Mammal Talks at the Singapore Zoo this National Day weekend
from The Biodiversity crew @ NUS
24 Aug (Tue): Sea turtle forum and tag and release at Big Sisters
from wild shores of singapore
What Next, Mandai Orchid Garden?
from Butterflies of Singapore
Release One, Kill The Other 释此杀彼
from Save The Pigeons (Singapore)
Common Iora: Vocalisation
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Blind and bleached
from The annotated budak and Fishtrapped
Rachel Au-Yong Straits Times 7 Aug 10;
THE entire world population could fit into less than 0.5 per cent of earth's total land area - the size of 1,000 Singapores.
It may sound rather cosy, but the DesignSingapore Council and the Singapore Institute of Architects are keen to show how it would look.
The two bodies have collaborated to present a 35m-long model and pavilion of the country - showcasing the different types of housing and landscapes on the island -at the international architectural exhibition of the Venice Biennale. The idea is to highlight sustainability issues.
Singapore is home to five million residents with a projected population of 6.5 million, spread out over a land mass of 710 sq km.
'The worldwide concern over sustainable development ranks high on the agenda of more and more countries...with many cities adopting compact development policies to find solutions to sustainability issues,' said Mr Ashvinkumar Kantilal, co-commissioner of the Singapore pavilion and the institute's president.
Singapore's projected population of 6.5 million multiplied by 1,000 is 6.5 billion -the world's population. Its land area multiplied by 1,000 is less than 0.5 per cent of the world's land area.
This compactness is demonstrated in the showcase. Built with a 1:1000 scale and painted white, the model of one Singapore suggests that the entire world could work, play and live in a land area equivalent to that of a thousand Singapores.
It is an 'invitation to look at how compact cities can reduce our demand for land', and how humans can 'inhabit the earth with the smallest footprint possible', said Mr Khoo Peng Beng, lead curator of the project and founder of Arc Studio.
The pavilion, made to showcase the two sides of Singapore -'the pragmatic and the sublime' - is also 'about the thousands of lives, faces, ideas and experiences of a high-density city-state', according to Mr Jeffrey Ho, commissioner of the Singapore pavilion and director of the DesignSingapore Council.
The exhibition, titled 1000 Singapores -A Model Of The Compact City, will officially open at the Venice Biennale in Calle della Pieta, Venice, in Italy, on Aug26 and run until Nov 21.
Acting Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts Lui Tuck Yew will officiate at the opening ceremony. The exhibition will return to Singapore after the Biennale.
Businesses bracing themselves as Prima plans phased price hike
Jessica Lim Straits Times 7 Aug 10;
THE effects of a Russian ban on wheat exports will soon ripple through Singapore: Prima Limited, the largest importer of the grain here, is planning to hike flour prices, a move that will impact a wide variety of industries, from bakeries to noodle-makers, as well as consumers.
Prima, the main supplier of flour to businesses here, declined to say when prices would rise, or by how much.
But its executive director, Mr Lewis Cheng, told The Straits Times yesterday that the recent surge in global wheat prices had a 'definite impact' on the company.
'With this huge jump in material costs, we have no choice but to increase our flour prices,' he said, adding that prices will go up gradually, and in phases.
Industry players, such as Singapore Food Manufacturers' Association president Wong Mong Hong, think the increase will be 'substantial'.
'Flour is totally made from wheat,' he said. 'The increase in the price of wheat will have a direct and significant impact on flour prices. The increase is unlikely to be small.'
Wheat prices have doubled in less than two months as drought slashed the harvest in Russia, the third-largest grower, and rain cut Canadian output. Russia's drought is also threatening sowing plans for winter grain.
The price surge may herald a new food crisis if it drives up the price of corn and other staples, warned a trade group from Indonesia, Asia's top wheat buyer.
'There will be a domino reaction and we expect corn demand will rise, pushing prices higher,' said chairman of the Flour Mills Association in Indonesia Franciscus Welirang.
