April 28, 2007

Chevron shareholders may be liable for billions in environmental damages
http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0425-amazon_watch.html

The lead lawyer in the landmark environmental lawsuit against Chevron in Ecuador is in California to warn that the oil major has failed to prepare for a possible multi-billion dollar damages bill within the coming months. Speaking ahead of Chevron’s annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday, Pablo Fajardo, who represents 30,000 plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit, stressed that a judgment was now likely in early 2008. Meanwhile, environmental group Amazon Watch warned that Chevron had broken SEC regulations by misrepresenting that evidence. During three decades of drilling for oil in an inhabited area of the Ecuadorian Amazon, Chevron allegedly dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic by-products from the drilling process directly into rivers and streams, on which local families depend. That waste contained 30 times more crude than the Exxon Valdez spill, prompting local communities, racked by cancers and other health problems, to sue Chevron in 2003. Now, after four years, the judge has rejected Chevron’s complaints and fast-tracked the David-and-Goliath trial to finish hearing evidence by the end of July. A judgment, which could see Chevron being ordered to pay one of the largest damage awards in civil history, is expected in early 2008. Chevron’s handling of the case has landed the oil major in hot water in both Ecuador and the US. Here, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been investigating Chevron over its failure to disclose details of the court-case in its 10k and other financial filings. Meanwhile, in Ecuador, Chevron is facing a potential criminal investigation resulting from a complaint by Luis Macas, a national indigenous leader and former presidential candidate.

U.S. Proposal Would Allow Oil Drilling Off Virginia http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042701611.html?hpid=topnews

The Interior Department will announce a proposal Monday to allow oil and gas drilling in federal waters near Virginia that are currently off-limits and permit new exploration in Alaska's Bristol Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, according to people who have seen or been told about drafts of the plan. The department issued a news release yesterday that was lacking details but said that it had finished a five-year plan that will include a "major proposal for expanded oil and natural gas development on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf." Department officials declined to describe the plan. Congress would still have to agree to open areas currently off-limits before any drilling could take place off Virginia's coast. Every year since 1982, after an oil spill off Santa Barbara, Calif., Congress has reaffirmed a moratorium on drilling off the nation's Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Last year, after a vigorous push by drilling advocates, Congress opened new waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

NEW YORK GOV. UNVEILS BILL TO LET GAYS TIE KNOT
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04282007/news/regionalnews/eliot_unveils_bill_to_let_gays_tie_knot_regionalnews_.htm

Gov. Spitzer, following through on a campaign pledge, unveiled a bill yesterday to legalize gay marriage in New York. But the powerful Republican leader of the state Senate declared himself still opposed to the notion of having New York join neighboring Massachusetts as the only states permitting same-sex marriage. Noting a host of other recent proposals from the governor, including one to overhaul the state's campaign finance laws, state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said, "This governor has his priorities wrong." Bruno said that given the fatal shooting of a state trooper this week, Spitzer should be worried more about bringing back the death penalty for those who kill police officers and creating jobs. Bruno's continued opposition effectively blocks the measure from moving ahead in the state Legislature for now, a fact Spitzer is well aware of.

US anti-missile system may cause ‘mutual destruction’: Putin http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C04%5C28%5Cstory_28-4-2007_pg7_55

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that a US anti-missile system planned for deployment in eastern Europe would greatly heighten the risk of mutual destruction, the Interfax news agency reported. “The threat of causing mutual damage and even destruction increases many times,” Putin was quoted as saying after a meeting with Czech President Vaclav Klaus in Moscow. Putin said the range of the system, which is designed to shoot down overflying missiles, would extend right to the Ural Mountains, covering the European section of Russia. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice complained that Russia was applying Cold War logic to the missile defence issue. She said any suggestion that the system was directed at Moscow was “ludicrous”.


Putin orders restructuring of nuclear sector
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Rest+of+the+World&month=April2007&file=World_News200704287211.xml

President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to reorganise Russia’s nuclear sector by creating a state nuclear firm with global clout, sources told RIA news agency yesterday. The Kremlin press service said Putin had signed a decree “On the Restructuring of Russia’s Atomic Energy and Industrial Complex”, but gave no other details. Russia’s is overhauling its nuclear sector to boost energy production and strengthening Russia’s presence on the expanding world nuclear market. Under the Russian plan, a state-owned company called Atomenergoprom will be created on the base of the smaller, sometimes overlapping, civilian nuclear companies in the sector. Climate change and high oil prices have prompted many countries to look more favourably on nuclear energy as a cheap source of power.



