The Jakarta Post
Malaysia to launch tsunami alert system in three weeks
KUALA LUMPUR (AP): Malaysia will launch its tsunami warning system in three weeks and is working with neighboring Indonesia to help improve its earthquake detection system, a report said Thursday.
Two devices to detect tsunami will be set up in the South China Sea near Sabah state on Borneo island, and one in the Andaman Sea north of peninsula Malaysia, Science, Technology and Innovations Minister Jamaluddin Jarjis was quoted as saying by The Star daily.
"This system will alert us at least two hours in advance of a possible tsunami," he said.
Jamaluddin or his ministry officials were not available for further details. Calls to the ministry went unanswered.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillatestnews.asp?fileid=20051124144157&irec=3
Indonesia's navy to hold biggest-ever exercise near disputed island with Malaysia
JAKARTA (AP): Indonesia's navy will hold its biggest-ever exercise near disputed waters with Malaysia next month, deploying 40 warships and more than 5,000 personnel, a naval spokesman said Thursday.
The two-week operation will include a mock drill to retake an island near the oil-and gas-rich area of Ambalat, which is claimed by both Indonesia and Malaysia, said Lt. Col. Tony Syaiful, of the Eastern Fleet.
He said he did not expect the navy's "biggest-ever exercise" to heighten tensions between the neighboring countries.
The drill will kick off on Dec. 8 when warships from Surabaya, the capital of Indonesia's East Java province, begin moving northward through the Makassar strait to waters near the Ambalat region, Syaiful said.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillatestnews.asp?fileid=20051124181800&irec=0
Pertamina to sign drilling accord with PetroVietnam, Petronas
JAKARTA (Bloomberg): PT Pertamina, Indonesia's state oil company, said it plans to sign an agreement in December to explore an area in East Java for oil and gas with state oil companies from Malaysia and Vietnam.
Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd. and Vietnam Oil & Gas Corp., known as PetroVietnam, would jointly explore and produce oil and gas in the Randugunting area in East Java, Tri Siwindono, development director at Pertamina's drilling unit PT Pertamina EP, said on Thursday.
"We're planning to start drilling in 2007," Siwindono told reporters in Anyer, West Java. Indonesia, the second smallest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, istrying to attract foreign investment to explore and produce oil in the country to stem falling output.
The country may turn into a net crude oil importer this year as falling output and rising demand for energy increased imports, threatening its membership of OPEC.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillatestnews.asp?fileid=20051124174201&irec=1
Indonesian president begins two-day visit to Pakistan
ISLAMABAD (DPA): President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono began a two-day visit to Pakistan Thursday for talks that were likely to focus on increasing economic ties between the world's two largest Muslim countries.
The two sides were expected to sign a number of accords, including a framework agreement for a comprehensive economic partnership, which was to ultimately lead to a free trade agreement.
"The visit will provide the two countries a useful opportunity to review and strengthen bilateral cooperation in a number of areas and to exchange views on the regional and international situation," an official with Pakistan's Foreign Office said aheadof the visit.
Susilo will hold formal talks with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf Thursday and plans to visit the quake-hit areas in Pakistani-administered Kashmir on Friday. (**)
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillatestnews.asp?fileid=20051124143729&irec=4
Making democracy meaningful for Indonesia
Olle T”rnquist, Oslo, Norway
While it is widely recognized that the activists who paved the way for the Indonesian democracy have been politically marginalised and the elite that resisted are in firm control, the question remains how the third largest democracy in the world could anyway become meaningful. Meaningful as a way for ordinary people to improve their lives, and transform violent conflicts into peaceful politics.
To identify the problems and options, leading democracy groups initiated in 2003 a comprehensive national survey. The Indonesian Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies, Demos, was formed to do the job; a job that nobody had done before.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20051124.E02&irec=1
Garasi gives subtle performance in 'Rain Repertoire'
Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A woman is watering flowers on her front porch, as if putting out a fire that soon will burn down her house.
-- Gunawan Maryanto, in Rain Repertoire
Any loyal, Teater Garasi audience will already know it is fruitless to try to comprehend the literal meaning of the 12-year-old Yogyakarta-based theater group's plays.
The group has been around too long for fans to know that is a useless endeavor.
Any attempt to interpret the meaning and explain it to others will likely sound like a nice try to explain either God or love.
Nevertheless, the group rarely fails to move the audience's emotion with their performance, be it due to the props, lighting, music, dialog, acting, artistic achievement or a mixture of all of them.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailtoday.asp?fileid=20051124095812&irec=0
Police identify last of Bali suicide bombers
JAKARTA (AFP): Indonesian police said Saturday they hadidentified the last of three Islamic suicide bombers in last month's attacks on the resort island of Bali which killed 20 people plus the three attackers.
The 25-year-old man was identified as Aip Hidayat, a resident of the small West Java town of Ciamis, some 240 kilometers east of Jakarta, said national police spokesman Ariyanto Budiarjo.
Police had distributed Hidayat's profile and those of two of his fellow bombers across the country soon after the Oct. 1 restaurant attacks.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillatestnews.asp?fileid=20051119164338&irec=0
Qantas says it will carry passengers stranded by Bali airline collapse
SYDNEY (AFP): Qantas on Thursday offered to fly home Australians stranded in Bali by the collapse of budget airline Air Paradise, which failed as tourists shun the Indonesian resort island in the wake of extremist bombings.
Up to 2,000 Australians are believed to be stranded in Bali following Wednesday's announcement by Air Paradise that it was suspending operations immediately.