The situation was compounded by a decision on Thursday by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to ban all exports of grain as a severe drought wilted millions of acres of wheat plantations.
In Singapore, businesses are bracing themselves for the aftershocks of Prima's impending price hike, and said they would have little choice but to raise their prices too once this happens.
The chairman of the Singapore Bakery & Confectionery Trade Association, Mr Liow Kian Huat, said the grouping's 150 members are unlikely to be able to absorb more than a 10 per cent increase.
'Any more than that and it gets difficult. There is nothing we can do about it. We cannot hoard flour now because it will just go bad,' said the baker in Mandarin, adding that he currently pays about $27 for a 25kg bag of Prima's flour.
Mr Leong Han Hin, the owner of Hung Wen Noodle Manufacturer, agrees. He supplies noodles to hawker centres and coffee shops around Singapore.
'If prices go up, what can we do? We will try to absorb until we can't,' he said.
Retailers, such as supermarket chain NTUC FairPrice, said they have not been informed of any price increase and are monitoring the situation.
Prima is Singapore's only flour mill, and accounts for more than 95 per cent of the wheat imported into Singapore.
It converts the wheat into flour, which is then sold to retailers and food manufacturers like noodle-makers and bakers.
Industry players say that more than half of all the flour used here is from Prima. The rest is imported from countries like Malaysia and Indonesia.
One immediate effect of the price hikes will be to put a dampener on major festivals that will occur in the months ahead, said Mr Wong.
'Festivals like Hari Raya and Deepavali are coming up, and we can expect prices for goodies to be much higher than in other years especially since a lot of them are largely made of flour,' he said.
Singapore imported 180,208 tonnes of wheat last year, more than half from Australia. Much of the remaining amount came from Canada, Malaysia and the United States.
Though Singapore does not import wheat from Russia, the ban has sent prices of the product from other countries through the roof.
Wheat futures on the Chicago Board of Trade rose to a peak of US$8.41 a bushel yesterday, the highest level in about two years, while shares in European brewers and food producers fell as markets reacted to the sudden imposition of the ban on grain exports from Russia.
TRAFFIC 5 Aug 10;
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 5 August 2010—Malaysia’s Parliament this week passed the country’s tough new Wildlife Conservation Bill 2010 which provides significantly higher penalties and mandatory jail terms for wildlife crime.
The new law, expected to come into force by the end of this year, will replace the 38-year-old Protection of Wild Life Act.
The highest penalty in the existing Act is a maximum fine of RM15,000 (USD4,700) or five years jail, or both, for hunting a Sumatran Rhino, Tiger or Clouded Leopard.
Under the newly passed law, the same offence carries a minimum fine of RM100,000 (USD 31,600), and a jail term not exceeding five years.
It also provides for minimum fines, a mandatory jail sentence for setting snares and closes loopholes by providing penalties for products claiming to contain parts of protected species or its derivative, and preventing zoos from operating without a permit.
The Bill widens the list of agencies empowered to enforce wildlife laws by including Police and Customs officers, and it protects more species of wildlife.
Those convicted of a wildlife crime under the new law will be barred from holding any license, permit or special permit for five years from the commencement of a case.
Illegal trade in key species such as pangolins and monitor lizards, have also been singled out for tougher penalties.
“Finally, agencies have a solid wildlife law that they can wield against poachers and smugglers who have had little to fear from the paltry fines and jail sentences of the past,” said TRAFFIC Southeast Asia Regional Director Dr William Schaedla.
“TRAFFIC Southeast Asia would like to congratulate the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment, as well as the Department of Wildlife and National Parks on the passing of the Bill.
“The new law has given Malaysia the means and the opportunity drive home the message that it is serious about curbing this menace.
“So we hope the new law will be the catalyst for an all out war against wildlife crime and that it will result in more prosecution of such criminals in the courts,” he said.
The new Bill received widespread support from the public with many writing to their Members of Parliament asking them to support it when it was being debated. Among them were the thousands who also signed a petition last year seeking better protection for Malaysia’s wildlife.