Algae bloom killing birds, mammals off California
http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=hamilton/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1177734789557&call_pageid=1020420665036&col=1112101662670

A particularly virulent outbreak of domoic acid off the California coast has killed hundreds of marine mammals and birds in recent weeks, leaving beaches littered with pelicans, sea lions and dolphins, researchers said Thursday. Domoic acid, a naturally occurring neurotoxin produced by microscopic algae, has become increasingly prevalent. Scientists suspect the upsurge has been caused by overfishing, destruction of wetlands and pollution, all of which have harmed fisheries and allowed algae to flourish. While the toxin has not been definitively linked to all the recent deaths, many of the dead animals -- including five species of birds -- tested positive for domoic acid, said scientists at the rescue centre and the Caron Laboratory at the University of Southern California. Domoic acid, which accumulates in shellfish and fish and is then passed on to the birds and animals that eat them, has occurred each spring over the past decade as ocean water warms and algae blooms. But this year's algae is "especially virulent," according to the rescue centre.


Scorpions Plague Invades Mexican State
http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7b85C76031-58D8-497F-95BE-85DBF6BB5FD1%7d&language=EN

A plague of scorpions invaded the Mexican state of Aguascalientes Friday, and a patient is taken care in the hospitals every hour, because of the bites of scorpions. Television reports said there are even several serious cases in intensive therapy rooms with convulsions and respiratory problems. According to the views showed from ruins and uninhabited sites in the city, practically under every stone, a scorpion may be found. Doctors interviewed by local reporters said a bite from determined kinds of scorpions injects a compound of 80 toxins, of which 10 function on the human body and can even cause death of children.


Tenet says Cheney had eye on Iraq long before 9/11 http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4756983.html

White House and Pentagon officials, and particularly Vice President Dick Cheney, were determined to attack Iraq from the first days of the Bush administration, long before the Sept. 11 attacks, and repeatedly stretched available intelligence to build support for the war, according to a new book by former CIA director George Tenet. Although Tenet does not question the threat Saddam Hussein posed or the sincerity of administration beliefs, he recounts numerous efforts by aides to Cheney and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to insert "crap" into public justifications for the war. Tenet also describes an ongoing fear within the intelligence community of the administration's willingness to "mischaracterize complex intelligence information." In their threat briefings for the incoming Bush administration in late 2000, Tenet writes, CIA officials did not even mention Iraq. But Cheney, he says, asked for an Iraq briefing and requested that the outgoing Clinton administration's defense secretary, William Cohen, provide information on Iraq for Bush. A speech by Cheney in August 2002 "went well beyond what our analysis could support," Tenet writes. The speech charged, among other things, that Saddam had restarted his nuclear program and would "acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon ... perhaps within a year." Caught off-guard by the remarks, which had not been cleared by the CIA, Tenet says he considered confronting the vice president on the subject but did not.



UK parents slam 'bikini for tiny tots'
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/uk-parents-slam-bikini-for-tiny-tots/39324-13.html

Tiny briefs and bra-style tops for adolescent girls by famous brands are flooding London’s upmarket stores. One of the walk-ins at a London store, mother-of-two Anna Heywood said she was shocked to see what was on offer as a swimsuit for her seven-year-old daughter. "I could not believe what I was seeing. These were bikinis with tiny triangles and straps were clearly copies of swimwear that is aimed at teenagers or older women,” she told the news daily. However the manufacturers say they are only catering to the popular demand. "Our swimsuits - including the bikinis - are generally more generous in cover than those of our competitors, and come in the bright, fun colours that have been popular among kids for decades. We reject any suggestion that they are indecent or provocative," a manufacturer was quoted by Daily Mail.

Germany Halts Online Computer Spying by Intelligence Agents
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2459853,00.html

German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble faced massive criticism this week after it was revealed that German intelligence agencies were secretly snooping on terrorism suspects via the Internet. Schäuble has ordered a temporary halt to the practice. Intelligence agencies have monitored suspects' computers via the Internet for two years, according to members of the Bundestag's interior affairs committee. Representatives from all political parties questioned the legality of the practice. Critics say the secret searches violate Article 13 of the German basic law, which governs privacy. Schäuble, of the Christian Democratic Union, has suggested the government consider expanding Article 13 to allow it. But the government doesn't want to go ahead with the monitoring until a clear legal foundation is provided, Schäuble told parliament. Until then, the monitoring will stop, he said.



