphorus shells in contravention of international law, during its three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip.
One of the places most seriously affected by the use of white phosphorus was the main UN compound in Gaza City, which was hit by three shells on 15 January. The same munition was used in a strike on the al-Quds hospital in Gaza City the same day.
Under review by Colonel Shai Alkalai is the use of white phosphorus by a reserve paratroop brigade in northern Israel.
According to army sources the brigade fired up to 20 phosphorus shells in a heavily built-up area around the Gaza township of Beit Lahiya, one of the worst hit areas of Gaza.
The internal inquiry – which the army says does not have the status of the full investigation demanded by human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – follows weeks of fighting in which Israel either denied outright that it was using phosphorus-based weapons, or insisted that what weapons it was using "were in line with international law".
Dr Ahmed Almi from the al-Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis describes serious injuries and chemical burns, with victims covered in a white powder that continues to burn long after initial exposure Link to this video
Phosphorus is a toxic chemical agent that burns on contact with air and creates thick white smokes in order to hide troop movements. However phosphorus shells are largely indiscriminate scattering large numbers of fragments over a large area, which can cause severe damage to both human tissue and property.
As the Guardian reported yesterday, Palestinian doctors have reported treating dozens of cases of suspected phosphorus burns.
According to senior IDF officers, quoted today in the Ha'aretz newspaper, the Israeli military made use of two different types of phosphorus munitions.
The first, they insisted, was contained in 155mm artillery shells, and contained "almost no phosphorus" except for a trace to ignite the smoke screen.
The second munitions, at the centre of the inquiry by Col Alkalai, are standard phosphorus shells – both 88mm and 120mm – fired from mortars.
About 200 of these shells were fired during Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, and of these – say the IDF – 180 were fired on Hamas fighters and rocket launch crews in northern Gaza.
Alkalai is investigating the circumstances in which the remaining 20 shells were fired, amid compelling evidence on the ground that phosphorus munitions were involved in the attack on a UN warehouse and a UN school.
The mortar system is guided by GPS and according to Israel a failure of the targeting system may have been responsible for civilian deaths. However, critics point out the same explanation was used for mis-targeting deaths in Beit Hanoun in Gaza in 2006.
The brigade's officers, however, added that the shells were fired only at places that had been positively identified as sources of enemy fire.
The use of phosphorus as an incendiary weapon as it now appears to have been used against Hamas fighters – as opposed to a smoke screen – is covered by the Convention of Certain Conventional Weapons to which Israel in not a signatory.
However, Israel also is obliged under the Geneva Conventions and customary international humanitarian law to give due care to protecting the civilian population when deciding on appropriate military targeting and response to hostile fire, particularly in heavily built up areas with a strict prohibition on the use of indiscriminate force.
"They obviously could not have gone on denying the use of phosphorus," Donatella Rovera, Amnesty researcher for Israel and the Occupied Territories, told the Guardian yesterday. "There are still phosphorus wedges burning all over Gaza including at the UN compound and at the school.
"It is clear they are not using it as smoke screen as they claimed. They used it in areas where they had no forces, and there are much less problematic smoke screens that they could have used."
Amnesty on Monday warned that Israel could be guilty of war crimes, saying the use of the shells in a civilian areas was "clear and undeniable".
Rovera demanded too that Israel produce clear evidence that there were fighters in the areas it says its troops were fired upon when the phosphorus munitions were fired.
The admission that the shells may have been used improperly follows yesterday's demand by the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon for an investigation into the targeting of UN facilities – including by phosphorus weapons.
It also follows the decision by the IDF to protect the names of battalion and brigade commanders who participated in Operation Cast Lead.
According to Israel Army Radio on Wednesday the decision – ordered by defence minister Ehud Barak – was made in anticipation that war crimes charges may be filed against IDF officers, who could face prosecution when they travel overseas.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/21/gaza-phosphorus-shells/print
Global Depression. This Doesn't Look Good: Taiwan, Korea and China Exports Tank
by Brad Setser | |||||
 | |||||
Global Research, January 19, 2009 | |||||
The Asia-Pacific Journal - 2009-01-18 | |||||
| |||||
Words don’t really do justice to the brutality of recent downturn in Korean and Taiwanese exports.  These look a lot like charts of financial variables after a bubble bursts, not charts of the level of exports. That isn’t good. Looking just as the monthly data risks being misleading. There is a lot of seasonality in The data do not look much better if plotted as a percent change. The y/y change in the 3m rolling sum isn’t quite as bad as it was at the depth of the tech bust. But give it time. The 40% fall in Almost all of Korean and Taiwanese imports are down too. What of Why is the fall in Incidentally, Three other points: a) The trajectory of this downturn looks much worse than the trajectory of the 2000 recession. That isn’t news. But it is still worth noting. b) It is striking that neither c) Policy choices matter. From 2002 to 2004, the won depreciated significantly v the euro. After 2004 the won rose the RMB - -and But right now the sheer severity of the global downturn dominates all other variables. Everything is shrinking. Thanks to Paul Swartz of the Council on Foreign Relations for help with the data downloads and the graphs. * To flesh out the November and December data for Europe, I used the the fall in Korean shipments to
Recommended Citation: Brad Setser, "This Doesn't Look Good: Taiwan, Korea, and China Exports Tank" The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 3-4-09, January 15, 2009. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11887 | |||||
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Report: U.S. Surveillance Society Running Rampant
The American Civil Liberties Union posted a website Monday showing that government-financed surveillance cameras are running rampant across the United States.