Qantas executive general manager John Borghetti said Air Paradise ticket holders in Bali could fly at no extra cost on flights to Australia operated by Qantas and its Asian budget offshoot Australian Airlines until Dec. 10.
"For passengers wishing to leave Bali immediately, we are finalizing plans to operate special Qantas services tomorrow and Friday from Bali to Perth," Borghetti said in a statement.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillatestnews.asp?fileid=20051124115653&irec=8
ASEAN studying free trade pact with EU, says Malaysian minister
KUALA LUMPUR (AP): The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is studying the feasibility of a free trade pact with the European Union, a Malaysian minister said Thursday.
International Trade and Industry Minister Rafidah Aziz said the study could take up to two years as it involved 25 European countries and 10 ASEAN nations.
"If it's feasible, then which sectors should be given priority and how should this be implemented? There is no time frame but these things will take some time," she was quoted as saying by national news agency Bernama after meeting a group of EUparliamentarians.
Previous attempts to launch free trade negotiations were stalled due to political wrangling over Myanmar - a traditionally divisive issue between the two international groupings, she said, without elaborating.
The EU wants ASEAN to pressure Myanmar's military junta to introduce democracy reforms. But ASEAN has resisted, saying non-interference in members' internal affairs is one of its core principles.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillatestnews.asp?fileid=20051124172727&irec=2
APEC leaders wrap up summit on trade, bird flu
BUSAN, South Korea (Reuters): Leaders of the Pacific Rim vowed on Saturday to join forces to fight threats to their economies from a possible bird flu pandemic, high oil prices and an impasse in world trade talks.
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum's 21 leaders spent the morning at a seafront retreat discussing a declaration that set out their priorities for the next year.
Highest on their agenda was a call for trade giants to make progress when they meet in Hong Kong in December -- so high that the leaders issued the call in a separate strongly worded statement aimed at other members of the World Trade Organization.
The leaders also promised to work together to fight the spread of bird flu, setting out a few specific plans including one to stage a "desk-top" simulation drill in early 2006 to test regional responses and communication in the even of a pandemic.
A lethal strain of the H5N1 virus has killed 67 of the 130 people it has infected in Asia since late 2003, but the real fear is that it will mutate and acquire the ability to pass from human to human, causing a global pandemic.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillatestnews.asp?fileid=20051119163811&irec=1
Australian model released from Bali jail
DENPASAR, Bali (Reuters): An Australian model found guilty of illegally receiving drugs in the Indonesian resort island of Bali was released from jail on Saturday, a day after she was sentenced to three months in jail.
Michelle Leslie was detained by police before going to an outdoor party on the resort island on Aug. 20, which means the 24-year-old woman had already served her time.
Wearing sunglasses, a sleeveless shirt and jeans, Leslie smiled as she walked out of Bali's notorious Kerobokan jail with her lawyers. She did not speak to the media.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillatestnews.asp?fileid=20051119145223&irec=5
Chief Justice interrogated by corruption commission
Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) investigators finally managed to question Supreme Court Chief Justice Bagir Manan on Friday in connection with a high profile bribery case.
The questioning took place a day after President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono summoned top officials of the two law enforcement agencies for talks. Relations are believed to have been tense between the two sides after a recent KPK search of the Supreme Court offices and a much-criticized move by Bagir to snub an earlier summons by the KPK.
But instead of Bagir coming to the KPK office, which is located right opposite the Supreme Court building on Jl. Veteran III, Central Jakarta, the KPK investigators came to him, in what some said could set a bad precedent for the principle of equality before the law.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20051119.@01&irec=0
New York Post
Balloon Injures Spectator at N.Y. Parade
By DAVID B. CARUSO
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- A giant balloon at the Thanksgiving parade snagged a street light near Times Square and caused part of it to fall into the crowd, injuring at least one person, according to police and eyewitness accounts.
The circumstances and the extent of the injuries were not immediately known, said Detective Mindy Diaz of the New York Police Department.
A reporter from WINS-AM radio on the scene of the accident said part of the damaged light fixture crashed to the ground on a traffic island after being hit by a balloon shaped like an M&M.
http://breakingnews.nypost.com/dynamic/stories/T/THANKSGIVING_PARADE?SITE=NYNYP&SECTION=HOME
GOTTI'S SECRET DEAL
By KATI CORNELL SMITH
November 24, 2005 -- John "Junior" Gotti was inches away from inking a plea deal in which he would have served only eight years in jail and forfeited $1.1 million in cash and property if he confessed to orchestrating Curtis Sliwa's kidnapping. The Post has learned.
Gotti even floored the feds by insisting, as part of the deal, that he would agree to a self-imposed exile: He'd never set foot in New York again, not even to visit his family, a source said.
But with the deal in writing, the hulking son of late Gambino boss John Gotti got cold feet at the last minute and turned it down Monday.
The government's deal carried a 10-year sentence, but the feds would have whittled it down to eight years with time served and good behavior, the sources said.
Gotti rejected the feds' offer of 15 years before his first trial.
The latest deal would have allowed him to return to his wife, Kim, and five children, at age 49.
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/31823.htm
EU Accuses Iran of Having Nuke Documents
By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- The European Union accused Iran on Thursday of having documents that serve no other purpose than showing how to produce nuclear warheads. It and the United States warned of U.N. Security Council action, even while Iran suggested it was considering a compromise meant to reduce tensions.