The Bill aims to protect domestic wildlife. This June, Malaysia’s International Trade in Endangered Species Act 2008 came into force. Two women found guilty of attempting to smuggle tortoises from Madagascar into the country became the first to be convicted under the Act and were each sentenced to a year in jail.
Laura Zuckerman Yahoo News 6 Aug 10;
SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) – Idaho game officials said on Friday they would seek federal approval to kill off hundreds of wolves in their state despite a court ruling that restored protection of the animals under the Endangered Species Act.
In a conference call with reporters, Idaho Fish and Game officials said they remained determined to carry out a plan, nixed by Thursday's court ruling, that calls for reducing Idaho's wolf population by over 40 percent, to 500 from 845.
One wolf pack in particular, a group of 100 animals in northern Idaho, is targeted for reduction by 80 percent.
Montana, the second of two states where the gray wolf was ordered returned to the federal endangered species list, is likely to follow Idaho's lead in seeking permission to thin its wolf packs through licensed sport hunting or government squads of aerial gunners.
Hunting of listed animals for sport is generally forbidden under the Endangered Species Act. But the two states would presumably seek special permits under the statute to allow for limited hunting or culling of wolf packs.
Powerful ranching interests in both states opposed reintroduction of wolves to the region 15 years ago and have continued to resist federal protection of the animals as a threat to livestock. Sportsmen complain wolves are killing too many big-game animals, like elk, that could be hunted instead.
"Our concern is ... we do have livestock depredations ... and we have problems with elk herds," said Idaho Department of Fish and Game Deputy Director Jim Unsworth.
A federal judge in Missoula, Montana, on Thursday sided with conservation groups in ordering the entire Northern Rocky Mountain population of gray wolves re-listed as endangered.
That ruling overturned an April 2009 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision that had lifted federal wolf protections in Idaho and Montana but kept them in place in Wyoming.
At last count, in December 2009, the gray wolf population in the Northern Rockies, including Yellowstone National Park and the surrounding region, was estimated at 1,700 animals.
Environmentalists say the region's wolf population would have to reach between 2,000 and 3,000 individuals in order to be considered viable by international standards.
(Editing by Steve Gorman and Sandra Maler)
Richard Black BBC News 6 Aug 10;
Researchers in the US have found new evidence that genetically modified crop plants can survive and thrive in the wild, possibly for decades.
A University of Arkansas team surveyed countryside in North Dakota for canola. Transgenes were present in 80% of the wild canola plants they found.
They suggest GM traits may help the plants survive weedkillers in the wild.
The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Pittsburgh.
"We just drew 11 lines that crossed the state [of North Dakota] - highways and other roads," related research team leader Cindy Sagers.
"We drove along them, we made 604 stops in a total distance of over 3,000 miles (5,000km). We found canola in 46% of the locations; and 80% of them contained at least one transgene."
In some places, the plants were packed as closely together as they are in farmers' fields.
"We found herbicide resistant canola in roadsides, waste places, ball parks, grocery stores, gas stations and cemeteries," they related in their Ecological Society presentation.
The majority of canola grown in North Dakota has been genetically modified to make it resistant to proprietary herbicides, with Monsanto's RoundUp Ready and Bayer's LibertyLink the favoured varieties. These accounted for most of the plants found in the wild.
Two of the plants analysed contained both transgenes, indicating that they had cross-pollinated.
This is thought to be the first time that communities of GM plants have been identified growing in the wild in the US.
Similar findings have been made in Canada, while in Japan, a study in 2008 found substantial amounts of transgenic rape - a close relative of canola - around port areas where GM varieties had been imported.
State-wide
What surprised the Arkansas team was how ubiquitous the GM varieties were in the wild.
"We found the highest densities of plants near agricultural fields and along major freeways," Professor Sagers told BBC News.
"But we were also finding plants in the middle of nowhere - and there's a lot of nowhere in North Dakota."
Canola seeds are especially prone to dispersal, through blowing in the wind or through falling from trucks, as the seeds weigh just a few thousandths of a gram.