Turkish Military Issues Threat as Voting Is Derailed
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/28/world/europe/28turkey.html?ref=europe

A revolt by Turkey’s secular opposition on Friday derailed the first round of voting on a presidential candidate with a background in political Islam, and in a harsh warning, the military hinted that it might act against the government if it strayed too far from secularism. The growing tension over the candidate, Abdullah Gul, a close ally of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has brought Turkey to a defining moment. Since Mr. Gul’s emergence as the sole candidate for president, a powerful post chosen by parliamentary vote, the country’s opposition and military have warned that his selection would bring an end to the era of secular modernism that began with the Ataturk revolution in 1923. The action on Friday began on the floor of Turkey’s Parliament, where all of the country’s secular political parties boycotted a vote for Mr. Gul, a member of Mr. Erdogan’s political movement, which has its roots in Islam. Even with the absence of the opposition, Mr. Gul received 357 votes, 10 votes short of the two-thirds mark he needed to be confirmed. After the boycott and during the voting, the main secular party applied to the constitutional court to have the vote annulled, arguing there were too few lawmakers present. If the party prevails and the court intervenes, it could trigger early nationwide elections. But more troubling was a statement released by the military shortly before midnight. In it, the general staff invoked its responsibility as the defender of Ataturk’s legacy of secularism — a thinly veiled threat, given that the armed forces have ousted four elected governments in the past 50 years.

Zimbabwe inflation soars to 2200%
http://business.iafrica.com/news/812662.htm

Zimbabwe, already battling to contain the world's highest rate of inflation, announced on Thursday that the figure had soared once more to 2200 percent. After the official announcement of the rate for March was twice postponed earlier this month, central bank governor Gideon Gono confirmed the figure had crashed through the 2000 percent barrier for the first time after rising by another 470 percentage points from the 1730 percent mark for February. Gono has compared inflation in Zimbabwe to the Aids pandemic and the latest figure further undermines a prediction by then finance minister Herbert Murerwa in December that it would fall to around 300 percent by the end of 2007. Best Doroh, an economist with Harare-based ZB Financial Holdings, said all the evidence pointed to the prospect of an even bigger figure by the end of the year. Zimbabwe's economy has been on a downturn over the past seven years with four in every five persons out of work and perennial shortages of commodities like sugar, cooking oil and fuel in the one-time bread basket of Africa. Over 80 percent of the population is living below the poverty threshold often skipping meals or cycling or walking long distances to work in order to stretch their wages. The government blames the economic crisis on targeted sanctions imposed on veteran President Robert Mugabe and members of his inner circle by the United States and the European Union following presidential polls in 2002 which the opposition and western observers charged were rigged.


United States To Shift Focus of Funds for Colombia
http://newsblaze.com/story/20070425191221tsop.nb/newsblaze/TOPSTORY/Top-Stories.html

The United States plans to focus more of its aid to Colombia on social, economic and human rights programs, while gradually decreasing its assistance for drug eradication and interdiction programs in the Andean nation, say two State Department officials. In their April 24 prepared congressional testimony, State's Charles Shapiro and Anne Patterson outlined U.S. support for a new phase of Colombia's efforts to fight drug trafficking that is will help bring peace and reconciliation in the country. The new phase, issued by Colombian officials in January, is called "Strategy to Strengthen Democracy and Promote Social Development." The six-year plan, running from 2007-2013, builds on the success of the first phase of the Colombian peace strategy, called Plan Colombia, while responding to new challenges. Plan Colombia began in 2000. With U.S. support, it has achieved "remarkable gains" for Colombia, said Shapiro, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.

South Korean Team Cleared in Cloned Wolf Probehttp://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/555836

South Korean scientists, whose reputation has been tainted by fraudulent stem cell studies, committed errors in a paper on producing the world's first cloned grey wolves but did not manipulate data, an investigative panel said on Friday. The Seoul National University team, once hailed at home as heroes but later seen as an embarrassment after reports of stem cell fraud, was being investigated on suspicion of massaging data to increase the cloning success rate for the wolves. "Cloning and Stem Cells", the U.S. periodical that published the team's report on cloning wolves, had withdrawn the paper from its Internet site earlier this month pending the results of the university's investigation panel. Since the team produced the wolves named Snuwolf and Snuwolffy, who were born about a year and a half ago, it had produced six more Korean grey wolves. Three of those wolves have since died. The team was once led by Hwang Woo-suk, who resigned from his post in December 2005 after an interim investigation found his team had fabricated data on producing patient-specific embryonic stem cells, a paper that was once hailed as a breakthrough. A few weeks later, the investigation panel said another landmark paper on the creation of cloned embryonic stem cells was marred by serious fraud. Hwang is on trial for fraud, embezzlement and violating the country's bioethics laws.


Croatia ratifies Kyoto protocol
http://www.mrt.com.mk/en//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2754&Itemid=28

Croatia's parliament on Friday ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which commits nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to try to slow global warming. The former Yugoslav nation that signed the Kyoto treaty in 1999, but held off ratification until getting approval last year for a higher limit of annual carbon dioxide emissions. Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, 35 nations and the European Community pledged to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that contribute to global warming to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Ruzinski said Croatia is expected to become a European Union member by 2012 _ and it would therefore join the EU plan, approved in February, to trim gas emissions by at least 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. Some parliament deputies warned, however, that despite its pledges, Croatia has failed to develop the production of biofuel despite being a largely agricultural country and thus having the ability to do so.