Britain, in a statement on behalf of the European Union, offered new negotiations meant to lessen concerns over Tehran's insistence that it must be in full control of uranium enrichment - a possible pathway to nuclear arms.
http://breakingnews.nypost.com/dynamic/stories/N/NUCLEAR_AGENCY_IRAN?SITE=NYNYP&SECTION=HOME
Nov 24, 1:05 PM EST
Suicide Bombing Leaves 30 Dead in Iraq
By BASSEM MROUE
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A suicide car bomber targeting U.S. troops handing out toys to children at a hospital in central Iraq killed 30 people Thursday, including four police guards, three women and two children, officials said.
Another 35 people were wounded in the morning attack in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, said Dr. Dawoud al-Taie, the director of the local hospital.
Elsewhere, two American soldiers were killed Thursday by a roadside bomb southwest of Baghdad, the military announced, bringing to at least six the number of U.S. troops killed in the last two days.
http://breakingnews.nypost.com/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=NYNYP&SECTION=HOME
New Zealand Herald
I spy with my orca eye...
25.11.05 10.30am
By Stuart Dye
Despite a combined weight of as much as 30 tonnes, a synchronised swimming display by four orca proved one of the most graceful - and most rare - sights in New Zealand waters.
Orca researcher Ingrid Visser caught the unusual image as she tracked a pod of the animals in the Hauraki Gulf.
The orca were performing "spy hopping" - a practice they use to have a look around above sea level, using a similar technique a human would to tread water.
"In New Zealand waters in 15 years I've never seen so many spy hopping like this together," said Dr Visser. " I've occasionally seen it overseas, but never here in 1000 hours of whale-watching."
Dr Visser received a call that a pod of 10 had been seen at Cowes Bay on Wednesday morning. By lunchtime she had found them and was able to spend five hours observing the giant mammals.
They were at Thumb Pt, off the northwestern point of Waiheke Island, when another two orca arrived, and four of the curious creatures popped their heads up to watch the newcomers.
"It was a pretty amazing sight," said Dr Visser.
Estimates of the orca population in New Zealand waters range from 65 to 167. They are most frequently seen in the Bay of Plenty/East Cape/Hawkes Bay region in June, between October and December.
Dr Visser, who has been studying the animals since 1992, said "killer whale" was misleading.
"It's because they kill other whales, not humans, that they have that name. Orca are like any wild animal. As long as you are sensible you should not have a problem."
* If you spot an orca call 0800SEEORCA.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=500834&objectid=10356940
Swimming with dolphins good for depression
25.11.05 1.00pm
By Jeremy Laurance
Swimming is good for your body but swimming with dolphins is good for your soul.
The healing power of dolphins has been widely promoted, but in the first controlled trial researchers have shown that an hour a day in the water with the sociable aquatic creatures is an effective treatment for mild to moderate depression, and better than swimming with other humans .
Psychiatrists from the University of Leicester compared two groups of patients with depression, half of whom swam and snorkelled with dolphins while the other half spent the same time snorkelling with each other on a coral reef in the absence of the dolphins.
In the study, at the Roatan Institute for Marine Sciences in Honduras, all participants stopped taking antidepressants or psychotherapy at least four weeks before the start of the treatment and their depression score was measured.
After two weeks, results showed the group who had swum with the dolphins had improved significantly more than the control group.
Three months after the study, participants reported lasting improvement in their symptoms which did not need treatment.
The authors say the natural setting of the island with its coral reef was an important factor in the treatment.
But they add: "The effects exerted by the animals were considerably greater than those of just the natural setting.
The echo-location system [the sounds the dolphins emit to navigate] the aesthetic value and the emotions raised by the interaction with dolphins may explain the animals' healing properties." The finding confirms the importance of biophilia, the recognition that human health and wellbeing are dependent on our relationships with the environment, they say.
The study is in the British Medical Journal, which has a themed issue on human and animal health.
A separate article notes that half of the households in the UK own a pet and 90 per cent of owners regard their pet as a valued family member.
Pet ownership provides social benefits and emotional support and some research suggests it may mirror the benefits of human relationships, the authors say.
And restoring health through contact with nature, known as ecotherapy, may involve working with wildlife, on conservation projects or in a garden, according to a third paper in the BMJ.
Ambra Burls, a senior lecturer in mental health at Anglia Ruskin University in Essex said that smaller animals such as squirrels and owls had been used successfully in therapy for children with emotional and behavioural problems.
A project to develop and maintain a community garden in west London had helped in the rehabilitation of mentally ill people.
"Since the Industrial Revolution we have become detached from nature and we all have a need to be in close contact with nature.
It is not just because it is healthy in a physical sense but because we are a part of it."English Nature has a strategy to reconnect people with nature after research showed that activities from walking to drystone wall building reduced stress, fatigue and depression.
A spokesman said: "The activities quite strongly enhanced mood.
Drystone walls last for 200 to 300 years which provide a good metaphor for endurance."
- INDEPENDENT
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10356990
Naval sonar threatens whales says UN report
25.11.05 11.20am
By Daniel Howden
High intensity naval sonar poses a serious threat to whales, dolphins and porpoises that depend on sound to survive, according to a new report by the United Nations Environment Programme.
The study lends the first official support to allegations by environmental groups that military manoeuvres are responsible for the increasing incidence of mass whale beachings.
"While we know about other threats such as over-fishing, hunting and pollution, a new and emerging threat to cetaceans is that of increased underwater sonars," said Mark Simmonds of the Whale and Dolphin Society.
"These low frequency sounds travel vast distances, hundreds if not thousands of kilometres from the source."A coalition of environmental groups launched by, among others, Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of the ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, sued the US Navy in October over its use of sonar, saying the ear-splitting sounds violated environmental protection laws.
The lawsuit, which is ongoing, is aimed at vessels that use mid-frequency sonar to locate submarines and underwater objects.
