CHINA ROCKET LAUNCH GIVES FEAR OF ARMS RACE [The Australian, Associated Press, Reuters, January 20, 2007] Western nations fear China has fired the first shot in a post-Cold War arms race in space by destroying without warning one of its own satellites with a ballistic missile. US intelligence agencies have obtained evidence that a ground-based, medium-range ballistic missile knocked out the Feng Yun 1C weather satellite on January 11 through "kinetic ," or by slamming into it. The strike on the satellite occurred as it orbited about 860km above Earth, over Xichang, the site of one of China's main space launch centres. It is the first such offensive use of military technology in space in more than two decades. The Soviet Union also used missiles to destroy satellites. Australia, Canada, Japan and the US have expressed concern to China over the missile strike -- reportedly using a KT-2 rocket -- and sought urgent confirmation from the Beijing Government. However, China was last night refusing to confirm that a missile test had been carried out. White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the US "believes China's development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of co-operation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area.” “We and other countries have expressed our concern to the Chinese," Mr Johndroe said. In Canberra, China's ambassador, Fu Ying, was called in to the Department of Foreign Affairs to provide information but told the Howard Government she was unaware a satellite had been destroyed. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said last night in New York that Australia had "obtained" evidence of the destruction and was concerned about the militarisation of space. He also said the debris could lead to massive costs if other nations' satellites were damaged. By one estimate, the satellite, which was launched in 1999, could have been blown into as many as 300,000 pieces, ranging in size from 1cm to 10cm. Many of the pieces could remain in space for a decade, possibly affecting future space missions. "The concern is the debris from the destroyed satellite could hit other satellites and damage them," Mr Downer said. "That is one of the issues of destroying satellites in this way because it then has the potential to disrupt other satellites still in use and, of course, the cost of building and launching satellites is massive. The other issue is the militarisation of outer space and we don't want to see the spread of an arms race into outer space." The Australian and US governments have been exchanging views on the satellite destruction. China's ability to shoot down a satellite raises questions about the Bush administration's so-called Son of Star Wars defence system, which relies on satellites to provide early warning of an attack. The White House has warned that the destruction of satellites would be viewed seriously by the US and it has warned against using missiles to bring them down. In October, George W. Bush signed an order asserting the US's right to deny adversaries access to space for hostile purposes. Mr Downer said Australia did not have an inkling of the Chinese space weapon test, although Beijing had in the past tried unsuccessfully to destroy a satellite. In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki suggested that China's lack of transparency over its military development could trigger suspicions in the region about its motives."From the viewpoint of the peaceful use of space and security, the Japanese Government is naturally concerned about this act of destroying an artificial satellite with a ballistic missile," Mr Shiozaki said after receiving confirmation of the test from Washington. In his annual threat-assessment address to the US Congress last week, Defence Intelligence Agency head Michael Maples said China and Russia were the "primary states of concern" regarding military space programs. "Several countries continue to develop capabilities that have the potential to threaten US space assets, and some have already deployed systems with inherent anti-satellite capabilities, such as satellite-tracking laser range-finding devices and nuclear-armed ballistic missiles," Lieutenant General Maples said in his written testimony on January 11, the day China's test was conducted. At China's major annual air show, in Zhuhai six weeks ago, a leading official of the China Aerospace Science and Industry Group, a government body that conducts leading-edge military research, foreshadowed last week's test to Shanghai-based Wenhui newspaper. He said: "We already have the capacity to fight back. If a foreign country destroys our satellites with lasers or other weapons, we can destroy its satellites, too." The official said China's missile technology had caught up with the US in the late 1990s. Alan Dupont, director of the Centre for International Security Studies at Sydney University, said yesterday that such Chinese initiatives were usually intended to send a message, or were related to domestic political events. But the timing of last week's missile strike was more likely related to a technological issue such as the rate of decay of the target satellite. He said the recently transformed US army was "increasingly dependent on satellites," including to guide its weapons and, possibly in the future, to beam down attacks. "If a rival is going to take the US on, it will have to blunt its satellite systems," Professor Dupont said. The US, he said, was "well ahead of the game, working assiduously in this area for both offensive and defensive reasons -- to safeguard its own satellites and to shut down the other guys. But it is difficult to armour satellites."

DEATH OF DIANA AND DODI "A TRAGIC ACCIDENT" [Agence France-Presse, December 15, 2006] Princess Diana's death in a Paris car crash was a "tragic accident", a long-awaited report concluded, dismissing theories of a murder plot by British intelligence. “There was no conspiracy to murder any occupants of that car. This was a tragic accident,” said Lord John Stevens, the former commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police, unveiling the 800-page report in London. The report, which followed a three-year investigation, also rejected speculation that Diana was pregnant at the time of the crash in 1997. “We are certain that the Princess of Wales was not pregnant,” Lord Stevens said. He said he had also questioned numerous people, including the princess's son Prince William, about the claim that she planned to marry her boyfriend Dodi Al-Fayed who was also killed in the crash. “None of them have indicated that she was either about to or wished to get engaged,” he said, adding that Prince William had told him his mother did not give him the slightest indication of such intentions. Fleeing paparazzi photographers, Diana, 36, Dodi Al-Fayed, 42, and chauffeur Henri Paul, 41, were killed in the crash in a Paris underpass in the early hours of August 31 that year. Bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones survived. Many blamed the pursing paparazzi for having contributed to the crash, but in 1999 a French investigation formally cleared nine photographers and a press motorcyclist of manslaughter charges. In February this year, three photographers were convicted of breaching France's privacy laws for taking pictures of Diana and Dodi on the night they died. However, even before the report was published, Dodi's father, Mohammed Al-Fayed had dismissed its leaked findings as “garbage,” and insisted a conspiracy was behind the couple's death. Fayed has long maintained that it was a conspiracy involving British intelligence agents, and notably said Paul's blood samples were switched to falsely implicate him as drunk. “He has just done what the British intelligence has asked for,” Fayed said of Lord Stevens. “They blackmailed him, definitely.” He added that he had hired five of Britain's leading pathologists to conduct their own investigation, the results of which, he said, would contradict Lord Stevens's findings. “If he has done DNA it is garbage,” he said. Fayed also authorised an exclusive jeweller to release a video which it said showed Dodi picking up an engagement ring for Diana, just hours before both died in the car crash. The jewellery company Repossi said it was making the images available after receiving authorisation from Mohammed Al-Fayed. The washed-out, black-and-white video, which was timestamped August 30, 1997, showed a man resembling Dodi Fayed entering Repossi's upscale Place Vendome boutique in central Paris, which neighbours the Ritz Hotel owned by Mohammed Al-Fayed. The man stayed a total of seven minutes. During that time he can be seen examining items of jewellery pulled out of a case and placed on a table. At the end of his visit, he seems to pick something up off a table and then leaves.