Professor Alison Snow, an authority on gene flow from Ohio State University who was not involved in the research, said that authorities had anticipated the existence of GM "volunteers" - plants growing in the wild outside fields - but did not consider it a problem.
"Regulatory agencies in the US have acknowledged that volunteer populations of GM, herbicide-resistant canola are expected to occur, as well as populations of inter-specific hybrids," she told BBC News.
"Over time, however, the build-up of different types of herbicide resistance in feral canola and closely related weeds, like field mustard, could make it more difficult to manage these plants using herbicides."
US policy is not to place a GM crop under any special regulatory regime unless there is a demonstrable difference between it and its conventional equivalent. The varieties in use here were deregulated in 1988 and 1989.
This is very different from the regime that has existed for a decade in the European Union.
But the European Commission recently recommended that nations should now be allowed to make their own decisions on whether to allow the crops or not, once they have passed health and environmental impact assessments at EU level.
Authorisations at EU level have been issued for GM potatoes, sugar beet, soya bean, oilseed rape, cotton and maize products.
Genetically Modified Crop on the Loose and Evolving in U.S. Midwest
GM canola plant refugees from farms in North Dakota bear multiple transgenic traits
David Biello Scientific American 6 Aug 10;
Outside a grocery store in Langdon, N.D., two ecologists spotted a yellow canola plant growing on the margins of a parking lot this summer. They plucked it, ground it up and, using a chemical stick similar to those in home pregnancy kits, identified proteins that were made by artificially introduced genes. The plant was GM—genetically modified.
That's not too surprising, given that North Dakota grows tens of thousands of hectares of conventional and genetically modified canola—a weedy plant, known scientifically as Brassica napus var oleifera, bred by Canadians to yield vegetable oil from its thousands of tiny seeds. What was more surprising was that nearly everywhere the two ecologists and their colleagues stopped during a trip across the state, they found GM canola growing in the wild. "We found transgenic plants growing in the middle of nowhere, far from fields," says ecologist Cindy Sagers of the University of Arkansas (U.A.) in Fayetteville, who presented the findings August 6 at the Ecological Society of America meeting in Pittsburgh. Most intriguingly, two of the 288 tested plants showed man-made genes for resistance to multiple pesticides—so-called "stacked traits," and a type of seed that biotechnology companies like Monsanto have long sought to develop and market. As it seems, Mother Nature beat biotech to it. "One of the ones with multiple traits was [in the middle of] nowhere, and believe me, there's a lot of nowhere in North Dakota—nowhere near a canola field," she adds.
That likely means that transgenic canola plants are cross-pollinating in the wild—and swapping introduced genes. Although GM canola in the wild has been identified everywhere from Canada to Japan in previous research, this marks the first time such plants have been shown to be evolving in this way. "They had novel combinations of transgenic traits," Sagers says. "The most parsimonious explanation is these traits are stable outside of cultivation and they are evolving."
Escaped populations of such transgenic plants have generally died out quickly without continual replenishment from stray farm seeds in places such as Canada, but canola is capable of hybridizing with at least two—and possibly as many as eight—wild weed species in North America, including field mustard (Brassica rapa), which is a known agricultural pest. "Not only is it going to jump out of cultivation; there are sexually compatible weeds all over North America," Sagers says. Adds ecologist-in-training Meredith Schafer of U.A., who led the research, "It becomes a weed [farmers] can't control."
There has been no evidence to show that the herbicide resistance genes will either increase or decrease fitness to date. The finding provides, however, a warning for future genetic modifications that might increase fitness in all kinds of plants; it will be difficult to keep those traits on the farm and out of the wild. "The big concern is traits that would increase invasiveness or weediness, traits such as drought tolerance, salt tolerance, heat or cold tolerance" says weed scientist Carol Mallory-Smith of Oregon State University—all the traits that Monsanto and others are currently developing to help crops adapt to climate change. "These traits would have the possibility of expanding a species' range." In the case of canola, consider it done—at least in North Dakota.