The navy has 60 days to respond to the action.
Tests on the bodies of seven whales that died near Gran Canaria in 2002 found haemorrhages and inner ear damage, which experts said was caused by high-intensity, low-frequency sonar used in the area, it added.
There are no laws governing noise pollution in the world's oceans, but western governments, considered largely responsible with their increased military presence in the seas, say they need more research before taking action.
The Australian Department of Defence has admitted that two of its minesweepers used short-range, high-frequency sonar to search for a shipwreck off Marion Bay, where 110 pilot whales died in two incidents on last month.
The ships were looking for a 360-year old Dutch shipwreck.
But the defence officials denied any responsibility for the strandings, saying the first one took place while the ships were still anchored off the Tasmanian capital, Hobart, a significant distance to the west.
'The later presence of the two ships in the ... area is purely coincidental,' a spokesman said.
Environmentalists say the ear-splitting sounds can disrupt the navigation systems of whales and dolphins.
Underwater seismic testing by the oil and gas industries has also been implicated.
However, the closest exploration work to Marion Bay last week was taking place in the waters between Tasmania and Victoria, 275 miles north.
The rugged Tasmanian coastline has one of the world's highest rates of whale beachings, and Marion Bay is a notorious blackspot.
In 1998 110 pilot whales died after beaching themselves in the same spot.
And in November 2004 115 pilot whales and bottle-nosed dolphins died in two strandings off nearby Maria Island, prompting the Australian government to set up a national database of such incidents.
Wildlife officials said last week that the latest deaths may have been caused by the animals becoming disoriented by the topography of the area, on the island's south-eastern coast.
Mark Pharaoh, of the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service, said: 'The most common belief here is that since these strandings are so regular, it's basically difficult country for a whale to navigate in.' Another wildlife officer, Ingrid Albion, speculated that one confused whale might have led its entire pod on to the beach.
'Maybe they've come in close looking for food, maybe the tide's been a bit different,' she said.
'Only one of them has to get into trouble and make a wrong turn, and they'll actually call the rest of the pod to them.'Wildlife officials, helped by volunteers, managed to save 19 of the long-finned pilot whales.
Researchers at the University of Tasmania have suggested that beachings may be linked to a 10-year cycle of increased wind strengths over the Southern Ocean.
Changes in the earth's magnetic field and pursuit by killer whales are among other theories.
Animal protection groups have for years lobbied to restrict the use of sonar, saying the sound blasts disorient the sound-dependent creatures and cause bleeding from the eyes and ears.
In recent years, western governments have developed stealthier submarines the detection of which requires more powerful, low-frequency sonars.
"This is a hugely serious concern as these animals need sound to navigate, to find their food, to communicate and to mate," said Mr Simmonds.
A report by the International Whaling Commission's scientific committee last year concluded that the link between sonar and whale deaths was "very convincing and appears overwhelming".
- INDEPENDENT
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10356968
Commonwealth 'getting angry' at lack of WTO action
25.11.05 1.00pm
VALLETTA - Members of the Commonwealth group are "getting very angry" that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is failing to meet the needs of poor nations, the group's top official said.
Leaders from the 53 member countries flew into the Mediterranean island of Malta on the eve of a twice-yearly meeting dominated by trade and terrorism. But some may also face questions on human rights, Secretary-General Don McKinnon said.
After foreign ministers spent two days preparing the closed- door discussions, McKinnon said the summit would send a united message to the WTO that its talks in December, whose success is far from assured, must produce a fairer deal for poorer states.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10356959
Afghan opium harvest falls
24.11.05 4.20pm
Afghanistan's opium harvest is expected to fall by 10 per cent this year as a dramatic decrease in poppy acreage offsets favourable growing conditions, the Bush administration said on Wednesday.
Roughly 107,400 hectares of farmland in the world's leading opium-growing nation were devoted to the illegal crop this year, a decline of nearly half from the record levels of 2004, the administration said.
But favourable weather meant the harvest would not decrease nearly as dramatically, the government said.
Current cultivation levels would lead to a potential harvest of 4,475 metric tons of opium, or enough for 526 tons of heroin, the government said.
"Continued reductions will be needed to reduce Afghanistan's drug trade to a level where it does not pose a threat to that nation's internal stability," said John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
A UN report released last week found that while poppy cultivation decreased dramatically in the eastern part of the country, it increased in the northern and western regions.
That report found total output fell by only 2.4 per cent this year.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10356812
Pinochet charged in human rights case
25.11.05 10.20am
SANTIAGO, Chile - Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet has been indicted for the second time in two days, this time for three disappearances that are a part of a 1974 human rights case.
The formal charges were for the crime of "permanent kidnappings," which in Chile's legal system refers to people who were arrested by state forces and are presumed dead but whose bodies have never been found.
Judge Victor Montiglio, who is also the prosecutor in the case, issued the charges and put Pinochet under house arrest.
Pinochet, who will turn 90 on Friday, had just been granted bail in another case.
Yesterday, he was charged with tax fraud, passport forgery, using false documents and incomplete reporting of his assets in a separate case involving an estimated US$28 million he hid in foreign bank accounts.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10356946
Secret EU report launches scathing attack on Israel
25.11.05
By Donald Macintyre
JERUSALEM - European governments should consider direct intervention in an attempt to curb the systematic measures being undertaken by Israel to increase its control and population in the historically - and legally - Arab eastern sector of Jerusalem, a highly sensitive EU report concludes.
The confidential report, prepared by top diplomats representing the 25 EU governments in the city, warns that the chances of a two-state solution are being eroded by Israel's "deliberate policy" - in breach of international of law - of "completing the annexation of East Jerusalem".