COURT RULES THAT KALAHARI BUSHMEN CAN RETURN HOME
	Bushmen community at Gope, Central Kalahari Game Reserve, Botswana.

[The Guardian, December 13, 2006] Bushmen forced out of the Kalahari desert by Botswana's government won a landmark legal victory today as the country's high court ruled they had been illegally removed and should be allowed to return. The panel of three judges ruled 2-1 in favour of the Bushmen, among Africa's last hunter-gatherers, whose fate has attracted widespread international attention. [Map shows The Kalahari Desert (maroon) & Kalahari Basin (orange)] Survival International, a British-based pressure group which campaigns for the rights of indigenous and tribal people and has been assisting with the case, hailed the verdict as "a victory for the Bushmen and for indigenous peoples everywhere in Africa." The legal battle -- the longest in Botswana's history -- has been seen as a major test case in establishing the fundamental rights of indigenous people. Earlier today, the Bushmen's campaign seemed lost when the high court's chief justice, Maruping Dibotelo, delivered his verdict first and ruled in favour of the government. The Bushmen's supporters assumed the other two more junior judges would follow suit. However, they disgreed, granting the Bushmen - also known as the San people - the right to return to what is now the central Kalahari game reserve. Judge Mpaphi Phumaphi, who delivered the deciding vote, said the government had been wrong to force the Bushmen into settlement camps. "In my view the simultaneous stoppage of the supply of food rations and the stoppage of hunting licenses is tantamount to condemning the remaining residents of the central Kalahari game reserve to death by starvation," he said. The third judge, Unity Dow, ruled that the government had "failed to take account the knowledge and the culture" of the Bushmen when it expelled them. But the verdict also said the government was not obliged to provide basic services, such as water, to anyone returning to the reserve. The Bushmen's lawyer, Gordon Bennett, welcomed the decision, saying: "It's about the right of the applicants to live inside the reserve as long as they want and that's a marvellous victory." A number of Bushmen had trekked overland to the court in Lobatse, just south of Botswana's capital, Gaborone, and some sat in the courtroom to hear the rulings. The Bushmen, whose ancestors lived in the Kalahari 20,000 years ago, say they have been forced to resettle in bleak camps to make way for diamond mining, Botswana's most lucrative export. They launched a civil lawsuit in April 2002 to try to force the government to let them return to the Kalahari. The initial case was thrown out on a technicality, but in 2004 the high court then agreed to hear the complaint. The government insists the Bushmen have changed their lifestyle so much that they no longer belong in the Kalahari reserve, an animal sanctuary the size of Belgium, and are affecting conservation efforts. They are better off in settlements, where they have access to clinics and schools, it says, adding that diamond mining has nothing to do with the decision. The government complains that the Bushmen's foreign supporters, including South African anti-apartheid hero, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and British actors Julie Christie and Colin Firth, are romanticising a hunter-gatherer lifestyle which no longer exists. However, Survival International alleges that the Bushmen have been forced out to make way for increased operations by De Beers, the world's biggest diamond mining company, which denies any such plans. Discovered in 1967, a year after Botswana gained independence from Britain, diamonds have taken the country from one of the poorest in the world to a per capita annual income of more than £5,000. Today's ruling, while going in favour of the Bushmen, said there was no reason to support such claims. The government has resettled about 2,000 Bushmen, mostly in 1997 and 2002, and says all but about 24 had voluntarily left the reserve. About half of southern Africa's 100,000 surviving Bushmen live in Botswana. Survival International says that more than one in 10 of the original 239 Bushmen who signed up to the legal case have since died in government resettlement camps. THE KALAHARI DESERT KALAHARI BUSHMEN