All the while, studies suggest they do nothing to cut down on violent crime. San Francisco, for example, has spent $700,000 for dozens of public cameras, but a University of California study (.pdf, 187 pages) just concluded there was "no evidence" they curtailed violent crime.
"Violent incidents do not decline in areas near the cameras relative to areas further away," added the study, which noted the cameras helped police bring charges against six people accused of felony property crimes. "We observe no decline in violent crimes occurring in public places."
But the report did show that, over the past two years, property crimes such as burglary and muggings dropped an estimated 24 percent in areas within 100 feet of San Francisco camera locations.
The ACLU's website, "You Are Being Watched," shows a map of the 50 U.S. states with links to news accounts about where surveillance cameras are in each state. The federal government has given state and local governments $300 million in grants to fund an ever-growing array of cameras.
Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program, said in a telephone interview that, while the cameras have helped nab suspects, he believes they provide a false sense of security.
"It's the illusion of security ... public authorities like to give the impression they are doing something about crime and terrorism," Steinhardt said.
He said it is impossible to quantify exactly how many government-backed surveillance cameras are in the public right of way, but they are in virtually every U.S. state.
Two questions posed on the ACLU site ask: "Do we want a society where an innocent individual can't walk down the street without being considered a potential criminal?" and "Do we want a society where people are comfortable with constant surveillance?"
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/us-surveillance.html#previouspost
In Final Legal Act, Bush Appeals Spy Ruling
The request was lodged with U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker of San Francisco at 10:56 p.m. EST on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday -- about 13 hours before the inauguration of President Barack Obama. The filing was among now former President George W. Bush's final legal acts in office.
The Bush administration asked Walker's permission to appeal his Jan. 5 decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Walker had ruled that "sufficient facts" exist that two U.S.-based lawyers for an Islamic charity might have been spied upon for the case to proceed to the next stage.
The case seeks the courts to rule on the constitutionality of the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program the president approved in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
Congress authorized the spy program last year as part of legislation immunizing participating telecommunication companies from lawsuits accusing them of violating their customers' civil liberties, but the spying in this case allegedly happened in 2004. Eric Holder, the incoming U.S. attorney, said the Obama administration supported the spy legislation and would defend it in a separate challenge.
On Monday, the Bush administration sought to prevent the disclosure of a Top Secret document at the center of a closely watched spy case, a document Walker ruled could be admitted.
The suit involves two American lawyers who the Treasury Department accidentally gave a Top Secret document in 2004 showing they were illegally eavesdropped on by the government when working for a now-defunct Islamic charity that year.
Their suit looked all but dead in July when they were initially blocked from using the document to prove they were spied on. They were forced to return it to the government.
But two weeks ago, Walker said the document could be used in the case because there was sufficient, anecdotal evidence unrelated to the document that suggests the lawyers for the Al-Haramain charity were spied upon. Without the document, the lawyers — Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoo — don't likely have a case.
In its Monday filling, (.pdf) the government repeated its assertion that the use of the document in the case would jeopardize national security. The administration said the document was protected by the so-called state secrets privilege and objected to even Walker reviewing it — yet alone the lawyers for Belew and Ghafoo — who Walker said could see it in private.
"If the court were to find … that none of the plaintiffs are aggrieved parties, the case obviously could not proceed, but such a holding would reveal to plaintiffs and the public at large information that is protected by the state secrets privilege — namely, that certain individuals were not subject to alleged surveillance," the administration wrote.
By the same token, the administration argued, if Walker allowed the case to proceed after reviewing the document, it "would confirm that a plaintiff was subject to surveillance."
The government continued: "Indeed, if the actual facts were that just one of the plaintiffs had been subject to alleged surveillance, any such differentiation likewise could not be disclosed because it would inherently reveal intelligence information as to who was and was not a subject of interest, which communications were and were not of intelligence interest, and which modes of communication were and were not of intelligence interest, and which modes of communication may or may not have been subject to surveillance."
A hearing is scheduled in Walker's courtroom on Friday.
"We filed this lawsuit to establish a judicial precedent that the president cannot disregard Congress in the name of national security," said Jon Eisenberg, the lawyer for Belew and Ghafoo. "Plaintiffs have a right to litigate the legality of the surveillance."