European Foreign Ministers this week vetoed planned publication of the report - which also warns that rapid expansion of Jewish settlements in and around East Jerusalem, along with use of the separation barrier to isolate East Jerusalem from the West Bank, "risk radicalising the hitherto relatively quiescent Palestinian population of East Jerusalem".
The report provides the most detailed and remorselessly critical account yet produced by a Western international body of Israel's policy in East Jerusalem, which has been occupied since its seizure in the 1967 Six Day War.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10356979
EU opens US 'terror gulag' probe
25.11.05
BRUSSELS - A probe into claims the CIA held al Qaeda terrorists in secret prisons in Europe has been stepped up after 45 countries were sent a formal demand to provide information.
The move coincided with news that Austria's Air Force is probing claims that a US plane containing suspected terrorist captives passed through the neutral country's airspace in 2003.
The original allegations pinpointing two Eastern European nations emerged earlier this month and, under pressure from several European countries, the EU is sending a letter to the US requesting information.
The Secretary-General of the Council of Europe, Terry Davis, asked 45 member nations to reply by February to his questions.
- INDEPENDENT
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10356895
Police bust fashion leader again in second drug raid
25.11.05
By Derek Cheng
Police investigating a cannabis-growing operation arrested fashion label owner Jason Crawford yesterday for the second time in four days.
He and two other men were found hiding in a roof cavity when police raided a Penrose warehouse.
The police seized equipment alleged to be for growing cannabis plants.
Detective Sergeant Dave Nimmo said police did not expect Crawford to be there, but "I'm not entirely surprised".
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10356924
Nuclear bomb data available on net says Iran
25.11.05 1.00pm
VIENNA - Iran has attempted to play down the importance of information it received from the black market on making the core of a nuclear weapon and said the material was freely available on the internet.
Last week the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a report that Iran had handed over several pages related to the production of key components of a nuclear weapon.
The United States and European Union said the pages showed Iran's atomic ambitions may include a nuclear arsenal but Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Mohammad Mehdi Akhunzadeh, denied this.
"The information contained in one-and-a-half pages is simple and non-sophisticated information which could be found in (public) literature and on the internet," Akhunzadeh told a meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10356977
$1b 'down plughole' for leaky homes
25.11.05
By Kevin Taylor
A new Government report estimates 15,000 homes could suffer damage from leaks - 3000 more than the previous highest official estimate.
The cost of repairs on leaky buildings has also been revised upwards to around $1 billion - about five times the previous Government estimate and the same figure National MP Nick Smith was touting mid-year.
The figures are in a Department of Building and Housing paper to the Cabinet in June on the leaky buildings issue and possible new measures to deal with the problem.
The national manager of the department's Weathertight Homes Resolution Service, Nigel Bickle, said the 2002 Hunn Report estimated 6000 to 12,000 dwellings might fail, at a potential cost of $120 million to $240 million. Other non-Government estimates have ranged as high as $5 billion.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10356927
Forty-eight die in Iraq suicide bombings
25.11.05 7.45am
By Kim Sengupta
Suicide bombers killed 48 people in Iraq yesterday, one of the attacks taking place outside a hospital as US troops arrived with Thanksgiving Day presents for young patients.
The explosion at the General Hospital at Mahmoudiyah in the so called 'triangle of death' killed 34 and injured 39 others.
Some members of bereaved families and local people blamed the Americans for attracting the lethal attention of insurgents with their visit.
Three children, four women, six members of the medical staff and seven policemen were among those who died.
Hoda Ali Mahmoud, 30, was leaving the hospital with her 18-month old son when the suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10356938
Stem-cell scientists fall out over source of human eggs
24.11.05 1.00pm
By Steve Connor
Two of the most prominent figures in the pioneering field of stem-cell research have rocked their tight-knit community of scientists by dramatically falling out over suggestions that payments were made for human eggs and that junior female scientists may have felt pressured to become egg donors.
Professor Gerald Schatten of Pittsburgh University School of Medicine in Pennsylvania said that he will no longer collaborate with Professor Woo-Suk Hwang of Seoul National University in South Korea who led the team that cloned the first human embryo.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=82&objectid=10356773
Research halves Bosnia war death toll
24.11.05 9.20am
SARAJEVO - The death toll from the Bosnian war, which ended 10 years ago this week, was half of the widely used figure of about 200,000, a leading Bosnian war crimes researcher said in an interview on Wednesday.
"Let me be clear, this is still an extremely high figure but there is a big difference now that people cannot irresponsibly use inflated numbers for their political goals," said Mirsad Tokaca, who heads the Sarajevo-based Investigation and Documentation Center (IDC).
He said work to establish the exact number of Muslims, Serbs and Croats killed in the 1992-95 war should be completed in early 2006.
Tokaca estimated the number of victims at between 100,000 and 150,000 a year ago.
"We are at 93,000 now and that should rise to 100,000, give or take," said the ethnic Muslim (Bosniak) who has headed the 450,000-euro project funded by the Norwegian government since early 2004.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10356775
Chile's mummies pre-date Egyptians
25.11.05 1.00pm
By Fiona Ortiz
SAN MIGUEL DE AZAPA, Chile - Living in the harsh desert of northern Chile's Pacific coast more than 7,000 years ago, the Chinchorro fishing tribe mysteriously began mummifying dead babies -- removing internal organs, cleaning bones, stuffing and sewing up the skin, putting wigs and clay masks on them.