67 KILLED BY CROCODILES IN ETHIOPIAN FLOODS

[AFP, November, 2006] Major floods that unleashed hungry crocodiles from a burst river have killed at least 67 people and displaced tens of thousands in southeast. An estimated half of the 280,000 population that lives near the banks of the Wabe Shabelle River in Ethiopia's southeastern Somali state have been forced from their homes, the officials said, adding the toll would likely rise. [Picture shows residents of the Southern Nationalities, Nations and People's State in Ethiopia walk through flooded lands after massive flashfloods in Tolta.] "Sixty-seven bodies have been recovered at the moment and we estimate the number of people who live in the affected zones at 280,000," said Gwenael Rebillon, an official with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF). "About 10 of the dead were eaten by crocodiles from the river," he told AFP from the town of Gode, about 600 kilometers (375 miles) from Addis Ababa. Another aid worker said about half the population, or 140,000 people, had been displaced by the floods that began on Saturday when heavy rains burst the banks of the river riverbanks. Although the water level is gradually receding and there was no rain in the region on Tuesday, the aid worker, speaking on condition of anonymity from the affected region, said many residents remained extremely frightened. "The situation is very tenuous, more and more people are losing their nerve and asking when help will arrive because they believe the water will continue to rise," he said. Ethiopian disaster relief officials, who earlier reported that 15 people had been killed, could not immediately confirm the higher UN toll but appealed for emergency assistance for the flood-stricken population. Humanitarian workers said at least three military helicopters would be needed to help with the evacuation of stranded people, they said, adding that the towns of Kelafo and Musthale had been completely inundated by water. Ethiopia, home to some 70 million people, has faced heavy floods and droughts in recent years along with other countries in the Horn of Africa which have endured cycles of deadly weather for decades. At least 639 people were killed when unusually heavy rains sparked massive flooding in the country's eastern, northern and southern regions in August, at the height of the July to September rainy season. A total of 357,000 people were affected by those floods, said to be the worst in decades, according to the United Nations.

DEMOCRATS WIN BOTH HOUSES IN US MID-TERM ELECTIONS [AP/AFP, November 9, 2006] Democrats have seized control of the US Senate and with it complete domination of Congress, as US President George W Bush licked his wounds and let his defence chief fall on his sword. In sharp contrast to his buoyant, confident demeanour in the lead up to yesterday's election, a contrite George W Bush faced reporters today, describing the defeat of his Republicans as "thumping.” And that was before consensus emerged that the Democrats had taken the sixth and final Republican Senate seat they needed to control the chamber. Bush now faces the toughest two years of his presidency, with Democrats controlling both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and promising voters sweeping change, especially where the Iraq war is concerned. After telling reporters he must shoulder "a large part of the responsibility'' for the Republican drubbing, Bush stood beside Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as he announced his resignation. Just a week ago the president was defending Rumsfeld, but today -- after an election defeat that reflected deep public anger over the war in Iraq -- he said it was time for change. "Secretary Rumsfeld and I agreed that sometimes it's necessary to have a fresh perspective,'' Bush said in the abrupt announcement during his post-election press conference. The president said Robert M Gates, who was CIA director under George Bush Snr father, had been nominated to run the Pentagon. The White House hopes that replacing Rumsfeld with Gates will help refresh US policy on the deeply unpopular war and perhaps establish a stronger rapport with the new Democrat-dominated Congress. In a later appearance at the White House with Rumsfeld and Gates at his side, Bush praised both men, thanked Rumsfeld for his service and predicted that Gates would bring fresh ideas. "The secretary of defence must be a man of vision who can see threats still over the horizon and prepare our nation to meet them. Bob Gates is the right man to meet both of these critical challenges,'' Bush said. In brief remarks, Rumsfeld described the Iraq conflict as a "little understood, unfamiliar war'' that is “complex for people to comprehend.” Asked whether Rumsfeld's departure signalled a new direction in a war that has claimed the lives of more than 2,800 US troops and an unknown number of Iraqis and has cost more than $US300 billion ($A390 billion), Bush said: "Well, there's certainly going to be new leadership at the Pentagon.'' Democrats were jubilant today on forecasts that both chambers had fallen under their control. Jim Webb's tight win over Republican Senator George Allen in Virginia assured Democrats of 51 seats when the Senate convenes in January. "The days of the do-nothing Congress are over,'' declared Nevada Democratic Senator Harry Reid, in line to become majority leader. Americans had spoken "clearly and decisively in favour of Democrats leading this country in a new direction,'' he added. A day after weathering what was arguably the worst defeat of his political life, Bush was subdued. "I thought we were going to do fine yesterday. Shows what I know. But I thought we were going to be fine in the election,'' he shrugged. "If you look at (it) race by race, it was close. The cumulative effect, however, was not too close. It was a thumping. "I'm obviously disappointed with the outcome of the election and, as the head of the Republican Party, I share a large part of the responsibility.'' He pledged to work with the Democrats, who during the campaign called him incompetent and dangerous. Bush shot back with accusations that Democrats were content to let terrorists attack the United States. "This isn't my first rodeo,'' Bush said today. "I understand when campaigns end and I know when governing begins, and I'm going to work with people of both parties. People say unfortunate things at times. But if you hold grudges in this line of work, you're never going to get anything done. And my intention is to get some things done. They (Democrats) care about the security of this country like I do.'' Democrats, meanwhile, spent today telling Americans they had been heard. "This new Democratic majority has heard the voices of the American people,'' said Nancy Pelosi, the liberal California Democrat all but certain to become the first female speaker of the House of Representatives. "We will honour that trust. We will not disappoint.'' Pelosi, who just weeks earlier had railed against Bush, also struck a conciliatory tone and said any effort to impeach Bush “is off the table.” The Senate had teetered at 50 Democrats, 49 Republicans for most of today, with Virginia hanging in the balance. A count by The Associated Press finally showed Webb had won the seat by just 7,236 votes. Allen is yet to conceded, but Webb moved swiftly to establish himself as the winner. "The vote's been counted and Jim won,'' said campaign spokeswoman Kristian Denny Todd. Some absentee ballots remained to be counted, she said, but Webb considered that "a formality more than anything else.” In the House count, Democrats won 229 seats and were leading in three, putting them on track for a 30-seat gain if trends held in remaining unsettled races. Party standings in that event would be 232-203. Without losing any seats of their own, Democrats captured 28 Republican-held seats. The party won in every region of the country and hoped to strengthen their majority by besting Republican incumbents in eight races that were too close to call. With the Republicans booted from power in both chambers of Congress, departing Speaker Dennis Hastert announced he would not run for his party's leadership in the House, instead saying he intended to devote his time to representing his Illinois constituents.