This is not the first transgenic crop to escape into the wild in the U.S.; herbicide-resistant turf grass being tested in Oregon spread as well in 2006. And GM canola is not a regulated plant, "therefore no protocols are required by the regulatory agencies to reduce or prevent escape," notes ecologist Allison Snow of The Ohio State University. "The next question is: 'So what?' What difference does it make if the feral canola or any species that hybridize with it have two transgenes for herbicide resistance?"
Canola modified to resist either the herbicide glufosinate (brand name Liberty) or glyphosate (brand name Roundup) has been available in the U.S. since 1989—and unregulated since 1998 and 1999, respectively for the two herbicides. "These results are not new for Canadian researchers and to be expected if two types of transgenic herbicide-resistant canola are commercially grown," says Suzanne Warwick of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, a government agency.
A common source for GM canola in the wild is seed that has scattered during harvest or fallen off a truck during transport. "Because about 90 percent of the U.S. and Canadian canola crop is biotech, it is reasonable to expect a survey of roadside canola to show similar levels of biotech plants," said Tom Nickson, environmental policy lead at Monsanto, in a prepared statement.
Nor does Monsanto claim ownership of the escaped plants, even those with multiple transgenes, according to company spokesman John Combest. "It has never been, nor will it be, Monsanto policy to exercise its patent rights where trace amounts of our patented traits are present in fields as a result of inadvertent means," although researchers would have to obtain a license from the company to work with the GM plant.
It remains to be seen how much sexual mingling such transgenic plants do; U.A.'s Sagers plans to do greenhouse trials starting in a few weeks. But it does provide a compelling example of how genes might move through a given population. "This is a good model for the influence of agriculture on the evolution of native plants," she says. "We can imagine gene flow to native species. If we can imagine it happening, it probably happens."
* Malaysia CO2 project aims to preserve 100,000 ha of forest
* Deal with tribes aims to boost livelihoods, incomes
* But threat remains from illegal loggers
David Fogarty Reuters AlertNet 6 Aug 10;
SINGAPORE, Aug 6 (Reuters) - An Australian carbon services company has signed a deal with nine Malaysian tribal leaders to certify carbon offsets from a project aimed at preserving more than 100,000 hectares of tropical forest.
The deal allows the tribes in Sarawak state on the island of Borneo to earn a share of the proceeds from the sale of carbon offsets to help them manage and protect the forest over a period of 20 years, payments potentially worth millions of dollars.
Forests soak up large amounts of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming, and preserving the remaining tropical forests in developing countries is seen as a key part of the fight against climate change.
The project aims to improve the livelihoods of at least 10,000 people in 24 villages and is part of a U.N.-backed scheme called reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation.
The United Nations hopes REDD will lead to a multi-billion dollar trade in forest carbon credits and the Malaysian project is one of several pioneering investments aimed at building up the REDD sector.
REDD seeks to reward developing nations and indigenous forest owners with carbon credit payments to save their forests. There are about a dozen REDD projects in neighbouring Indonesia. The firm, Shift2Neutral, said it will work with the tribes and a local NGO to help manage the forest, survey the area and access the carbon stored in the trees and soil. The project would be certified under an enhanced form of REDD that also aims to reward any enhancement to a forest's carbon stock.
A long-term management plan would also be created and a committee of comprising tribal leaders, investors and local and company officials would guide how the money is spent with the aim of improving livelihoods and curbing incentives for logging.
"It's a 50-50 deal. We ensure they get their funding and they use that funding as per an economic development committee that is established," said Brett Goldsworthy, chairman of Shift2Neutral, adding the aim was to make sure the money wasn't squandered.
The tribes are the customary owners of the land and the legal owners of the carbon but many still have subsistence livelihoods.
"You've got tribal people who have barely got any money and they are desperate for money for things like medical aid," Goldsworthy said on Friday.
"What we will do with our funding is to start instigating other programmes along the lines of medical, food aid, schooling, clothing to make sure there is a sustainable future," he said.