The Chinchorro mummies are the oldest known artificially preserved dead, dating thousands of years before Egyptian mummies, and the life quest of the archeologists who study them is to discover why this early society developed such a complex death ritual.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=500832&objectid=10356941
NZ's Tamiflu stocks empty
25.11.05 4.00pm
By Maggie McNaughton
Commercial stockpiles of the anti-viral medication Tamiflu have run out in New Zealand and will not be available until May next year when the southern hemisphere influenza season starts.
Stuart Knight, sales and marketing director of Roche Products New Zealand confirmed commercial stockpiles of Tamiflu had run out.
"We supply down to pharmaceutical wholesalers, they then distribute down to individual pharmacies.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10357006
Storm forecast, Coastguard warns boaties
25.11.05 3.20pm
Auckland boaties have been warned to secure their vessels and think about staying on land for the next 30 hours.
Coastguard Northern Region said gale warnings had been issued for Waitemata Harbour, Manukau Harbour, Hauraki Gulf, Bream Head to Cape Colville, and the Colville, Brett and Kaipara Sea areas.
It said boat owners in these areas should listen to marine forecasts before deciding whether to go out, and those with vessels on moorings should check them.
Metservice warned of heavy rain in parts of Northland, Auckland north of Orewa, and Coromandel Peninsula from late today through to Saturday afternoon.
- NZPA
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10357036
Antarctica
Geologist finds permafrost under water
23.11.05 1.00pm
Italian scientists based in Antarctica about 320km northwest of New Zealand's Scott Base have dug up the first sample of underwater permafrost, something not previously thought to exist.
Geologists working out of Italy's Mario Zucchelli research base in Antarctica -- which is serviced from Christchurch -- found permafrost under 3m of water in the Tethys Bay area, the Italian news agency Ansa reported.
Permafrost, or permanently frozen ground, forms when the air temperature is consistently well under the freezing point of water - zero degrees centigrade.
Even though the sea regularly freezes in Antarctica, the ice never reaches the seabed so there is always some water above it. In theory, this should mean that permafrost cannot form.
But one of the 55 scientists and technicians spending the summer at Italy's Ross Sea base, glacier expert Mauro Guglielmin, said ice was found in a 3.2m hole which had been drilled in the seabed to retrieve soil samples.
"The samples appear to contain ice, which shouldn't normally be possible in underwater conditions," he said. The temperature in the ground at that point was -2.5C.
This meant that the permafrost formed thousands of years ago, when the region was colder than it is now, and the land now underwater was dry.
Exactly when it was later covered as global temperatures rose -- melting ice caps and raising the sea level -- is still unclear, but Dr Guglielmin said tests on the sample from the seabed should be able to gauge the period fairly accurately.
The tests will be carried out at Insubria University in the Italian city of Varese, where Dr Guglielmin works. The discovery of the underwater permafrost came as part of a programme of research being carried out by this summer's Italian scientific expedition.
- NZPA
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/location/story.cfm?l_id=2&ObjectID=10356587
'Penguins' director Jacquet not one to brag
11.11.05 1.00pm
By Bob Tourtellotte
LOS ANGELES - If there is one person who has a lot to brag about this Oscar season, it is a Frenchman who is more at home in Antarctica than Hollywood.
But don't tell him that.
Luc Jacquet, director of hit nature documentary "March of the Penguins," is considered a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination, but for now he is just trying to make sense of the dizzying Hollywood awards season -- glitz, glamour and celebrity galas.
"It's really hard to understand. It's not rational," he told Reuters through an interpreter.
"At the same time, there's this sort of intoxicating quality to it ... it's the same feeling you get when you leave for Antarctica, that feeling of departing into an adventure."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/location/story.cfm?l_id=2&objectid=10354720
Penguin evolution shaped by climate change
09.11.05
By Steve Connor
A colony of penguins that has bred at the same site in Antarctica for thousands of years has provided New Zealand scientists with a rare insight into how a change in the climate can speed up the course of evolution.
Researchers analysed ancient fragments of DNA from the remains of penguins that have been buried at the site for up to 6000 years and compared them to the DNA of living members of the same colony.
The comparison has offered a snapshot of small-scale evolutionary changes to the genetic sequence of the DNA that have occurred without any obvious changes to the appearance or behaviour of the birds.
Scientists led by David Lambert of Massey University in Auckland found significant changes in the DNA of the penguin colony that were probably caused when huge icebergs broke off from the Antarctic ice shelf.
In 2001, icebergs nearly isolated Antarctica's penguins from their feeding grounds in the open sea. Many had to walk for miles on ice instead of swimming to feed.
The melting icebergs - which can be many square kilometres in size - can interfere with the normal movements and breeding patterns of the penguins, causing a shift in the frequency of their genes, the scientists say in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
They believe that many of these "mega-icebergs" have broken away over the past few thousand years and each resulted in small-scale evolutionary changes.
"Microevolution is regarded as changes in the frequencies of genes in populations over time," the scientists write.
"Ancient DNA technology now provides an opportunity to demonstrate evolution over a geological time frame and to possibly identify the causal factors in any such evolutionary event."
The scientists studied the adelie species which breeds in high-density colonies ranging in size from about 200 individuals to 170,000 breeding pairs.
A feature of this particular penguin is that individuals return to the same nesting sites year after year unless other factors interfere, such as the sudden appearance of a large iceberg.
Female adelie penguins usually lay two eggs each breeding season but about one in four chicks dies before they are able to fledge, which has resulted in a large build-up of remains that become semi-fossilised in the dry, cold climate.
"Droppings, feathers, egg fragments and other penguin remains, mixed with sand, gravel and pebbles, constitute distinct soil horizons," the scientists say.