DROUGHT IN ETHIOPIA DRIVES FARMERS TO SUICIDE [Independent, October 24, 2006] By the time the October rains arrived last week, five of the 13 heads of families in the village of Magado had hanged themselves, tormented by the loss of their cattle and livelihoods. Cahal Milmo reports from southern Ethiopia on what has become an international failure. The skeletal acacia trees that surround Magado village are testimony in more ways than one to the drought that has destroyed the lives of its inhabitants. The bare branches and parched earth are evidence of the six months of rainless heat that has wiped out up to 70 per cent of the livestock owned by the 11 million nomadic pastoralists spread across the Horn of Africa in the worst drought for a decade. But in Magado, a tiny isolated community of herdsmen deep in the arid bush of southern Ethiopia, the acacia trees have helped extract a terrible price for the drought and the failure of the outside world to react quickly to their plight. Humanitarian aid to Africa has grown almost six-fold in the past eight years from $946m (£556m) to $5.6bn (£3.3bn). Magado's share of this windfall came too late. One day, three months ago, Worish Catalo, a 60-year-old herdsman from the village, walked out to one of the acacia trees under which he had regularly watched his herd of 80 cows from dawn to dusk. He slung a rope over the tree's thorny branches and hanged himself among what were by then the wasted corpses of his starved cattle. Mr Catalo, who had six children, was only the first. By the time the October rains arrived last week, the inhabitants of Magado had cut down four more men who had walked to other acacia trees never to return. Five of the 13 heads of family have killed themselves because of the shame and despair of watching their cattle, raised from birth and cherished like offspring, dwindle and perish before their eyes. Of the 2,000 cattle owned by the families of Magado before the drought struck at the beginning of 2006, just two now remain, an attrition rate of 99 per cent. The people of Magado belong to the Borena, a proud and once-feared tribe of nomadic herdsmen who, according to legend, hold their livestock in such high esteem that when two kinsmen meet they will enquire about the wellbeing of their herds long before that of wives or children. Nine million Borena live in an increasingly lawless region straddling the Ethiopian and Kenyan border. No one in Magado has died from starvation. In March, long after the cattle were beyond salvation, emergency food aid arrived which kept the pastoralists alive, if only to survey the destruction of their livelihood during what they call the ola, or dry period. The village is grim proof of what an increasing number of experts say is an international community failing to provide help when it is needed most. Across the Borena lands, it is estimated that 150,000 cows have died, at least two thirds of the entire stock. Galamo Dima, 45, a village elder, now has a meagre supply of beans and maize to feed her seven children. The milk and meat her 10 cattle once provided are a stomach-cramping memory. Dressed in the colourful shawls and bead necklaces of the Borena women, she sits on a stool, watching a sudden deluge that eight months ago would have been greeted as a salvation. Now the rain has turned the empty cattle enclosures into quagmires and washed the dust from five new stone tombs. Most of the herdsmen stand around doing nothing, trying to keep dry the piles of firewood they have collected for sale at the nearest market, a backbreaking eight-hour walk away. Ms Dima said: "The aid came too late for us. We were provided with lifestock feed. But there were no animals to give it to. They were already dead. Yes, we have survived. But because we have lost our source of income, we can no longer send our children to school. It has been a terrible time. We must make a living from small things, firewood, wild crops. We have lost people and animals. We are proud; we have no wish to live off others. But now we are a marginalised people. Perhaps it is better for the men who have gone." Nearby is Bonaya Afatu, a traditional rabies doctor who treats humans and animals for the disease transmitted from wild dogs roaming the scrubby landscape occupied by the Borena. He knew three of the men who committed suicide, all of them aged between 50 and 75. He said: "These men had seen other droughts; our land is prone to such things. But never before has it been so severe or have we suffered such a tragedy. Our traditions say that a man without cattle is nothing. To be a man of that age and lose all your cows means you cannot recover. These men took their lives because the shame was too great." Magado, and the thousands of other Borena pastoralist settlements spread across southern Ethiopia, are part of the Horn of Africa's great cow economy. For more than two millennia, the Borena have learnt to eke an existence from the bleak landscape, shifting to seasonal feeding grounds and using communal wells set out according to a traditional co-operative system called gada. That way of life is now under threat. The gada, which relies on well-off families donating cows to those who have lost animals in a drought, no longer has the resources to restore the fortunes of herdsmen such as the people of Magado. The nomadic tribes of the region stretching from Eritrea to Kenya and Somalia to Ethiopia have long been persecuted or ignored by national governments anxious to restrict access to water sources and traditional grazing lands. But with a bull valued at about £350 and a breeding cow at £150, they possess considerable wealth. One confidential assessment seen by The Independent put the value of the livestock in southern Ethiopia prior to the drought at between £3bn and £4.5bn. So why was not more done to ensure this vast asset was preserved after the alarm about an impending drought was raised in December 2005? The British arm of one of the world's largest development charities, Care International, says it is due to an aid system which responds only when an emergency is at its height, and relies too heavily on distributing food. A report by Care UK, Living on the Edge, estimates 120 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, such as the Borena, are needlessly facing a permanent state of humanitarian emergency. The study found "the international community's response too often centres around food aid [and] generally speaking the response to emergencies is too late, too brief, inappropriate and inadequate." From the famine in the west African country of Niger to the drought in the Horn of Africa, it is estimated that 35 million people faced starvation this year in crises which could have been prevented by an earlier response. Geoffrey Dennis, the chief executive of Care UK, said: "What's needed is a fundamental overhaul of the way emergencies are funded so we can respond quickly, protect people from the worst effects, such as losing livestock, and support people to recover afterwards. Without this, the downward spiral will continue. Each time people fall into emergency, they become poorer, less able to escape poverty and more likely to be hit by