Oil firms bow to Chavez demand
http://www.hindu.com/2007/04/28/stories/2007042800671600.htm

Officials from Chevron Corp., BP PLC, France's Total SA and Norway's Statoil ASA signed memorandums of understanding agreeing to give state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA a majority stake in three of the projects. Exxon Mobil Corp. signed earlier in private, officials said. But Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said Houston-based ConocoPhillips was yet to sign an agreement. He said if ConocoPhillips did not sign by May 1, the state will take control of its two projects, but added that Venezuela remained open to dialogue with the company. He declined to say what would happen with ConocoPhillips' assets — including equipment and infrastructure — if it refuses to sign. A ConocoPhillips spokesman told AP that ``discussions are ongoing''. The companies have until June 26 to negotiate the terms of the takeover, including compensation, their new stakes and operational control for the projects, which they have run independently until now.


Physicians Continue To Receive
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=44524

Ninety-four percent of physicians have relationships with pharmaceutical companies in which the companies provide them with food and beverages, medication samples, and other gifts and payments, according to a study published on Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports (Fahy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/26). For the study, Harvard Medical School researchers in late 2003 and early 2004 mailed surveys and a $20 check to a random sample of 3,167 anesthesiologists, cardiologists, family practitioners, general surgeons, internists and pediatricians (Rubin, USA Today, 4/26). More than 1,600 physicians responded to the survey. The study found:
83% of physicians received food and beverages from pharmaceutical company sales representatives;
78% received medication samples (Gellene, Los Angeles Times, 4/26);
35% received reimbursement for the cost of attendance at continuing medical education conferences sponsored by pharmaceutical companies;
28% received fees from the pharmaceutical companies for consulting, speaking engagements or enrollment of patients in clinical trials; and
7% received tickets to sports events and entertainment (Pereira, Wall Street Journal, 4/26).

White House chided for trying to loosen 'dolphin-safe' rules
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/04/28/MNGF2PHDCQ1.DTL&type=printable

A Bush administration attempt to loosen rules for catching "dolphin-safe" tuna so more Mexican imports could be allowed into the country was scuttled Friday by a federal appeals court, which said government agencies had ignored congressional mandates and allowed politics to interfere with science. The ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco could be the last word on the government's decadelong effort to relax dolphin-safe labeling standards, established by a 1990 federal law. The court had harsh words for the Bush administration's science policies, saying a Commerce Department finding in 2002 that Mexican and other foreign fleets' tuna-fishing practices were not killing dolphins "was, at least to some degree, influenced by political, rather than scientific, concerns.'' It said there was evidence of political pressure from foreign governments and the State Department. The effect of Friday's ruling is to extend the virtual ban on U.S. imports of tuna caught by fleets from Mexico and several other nations that encircle dolphins with their nets to catch the tuna that swim beneath the aquatic mammals. Such tuna can be sold in the United States, but U.S. consumers have been largely unwilling to buy tuna that lacks the dolphin-safe label.

Scientific evidence shows a "strong likelihood" that tuna fishing is hurting dolphin populations in the eastern Pacific, contrary to the administration's position, the appeals court said. The court said it would not give the government another chance to justify relaxing the labeling standards because of the administration's "intransigence'' in failing to follow steps mandated by Congress. Any loosening of the standards will require congressional action, the court said. The Earth Island Institute, a San Francisco conservation group that has fought the Clinton and Bush administrations over the issue, said the battle appeared to be over. "I believe this is the end of the effort to unravel the dolphin-safe definition,'' said the group's executive director, David Phillips. "There will be no flood of dolphin-unsafe tuna from Mexico onto the U.S. market.'' The government is disappointed by the ruling but has not decided whether to appeal to the Supreme Court, said Monica Allen, spokeswoman for the Commerce Department's National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

Official opening of Tate & Lyle’s SPLENDA® Sucralose facility, Singapore http://www.npicenter.com/anm/templates/newsATemp.aspx?articleid=18368&zoneid=12

Mr Lim Hng Kiang, Singapore’s Minister for Trade and Industry, toured Tate & Lyle’s SPLENDA® Sucralose facility yesterday to commemorate the site’s official opening. The facility, which was mechanically complete in January 2007, will now begin the process of ramping-up to full capacity. This process is expected to take 12 – 18 months. The official ceremony included a plaque unveiling and plant tour. Guests included government officials, the British High Commissioner and members of his team, the Singapore Economic Development Board, key customers, suppliers, distributors, and contractors. SPLENDA® Sucralose (a no-calorie sweetener made from sugar) was invented by Tate & Lyle in 1976. Since gaining regulatory approval, this ground-breaking food ingredient has enjoyed success all over the world. It is currently in over 4,000 products worldwide. Tate & Lyle also operates a SPLENDA® Sucralose facility in Alabama, USA.