Because adelie penguins show such a strong tendency to return to the same breeding site used by their parents, the scientists believe that the DNA they extract from the fossilised remains derives from the direct ancestors of penguins living in the colony today.
The region of the DNA studied by the scientists is not actually responsible for any genes so any changes are due to a process of genetic "drift" rather than natural selection.
- INDEPENDENT
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/location/story.cfm?l_id=2&objectid=10354227
Antarctic expedition to study rising methane levels
18.10.05 4.00pm
A better understanding of the sources of Earth's current rising methane levels may be on the horizon.
The information is being sought by a team of Australian scientists, who leave for Antarctica today to collect ice cores and analyse the methane in trapped air bubbles.
The project is being undertaken by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO).
Expedition leader and chief investigator, Dr Andrew Smith, said methane is a serious contributor to global warming and although it's generally known that levels have risen since the industrial era, the significance of the various methane sources is still poorly understood.
"Other collaborative research is focused on the role of methane in climate change in the more distant past. Since methane is such a potent greenhouse gas, these answers are vitally important for future climate predictions", said Dr Smith.
"Following the termination of the last Ice Age, the northern hemisphere began to cool again," explained Dr Smith. "This period of cooling lasted for about 1000 years, then temperatures climbed again - and so did methane levels.
"Clues to the source of this methane can be found by analysing the isotopes of carbon from which the methane is composed and we will be applying the same technique to study the detailed evolution of methane sources during the industrial era.
"Once we know what caused and is causing methane levels to rise, scientists can then form definite strategies as to how to limit emissions and help combat global warming."
Dr Smith also explained that lying on sea beds around the Earth's coastal regions are deposits of methane trapped in frozen water, called clathrates, which look like ice. When these deposits are brought closer to the surface, for instance by falling sea levels, or come into contact with warmer water, they begin to disintegrate, releasing methane gas.
"If a significant amount of clathrates were disturbed and destabilised this could further increase global warming, as well as cause devastating effects such as underwater landslides and tsunamis," said Dr Smith.
CARE FOR SOME ICE WITH THAT?
The aim of the expedition, which will return on New Years Eve, is to recover 250 metres of large-diameter ice core from the summit of Law Dome where the expedition will be based.
"We need to get a vast amount of ice to collect enough air for analysis," explained Dr Smith. "For example, to get a 100 litre air sample we need one tonne of ice."
Once enough ice is collected, on return the scientists will liberate the air, extract the methane and convert it to carbon dioxide. This will then be turned into graphite and ionised in an ion source.
The particle accelerator will then accelerate the carbon ions to an energy of 26 million electron volts and then count the number of carbon 14 atoms present for final analysis.
Christmas will be spent on the homeward bound ship.
"I will be leaving some Christmas presents ready for my wife and family for the day and will have an extra special New Years Day to celebrate both lost family events!" Dr Smith said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/location/story.cfm?l_id=2&objectid=10350886
Killer germs lurk in the deep freeze
29.09.05
By Kate Ravilious
Last week a new study revealed that Alaska's snowless season is lengthening. As ice sheets and glaciers begin to melt, most of us worry at what kind of impact climate change will have.
Will flooding become a regular feature, or is the land going to become parched? Are hurricanes and typhoons going to spring up in places they have never visited before? Is the rising sea level going to swallow some of the world's most fertile farmland, along with millions of homes?
All of these are valid concerns, but now it turns out that the impact could be worse than first imagined. Ice sheets are mostly frozen water, but they can incorporate organisms such as fungi, bacteria and viruses.
Some scientists believe climate change could unleash ancient illnesses as ice sheets drip away and bacteria and viruses defrost. Common viruses such as human influenza could have a devastating effect if melting glaciers release a bygone strain to which we have no resistance.
What is more, new species unknown to science may re-emerge. And it is not just humans who are at risk: animals, plants and marine creatures could also suffer as ancient microbes thaw out.
In 1999, Scott Rogers from Bowling Green State University in Ohio and colleagues reported finding the tomato mosaic tobamovirus (ToMV) in 17 different ice-core sections at two locations deep inside the Greenland ice pack. Gentle defrosting in the lab revealed that this common plant pathogen had survived being entombed in ice for 140,000 years.
"ToMV belongs to a family of viruses with a particularly tough protein coat, which helps it to survive in these extreme environments," says Rogers.
Since then he has found many other microbes in ice samples from Greenland, Antarctica and Siberia. And this has turned out to be just the tip of the microbial iceberg.
Over the past 10 years biologists have discovered bacteria, fungi, viruses, algae and yeast hibernating under as much as 4km of solid ice, in locations all over the world.
Most recently Rogers and his team found the human influenza virus in one-year-old Siberian lake ice.
"The influenza virus isn't as hardy as ToMV, but this finding showed it is capable of surviving in ice," says Rogers.
This particular strain of influenza had only hibernated for one year, and doesn't present much of a threat to humans, but it shows that there is potential for a human virus to survive the freezing process for much longer.
Not all scientists are convinced by these viral discoveries, and some argue that they are more likely to have arrived in the ice through contamination during the drilling process. However, Rogers is confident this is not the case.
"We use a chemical called sodium hypochlorite to decontaminate the outer ice surface, which is then followed by extraction or melting of an interior section of the core."
So if these viruses have been huddled in the ice for thousands of years, how did they get there in the first place?
Rogers says one effective way for viruses to travel the world is to hitch a ride in the stomachs of migrating birds. Others could include riding on aquatic mammals such as seals, clinging to grains of dust, or water transport via rivers and ocean currents.