WATER SHORTAGE IS NOW A MAJOR CAUSE OF MASS SUFFERING -- ESPECIALLY IN PARTS OF AFRICA

[BBC, 22 March 2006] Governments are losing the fight to tackle the world's water crisis, now one of the greatest causes of mass suffering, a leading aid agency alleged yesterday. The situation, which sees 1.1 billion people with no access to safe water and 2.6 billion people without basic sanitation, is steadily getting worse, in spite of a major pledge by the international community to improve it, according to the UK relief and development agency Tearfund. The UN's Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to "halve by 2015 the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation" is in danger of becoming no more than a pipe dream, the agency said in a report released for World Water Day, which falls today. As the report was issued the seriousness of the water crisis was re-emphasised with new figures suggesting that five million people in Kenya are now facing food shortages as as result of failed rains. The drought in northern and north-eastern Kenya has also affected areas of Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Tanzania and Burundi, leaving more than 11.5 million people in need of food aid in the next six months. The Tearfund report says that international aid, from the European Union especially, is failing to keep pace with the worsening water stress hitting a growing numbers of countries. "Governments are failing to tackle a crisis in which a child dies from dehydration from diarrhoea every 14 seconds. Half the world's hospital beds are taken up by people with water-borne diseases," the report says. "Over the past decade, aid for water and sanitation from EU member governments has been falling, despite 6,000 children dying every day from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water. Since the MDG was agreed, EU aid to water and sanitation has declined and a smaller percentage of it now goes to sub-Saharan Africa. In 1997, EU Member States gave an average of $126m (£72m) to address the global water crisis. Today, they give on average $94m." The report alleges that the EU Water Initiative, launched in 2002 to coordinate and improve the EU response to the crisis, "has not changed any policy or practice to help one single person have access to water and sanitation." It adds that money needed to meet the water and sanitation MDG -- $15bn -- is "a small proportion of the $100bn that is spent each year on bottled water, mainly as a fashion accessory. “The UK and other governments have failed to prioritise aid for water and sanitation in the way they have for health and education, even though diarrhoeal diseases cause 443 million school days to be lost each year.” The report says that between 2000 and 2004 the UK government gave an average of $327m a year to health, compared to $86m to water and sanitation. Furthermore, more aid for water and sanitation in poor countries is given as loans than as grants -- pushing heavily indebted countries deeper into debt. In 2002, governments at the World Summit on Sustainable Development recommitted to have plans for managing water resources in place by 2005. The UK relief and development agency Tearfund: says: "This date has passed and only 12 per cent of countries have met the target. Add climate change and global warming into the equation, and even developed countries start to feel the heat." The agency calls on rich country governments to commit to doubling aid to water and sanitation by 2010, focusing 70 per cent of this aid on the poorest countries and giving particular emphasis to sanitation and hygiene promotion. It says all aid for water and sanitation in the poorest countries should be given as grants not loans. Another major report issued yesterday, the UN-led Global International Waters Assessment, said that the overuse of water for farming is the biggest environmental threat to the world's freshwater resources, and damage is likely to worsen until 2020. The report said that more dams and deeper wells were not the answer. It said, for instance, that dams on the Volga River had reduced the spawning grounds for Caspian sturgeon, and 90 per cent of the water in Namibia's Eastern National Water Carrier canal was lost because of evaporation.countries should be given as grants not loans. Another major report issued yesterday, the UN-led Global International Waters Assessment, said that the overuse of water for farming is the biggest environmental threat to the world's freshwater resources, and damage is likely to worsen until 2020. The report said that more dams and deeper wells were not the answer. It said, for instance, that dams on the Volga River had reduced the spawning grounds for Caspian sturgeon, and 90 per cent of the water in Namibia's Eastern National Water Carrier canal was lost because of evaporation.