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/in-final-legal.html
Monday, January 19, 2009
Pelosi, Obama disagree on tax cuts, Bush investigations
January 18, 2009
Posted: 07:40 PM ET
Posted: 07:40 PM ET
From CNN Ticker Producer Alexander Mooney
Pelosi wants taxes repealed on the rich immediately.
(CNN) — Two days before President-elect Barack Obama is officially sworn in, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made clear she disagrees with the incoming administration on at least two issues.
Obama has indicated he is not interested in repealing President Bush's tax cuts for wealthy Americans before they expire in two years or investigating past actions of the Bush administration.
But speaking on Fox News Sunday, Pelosi said she wants Congress to consider repealing tax cuts on those who make over $250,000 immediately and is pushing for a congressional investigation into whether the Bush administration illegally fired federal prosecutors two years ago.
On taxes, Obama's stimulus plan does not call for repealing president's tax cuts for wealthier individuals, even though the president-elect had said he would during the presidential campaign. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, a top Obama economic advisor, also suggested Sunday that repealing Bush’s tax cuts will not be a priority.
But Pelosi said Sunday she wants the incoming president to stick to his campaign pledge.
"We had campaigned in saying what the Republican Congressional Budget Office told us: Nothing contributed more to the budget deficit than the tax cuts for the wealthiest people in America," Pelosi said in the interview.
A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called Pelosi's statement "false," and cited a recent fact check from the St. Petersburg Times disputing the House Speaker's claim tax cuts for the wealthy is the biggest contributor to the budget deficit.
Pelosi said she would not seek to block the president-elect’s stimulus plan over its lack of tax hikes for the rich, but she urged Obama to not to simply let the tax cuts expire in two years.
"[Tax cuts on the wealthy] have to prove their worth to me as to how they grow the economy, how they create jobs," she said.
Pelosi also pushed for an investigation into the Bush administration's handling of the Justice Department, despite pledges from Obama and his aides not to focus on the administration they are succeeding.
"I think that we have to learn from the past, and we cannot let the politicizing of, for example, the Justice Department, go unreviewed," Pelosi said. "Past is prologue."
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/18/pelosi-obama-disagree-on-tax-cuts-bush-investigations/
Pelosi Parts With Obama Over Bush Tax Cuts
January 8, 2009 11:30 AM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/08/pelosi-parts-with-obama-o_n_156260.html
Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Thursday that she wants to see the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy repealed "as early as possible."
The call for repeal may place Pelosi at odds with President-elect Obama; during the campaign he called for repeal but his aides have since indicated that due to the deteriorating economy, he was leaning towards allowing them to expire.
Asked again after her press conference about the tax cuts, the Speaker said she is "urging repeal."
Pelosi noted that the Congressional Budget Office has determined that the tax cuts are the biggest contributor to the ballooning deficit. "Put me down as clearly as you possibly can as one who wants to have those tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans repealed," she said.
Pelosi said she has yet to settle on a specific threshold as to what constitutes wealthy, but said that the $250,000 income range was being considered.
First, though, the House will take up the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act tomorrow, aimed at assuring women equal pay for equal work.
Next week, it's children's health insurance. The House will vote on a package to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which President Bush vetoed twice last session.
The stimulus package will then take priority. "We will have a bill before the President's recess," she said. "If we don't have a bill, there will be no President's recess."
House and Senate Republicans -- as well as Democratic committee chairs -- have been urging that the stimulus bill go through the normal committee process. Pelosi said that it would.
More broadly, she said that she told the Democratic caucus this morning that they need to rethink the way they approach legislation now that they are no longer in the minority or facing a Republican president. "We're thinking a political way about this," she said. "We have to think differently about this...We've been so used to an uphill fight but now we have arrived."
Claiming that polls show some 79 percent of the American people are behind Obama's stimulus plan, the Congress should "move quickly -- not hastily, but quickly," she said.
As her press conference ended, she was asked if she had any parting words for the president. She paused as the reporters laughed and finally said, "I have some. And I think I'll share them with the president privately."
Pelosi vs. Obama an intriguing battle
By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist
It's going to be a wild ride, this battle between Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi.
It would be great to see the House Speaker making nice and not challenging the president-elect so brazenly.
But on Sunday, Americans watched saw Pelosi pop off on two big issues.
-- She disagrees with Obama on President George Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy.
Pelosi wants to repeal them; Obama doesn't given the tumultuous economic times.
-- Pelosi thinks the Democrats should pursue an investigation of whether Bush minions illegally fired federal prosecutors.
Obama doesn't want the distraction.
Obama's right on the tax cuts, but wrong on the investigations.
This is not the time to pick a fight with Republicans (and some Democrats), most of whom think tax cuts will help spur the economy. Never mind that they cause budget deficits; that's a lower priority these days.
But Pelosi is right to call for a probe of how the Justice Department too often let politics interfere with the priorities of that department.
The Bush administration's actions were a slap in the face to Americans and deserve a thorough investigation.
Submitted by Yael T. Abouhalkah on January 18, 2009 - 4:41pm.http://voices.kansascity.com/node/3336
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