"Humans have been more prevalent in northern areas for a long time and so human viruses are more likely to have been frozen into Northern Hemisphere ice sheets," says Dany Shoham, one of Rogers' colleagues from Bar-Ilan University in Israel.
Humans have lived close to glaciers in the European Alps, to frozen fiords in Scandinavia and frosty Siberian lakes for thousands of years, making it an easy hop for viruses looking for a place to hibernate for a while.
But Shoham says this doesn't mean the ice sheets of the Southern Hemisphere don't contain viruses.
Thankfully, not all viruses will remain viable after thawing out from hibernation in an ice sheet.
"We routinely keep viruses at minus 80C when we want to store them in the lab, so viruses can certainly survive freezing, but they are often fragile to processes such as freeze-thaw," explains Geoffrey Smith, head of the virology department at Imperial College, London.
In the lab it is possible to defrost viruses gently, but outside they are subject to climatic extremes. Only viruses that contain the tough protein coat, like ToMV, are likely to be able to retain all the information they need while being repeatedly frozen and defrosted.
This rules out plenty of human viruses, but still leaves a few nasty options including smallpox, polio, hepatitis A and, of course, influenza.
Shoham believes the influenza virus is the most likely to emerge from the freeze/thaw process in a fit enough state to re-infect humans. An ancient version of human flu could be very potent.
"Ancient viruses are more dangerous because the natural herd immunity is reduced over time," Shoham says. "After just one or two generations the natural herd immunity is eliminated."
Waterborne viruses such as hepatitis A and polio are less of a threat because they rely on water currents to reach their victims.
One worrying scenario would be the creation of a supervirus by ancient and modern strains recombining.
"If only one or two genes from an ancient influenza virus interchange with the modern avian influenza, it could become contagious and generate a new pandemic," says Shoham.
Some scientists are not too concerned. "It is not top of my worries," says Geoffrey Smith. We have enough to think about with the number of dangerous viruses around today."
- INDEPENDENT
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/location/story.cfm?l_id=2&objectid=10347719
Planet a decade from global warming point of no return
25.01.05
By MICHAEL McCARTHY
LONDON - The global warming danger threshold for the world has been clearly marked out for the first time in a report to be published tomorrow - and the bad news is, the world has nearly reached it already.
The climate can barely afford a 1C rise in average temperatures before massive climate changes hit the planet.
These could include widespread agricultural failure, major droughts, increased disease, sea-level rises and the death of forests, the melting of the Greenland ice sheet and West Antarctica and the switching-off of the North Atlantic Gulf Stream.
A task force of senior politicians, business leaders and academics spell out the warning in the report Meeting The Climate Change Challenge - and it is remarkably brief.
In as little as 10 years, the report says, the point of no return on global warming may have been reached.
This point will be 2C above the average world temperature prevailing in 1750 before the industrial revolution, when human activities - mainly the production of waste gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) - first started to affect the climate.
But it points out that global average temperature has already risen by 0.8C since then, with more rises already in the pipeline - so the world has little more than a single degree of temperature latitude before the crucial point is reached.
More ominously still, the report says a 400 parts per million concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere will make that two-degree rise inevitable - and the level is already 379ppm and rising at 2ppm every year.
"There is an ecological time bomb ticking away," said Stephen Byers MP, the former British Transport Secretary who co-chaired the report with American Republican Senator Olympia Snowe.
The report makes clear that, although global warming's effects may seem distant, time is actually very short and it is action taken - or not taken - in the next few years which will be decisive for climate change this century and beyond.
The authors urge all countries in the G8 group of rich nations to generate a quarter of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025, and to double their research spending on low-carbon energy by 2010.
The study also calls on the G8 to form a climate group with leading developing nations such as China.
But its major impact will be in linking the twin climate danger thresholds of a 2C temperature rise and of the 400ppm concentration of carbon dioxide.
Perversely, although preventing "dangerous" climate change is the principal objective of the UN climate treaty signed in 1992, no-one has yet defined what dangerous actually is, and next week the British Government is hosting a major scientific conference to try to do so.
The report - based on an extensive review of the current scientific literature - will be widely noticed and its core message taken on board.
"What this underscores is that it's what we invest in now and in the next 20 years that will deliver a stable climate, not what we do in the middle of the century or later," said Tom Burke, a leading environmental adviser to business.
The report's influence will be enhanced further by the seniority of the authors, assembled by the Institute for Public Policy Research in Britain, the Centre for American Progress in the US, and the Australia Institute.
They included leaders from the political, business, academic and environmental communities in developed and developing countries.
Their chief scientific adviser was Dr Rakendra Pachauri, the chairman of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who in effect is the world's senior climate scientist.
It has been timed to coincide with British Prime Minister Tony Blair's promise to advance climate change policy this year, as chair of the G8 group and European Union.
The report starkly spells out the likely consequences of exceeding the global warming threshold:
"Beyond the 2 degrees C level, the risks to human societies and ecosystems grow significantly.
"It is likely, for example, that average-temperature increases larger than this will entail substantial agricultural losses, greatly increased numbers of people at risk of water shortages, and widespread adverse health impacts.
"[They] could also imperil a very high proportion of the world's coral reefs and cause irreversible damage to important terrestrial ecosystems, including the Amazon rainforest.
"Above the 2 degrees level, the risks of abrupt, accelerated, or runaway climate change also increase.
"The possibilities include the loss of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets (which, between them, could raise sea level more than 10 metres), the shutdown of the Gulf Stream and the transformation of the planet's forests and soils from a net sink of carbon to a net source of carbon."
- INDEPENDENT
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/location/story.cfm?l_id=2&objectid=10007899
concluding ...