BUSH ADMINISTRATION ALTERED DOCUMENTS TO DOWNPLAY THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE

[Democracy Now] The Bush administration worked behind the scenes altering White House and G8 documents to downplay the impact of climate change. White House Council on Environmental Quality chief of staff Phillip Cooney repeatedly edited government climate reports. He used to work for the American Petroleum Institute and now he's left the White House to work for ExxonMobil. We speak to the New York Times reporter who broke the story. The Bush administration worked behind the scenes to weaken key language in the Group of 8 proposal for joint action on climate change. The Washington Post reported on Friday that administration officials successfully pressed negotiators to drop sections of the report that warned of more frequent droughts and floods and committed a specific dollar amount to promoting carbon sequestration in developing countries. This follows major revelations published in the New York Times earlier this month that a White House official repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that played down links between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. The official -- Philip Cooney -- was chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality which shapes much of America”s environmental policy. Before coming to the White House in 2001, Cooney was a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute. Just two days after that article was published, Cooney resigned from the council and ExxonMobil announced they were hiring him. A recent investigation by Mother Jones magazine found that ExxonMobil has spent at least eight million dollars funding a network of groups to challenge the existence of global warming. ExxonMobile defended its hiring of Cooney by stating that they hire from both sides of the aisle. In a written statement to Democracy Now! The company wrote that “ExxonMobil hired Mr. Cooney at about the same time we hired Matt Gobush, who was the Communications Director for Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman. We have always hired highly qualified people for their talent -- not their politics.” [Here is an excerpt from an interview with Andrew Revkin, prize-winning science reporter with The New York Times. He wrote the books "Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast" and "Burning Season: The Murder of Chico Mendes and the Fight for the Amazon Rain Forest." He is the recipient of the National Academies Communication Award for print journalism, two Science Journalism Awards of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and an Investigative Reporters & Editors Awards.] AMY GOODMAN: So, let's start off with the Philip Cooney saga. Tell us how significant it is that he ran the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where he came from and where he’s going. ANDREW REVKIN: Well, Phil Cooney, who I have only met once, he's kind of a background character, at least in terms of the White House public persona. He went there in 2001 and before that, for about a decade, he was a lawyer for the American Petroleum Institute, which is the leading lobby for the oil industry in Washington. And his last job there was -- they called him climate team leader, and he was in charge, essentially, of an effort to both forestall any kind of international agreement limiting greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming and also domestic legislation and regulations. The E.P.A. was considering regulating CO2 coming from car exhausts, carbon dioxide being the main greenhouse gas, and he led the effort from the industry to stop all of that stuff. And then he went to the White House in 2001 and essentially, at least according to everything that I have seen, continued that same effort. AMY GOODMAN: Talk about what he deleted, what he took out of the reports. ANDREW REVKIN: It's all -- if you looked at individual wording changes and revisions and rewrites, you might say, oh, you know, what is that, it’s just a little qualifying adjective or, you know, what's a big paragraph in a 300-page document, but when you look at the sum total of what changed, essentially scientists from a dozen agencies and other officials from a dozen agencies spent months on these reports coming up with language that they thought framed the issues correctly, as far as the science goes, so when they put in a line that said the earth is experiencing significant climate -- significant change, environmental change right now, they meant that. It's a real thing. It’s pretty unassailable fact. And in that instance, he changed the word “is” to “may be”-- the earth “may be” undergoing a period of unusual environmental change. And that kind of thing, for scientists again is just sort of anathema, someone who had no scientific training, he has got an economics bachelors degree and a law degree and also with, essentially, a vested interest for years in not accepting the science on global warming. That he was doing that kind of revision was kind of horrifying to scientists within the government, and that's why they came to me with the documents. [AMY GOODMAN: Yesterday John McCain, who’s basically announcing that he is running for president, was on Tim Russert's “Meet the Press,” and Russert questioned him about your report on Philip Cooney. TIM RUSSERT: Senator, let me show you a story from Wednesday's New York Times. Philip A. Cooney, the former White House staff member who repeatedly revised government scientific reports on global warming will go to work for ExxonMobil this fall. Mr. Cooney resigned as Chief of Staff for President Bush's Environmental Policy Council, two days after documents obtained by The New York Times revealed that he had edited the reports in ways that of cast doubt on the link between the emission of greenhouse gases and rising temperatures. What do you think of that? JOHN McCAIN: I’m shocked, shocked that such a thing should be happening. I also noticed that he immediately went back to work with ExxonMobil. Maybe he should have waited a month or two.] AMY GOODMAN: John McCain on “Meet the Press” yesterday. You just interviewed John McCain. Your response, and also overall to what he is putting forward? ANDREW REVKIN: Well, McCain and a few other Republicans of various degrees of moderacy have been trying to put distance between themselves and the White House. I think they see public opinion on this moving in a direction different from where the White House has put their policies so far. And so he has -- despite embracing the Administration on many fronts, he seems to -- he doesn't want to be identified with them on this one. And he has this proposal that's part of -- could be part of the energy bill that would require cuts in greenhouse gases over -- it's a very gentle proposal; it’s nothing like the Kyoto Protocol, which was much more -- the slope of that was much more steep. And this would be really kind of a slow slide toward regulation. And – AMY GOODMAN: Also putting forward nuclear within that? ANDREW REVKIN: Well, right, and then he -- in order to broaden the base of support for the bill, he chose to add nuclear power, which actually has weakened his proposal now because a lot of the mainstream environmental groups just can’t go there, even though nuclear power for all of its warts and problems doesn't emit carbon dioxide like coal-fired power plants or gas or oil do when they're burned. So it's clean to the extent that it doesn't contribute to the climate problem. And so he’s -- but he’s got this funny dance that he has to kind of make to find a common ground there. And I don't know whether it's possible, frankly. AMY GOODMAN: You have gone to the Arctic several times. Can you talk about what you found there? ANDREW REVKIN: Yeah. I have been -- I'm going again this year, too. I've been to the North Pole, to the North Slope of Alaska and to Greenland over the last couple of years. And in all of those places, scientists have seen pretty powerful evidence of, as that climate report that the White House changed said, of significant environmental change right now. It's still a complicated picture. The Arctic is a place we don't have long term data on. So, you can’t immediately say that the trends that we have seen in the retreat of sea ice in the last three decades from satellites is unparalleled. The 1930s saw some warming in the Arctic. It wasn't as uniform as what's going on now, and in the past, of course, I wrote a story last fall, 50 million years ago there were ferns growing on the Arctic Ocean. It was 60-degree body of water, you could swim in it. And now it’s got ice on it. So there’s all -- on all scales there's warming and cooling. But the pace of change in the last few decades is what has people really alarmed. On the North Slope, it's actually woken up the oil companies there for the first time. The oil industry, when I reported a story a year or so ago from the North Slope, the frozen season, when they can explore for oil has shrunk by half in just 30 years. It used to be 200 days a year that the Arctic slope tundra was hard enough to drive a truck over, and now it's 100 days. And so they pushed Alaska to start a new study to look at the rules and what's going on up there. So it might that the Arctic warming is the first instance where we have seen a lot of concern from the oil companies about the implications of warming. AMY GOODMAN: Before we end, I wanted to talk about your book, The Burning Season: The Murder of Chico Mendes and the Fight for the Amazon Rainforest. You actually wrote it 15 years ago, but it's just been reissued in paperback. Can you talk about who Chico Mendes was, and how he relates to this whole story of global warming? ANDREW REVKIN: Sure. Well, there are two things. The Amazon itself only became a big news story because in the late 80s it was linked in our consciousness to global warming. The forests were burning. Our satellites showed thousands of fires in the Amazon at the same time. And Chico came out of the forest around that same time in 1987. He was kind of the ultimate pragmatic grassroots organizer. He tried communism once, and that didn't work. He tried politics and he was a terrible politician. He was a home-grown rubber tree tapper from the Amazon who saw the forest falling because roads were being built, bringing ranching and other activities into the Amazon. And he didn't just sort of lie down in front of the bulldozers. He came to Washington and followed the money, which is a -- he essentially wrote the book for how to get results. Even if you have a small, local issue like that you find where is the money coming from, what is the force that’s actually changing my life here. And for the rubber tappers it was money partially flowing from the Inter-American Development Bank, the big international lending institutions, and he went to senators, Senator Kasten from Wisconsin, and said, “Look, you know, why are you helping support this activity? They're not paying attention to the people living in the forest.” And he got progress. Brazil created the first extractive reserves and areas where you could harvest from the forest without knocking it down. And then, of course, he paid the ultimate price because some ranchers commissioned his murder. And it’s become relevant again in a few ways. Partially the Amazon is burning again at the rates it was back then in the late 80s. And that contributes hugely to the climate issue, the climate problem. AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean burning? ANDREW REVKIN: The forest -- the rate of destruction of the forest there is greater than ever. And when you -- to clear the Amazon, you burn it. You cut and burn, that's basically how you clear. The burning season happens every fall, sort of the end of the dry season. And any time you burn fuel or wood, you're adding carbon dioxide to the air. And that carbon dioxide lasts 100 years once it's up there. AMY GOODMAN: And the significance of the rain forest in Brazil for the globe? ANDREW REVKIN: Well, it's a reservoir of carbon, the stuff that when we liberate it by burning it, adds to the climate issue. And, of course, it's also a reservoir of biological richness that's relatively unparalleled. There's only a few places on earth with the amount of species of plants and animals that the Amazon has. And it's kind of a giant sponge. Twenty percent of the earth's fresh water at any one time is in the Amazon. It's an amazing, unique resource for everyone.

UK ABOUT TO RUN OUT OF NATURAL RESOURCES

[BBC, April 15, 2006] The UK is about to run out of its own natural resources and become dependent on supplies from abroad, a report says. A study by the New Economics Foundation (Nef) and the Open University says 16 April is the day when the nation goes into "ecological debt" this year. It warns if annual global consumption levels matched the UK's, it would take 3.1 Earths to meet the demand. But bio-geography professor Philip Stott criticised the "doomsday report," arguing it would hit poorer nations. "What we tend to have -- not just with this report but alternative reports on the other side -- are two theological positions," said Prof Stott, of London University. "This one is the kind of Doomsday report -- on the other hand the total free-traders are far too optimistic. If we did follow this report for example the damage to the Third World would be very great indeed because of course trade is the main dynamo of growth." In 1961, the symbolic "ecological debt day" was 9 July; in 1981, it had shifted forward two months to 14 May. The authors of the UK Interdependence Report hope to highlight the need to curb rising consumption levels. Nef policy director Andrew Simms says this year's debt day shows that the UK's growing demand for goods and services is having an impact on the rest of the world. In 1961, the Earth could have supported everyone having a UK lifestyle. It would take 3.1 planets to support the current UK lifestyle. "On one level, there is absolutely nothing wrong with importing goods and services, but our eyes are bigger than the planet,” Mr Simms said. "The problem is that we want to have our planet and eat it and not think about the consequences.” The findings are based on the concept of "ecological footprints", a system of measuring how much land and water a human population needs to produce the resources it consumes and absorb the resulting waste. The report, produced by Nef and the Open University's geography department, uses a number of examples that it says illustrate how resources are being wasted, including: *In 2004, the UK exported 1,500 tonnes of fresh potatoes to Germany, and imported 1,500 tonnes of the same product from the same country. *Imported 465 tonnes of gingerbread, but exported 460 tonnes of the same produce. *Sent 10,200 tonnes of milk and cream to France, yet imported 9,900 tonnes of the dairy goods from France. The authors say this shows how current trade systems are inefficient at a time when there is concern over energy supplies and greenhouse gas emissions. "If you do not have the right signals within the economy to tell you when you are doing something very environmentally wasteful, then you cannot expect it to stop," says Mr Simms, the report's lead author. "Lifestyles in Britain are becoming increasingly unsustainable and are placing an ever larger burden on the global environmental system." The UK's food self-sufficiency has been falling steadily for more than a decade, and indigenous food production is now said to be at its lowest level for half a century. In 2004, the UK lost its energy independent status when it became a net importer of gas following lower returns from the North Sea fields. At a global level, the world is also living beyond ecosystems' ability to supply the resources and absorb the demands being placed upon them. This year's ecological debt day for the world is 23 October. In the future, it is expected to be even earlier as emerging economies, such as China and India, demand more resources to meet changing lifestyles. "The earlier it creeps in the year, the more you are permanently running down the Earth's environmental capital,” Mr Simms told the BBC. "The problem is that we are not clever enough to know at what point we will see a crash within eco-systems. While you are not living within the planet's limits and are eroding ecosystems, and the earlier the ecological day falls in the year, the greater the risk of a system crash." Mr Simms said developed nations had a responsibility to share their experience and knowledge with developing nations in order to limit the impact on the environment. However, he added, despite the sharp rise in economic growth in the emerging economies, their consumption levels were still far behind developed nations. Steve Bettison, from the free-market think tank, Adam Smith Institute, described the report as "an interesting concept" but questioned its findings on market inefficiencies. "The only inefficiencies in the market place are those that relate to government intervention and that do not allow for free trade to occur, such as tariffs on agricultural products, or protectionist measures," he said. “Market forces are the best way to control consumption of the world's finite resources. The usual 'supply and demand' economics will govern where these resources are used. This would also drive human ingenuity as people strive to develop new ideas to take up where previous resource supplies have waned." "It would be interesting to see how the rest of the world is dependent on the services and resources that we have developed over time. Whilst we take, we also give - something that seems to have been forgotten." Andrew Simms said the report was not calling for the UK's borders to be closed because there were many benefits, both economic and cultural, to be gained from closer ties with other nations. The report builds on previous studies that have used "ecological footprint" measurements, such as the World Wildlife Fund's "one planet living" campaign.. It also echoes last year's Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the most comprehensive survey ever into the state of the planet. It concluded that human activities threatened the Earth's ability to sustain future generations. Nef and the Open University hope the "ecological debt day" will be used as an annual yardstick to measure the health of the planet.

CHINA WILL TAX WOODEN CHOPSTICKS, GOLF BALLS AND LUXURY YACHTS TO REDUCE POLLUTION

[BBC, March 23, 2006] China will tax wooden chopsticks, golf balls and the yachts of the country's nouveau riche as part of an ambitious plan to slash energy consumption and combat worsening pollution in the world's fastest growing economy. The new taxes, which come into force on 1 April, are aimed at boosting the use of environmentally friendy small-engined cars and motorcycles while slapping hefty new levies on luxury items such as gas-guzzling four-wheel drive vehicles and flashy watches. The tax on chopsticks will come as a shock to a nation which uses them for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and where many people have never used a knife and fork. The Chinese use 45 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks every year, which adds up to 1.7 million cubic metres of timber or 25 million fully grown trees. Massive demand for wood takes a heavy toll on the country's forests. In Beijing, deforestation has removed a natural wind barrier between the desert and the Chinese capital, and the wasteland is only hours away from the north of the city. Springtime brings sandstorms and people don masks and scarves against the dusty wind. But with so much pollution in the air from ever-more cars on the road and incessant building on every street corner, the annual sandstorms have taken on a toxic new aspect. The government has had some success with an ambitious plan to plant millions of trees around the capital, but the new "green" taxes are recognition that something more fundamental needs to be done. The reforms are part of Beijing's latest Five-Year Plan, passed this month by the Communist Party at the country's annual parliament, which pledged to move the nation to a more sustainable growth model with less environmental degradation and greater social equity. Wooden floor panels, a central interior design component in many Chinese homes, will also be levied from 1 April, the Finance Ministry said. There will also be tax on baijiu, a schnapps-like liquor with a kick like a mule that is popular at boozy banquets. The taxes will also affect kerosene, which could have an impact on cheap flights within China. China's first foray into "green taxation" is a sign of growing government awareness that GDP (gross domestic product) growth is not the only yardstick for success and that China's dire environmental record can feed into political discord. President Hu Jintao refers to "environmentally sustainable development" in speeches about harnessing economic growth better to distribute the country's new riches. China's environment is getting steadily worse. The World Bank says 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities are in China and more than 400,000 people die prematurely each year from pollution-related illnesses. Environmental experts fear pollution levels in China could more than quadruple within 15 years if the country does not curb its rapid growth in energy consumption and massive growth in car ownership. Where once the bicycle reigned supreme, the car now rules. China has 107 million cars and 116 million drivers, while the bicycle, long an icon of China, has been relegated to a second-class mode of transport. The country is the second-biggest producer of greenhouse gas emissions and is soon expected to overtake the United States as the biggest. Roughly a third of China is exposed to acid rain and about 70 per cent of the country's rivers and lakes are polluted. The government has pledged to have a "green" Olympics when the Games come to Beijing in 2008 and there are also plans to blacklist cities that fail to reach the national air quality standard. But balancing the need for strong economic growth and the desire for a healthy environment is a challenge for the rulers. China will tax wooden chopsticks, golf balls and the yachts of the country's nouveau riche as part of an ambitious plan to slash energy consumption and combat worsening pollution in the world's fastest growing economy. The new taxes, which come into force on 1 April, are aimed at boosting the use of environmentally friendy small-engined cars and motorcycles while slapping hefty new levies on luxury items such as gas-guzzling four-wheel drive vehicles and flashy watches. The tax on chopsticks will come as a shock to a nation which uses them for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and where many people have never used a knife and fork. The Chinese use 45 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks every year, which adds up to 1.7 million cubic metres of timber or 25 million fully grown trees. Massive demand for wood takes a heavy toll on the country's forests. In Beijing, deforestation has removed a natural wind barrier between the desert and the Chinese capital, and the wasteland is only hours away from the north of the city. Springtime brings sandstorms and people don masks and scarves against the dusty wind. But with so much pollution in the air from ever-more cars on the road and incessant building on every street corner, the annual sandstorms have taken on a toxic new aspect. The government has had some success with an ambitious plan to plant millions of trees around the capital, but the new "green" taxes are recognition that something more fundamental needs to be done. The reforms are part of Beijing's latest Five-Year Plan, passed this month by the Communist Party at the country's annual parliament, which pledged to move the nation to a more sustainable growth model with less environmental degradation and greater social equity. Wooden floor panels, a central interior design component in many Chinese homes, will also be levied from 1 April, the Finance Ministry said. There will also be tax on baijiu, a schnapps-like liquor with a kick like a mule that is popular at boozy banquets. The taxes will also affect kerosene, which could have an impact on cheap flights within China. China's first foray into "green taxation" is a sign of growing government awareness that GDP (gross domestic product) growth is not the only yardstick for success and that China's dire environmental record can feed into political discord. President Hu Jintao refers to "environmentally sustainable development" in speeches about harnessing economic growth better to distribute the country's new riches.