PROTECTION
Besides boosting incomes, better monitoring of the forest was also crucial.
"The main threat they face is illegal loggers," he said.
"It is key to get more forestry people involved for the protection of the forest and having checks and measures on their boundary borders to ensure that people aren't getting through."
Goldsworthy said he hoped the carbon survey and management plan for the area would be finished by next year, followed by the issuance of the first batch of carbon offsets called VERs, or voluntary emissions reductions, to be sold to investors.
It was too early to provide an accurate estimate of the number of VERs per hectare from the Sarawak site, he said.
"As the land is first-growth vegetation one could expect 50 per hectare but again we have not provided anything at this point."
Avoided deforestation VERs fetch anything from $10 to $30 each depending on the project, country and risk.
He said the company is developing similar projects in the Philippines, Indonesia and South Africa with VER buyers being governments, large corporates and wealthy individuals. (Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
New strain can kill 80 percent of an oyster bed in a week, experts say.
Rachel Kaufman, National Geographic News 6 Aug 10;
Don't worry—oyster herpes isn't a new side effect of eating "the food of love."
The incurable, deadly virus is, however, alarming fishing communities in Europe, where oyster herpes seems to be spreading—and could go on spreading as seas continue to warm, experts say.
In July lab testing of farmed oysters detected the first known United Kingdom cases of herpes in the shellfish. The virus has already killed between 20 to 100 percent of breeding Pacific oysters in some French beds in 2008, 2009, and 2010, according to the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (Ifremer).
The reason for oyster herpes's emergence in Pacific oysters off England remains a mystery, though global warming may have played a part, experts speculate.
A new strain named Ostreid herpesvirus 1 (OsHV-1) μvar (mew-var), the virus remains dormant until water temperatures exceed 16 C [61 degrees F], which U.K. waters reach in the height of summer, according to Kevin Denham of the British government's Fish Health Inspectorate.
With that in mind, Tristan Renault, director of Ifremer's genetic and pathology lab, said that global warming "could be an explanation of the appearance of this particular type of the virus."
Though all herpes strains are DNA-based viruses, herpes, which infects everything from cows to clams to monkeys, comes in a wide variety of species, each with their own unique set of symptoms. Among humans, perhaps the best known forms are the Herpes simplex viruses, which are spread through close contact and can manifest themselves as oral and genital blisters.
Ostreid herpes viruses are known to affect not only oysters but also clams, scallops, and other mollusks, according to Renault.
The New Oyster Herpes
Herpes-infected shellfish aren't new to science, but in 2008—the first year a huge increase in mortality rates was detected in France—Ifremer detected a new variation of the virus.
Like the other strains of herpes that affect mollusks, OsHV-1 μvar attacks young oysters during breeding season, when the mollusks' bodies are so focused on producing sperm and eggs that the oysters have no energy to maintain an immune system, Renault said.
But OsHV-1 μvar is "more virulent than strains we identified before," Renault said, adding that the virus is so efficient at killing its hosts that it can wipe out 80 percent of the oysters in a bed within a week.
That death rate is the only outward sign something's wrong, he added, because a oyster herpes have no visible symptoms, and diagnosis is possible only through lab testing.
Oyster Herpes Appears in Britain
Though oyster herpes can't be transmitted to humans, it does threaten the fishing industry, since dead oysters are unsafe for eating—and that's exactly what worries oyster harvesters such as Seasalter Shellfish.
Based in the southeastern English city of Whitstable, where oysters have been harvested for centuries, Seasalter this summer became the first company to discover the herpes-ravaged oysters in the U.K.
The finding prompted an investigation by the Fish Health Inspectorate, which detected the virus and learned that Seasalter had employed equipment previously used in France to refurbish oyster beds.
"We were told it had been out of the water for a number of years," Denham said. "Nevertheless there's still a possibility" that the virus could have traveled from infected French beds via the gear. Possible culprits also include other reused equipment or water transferred from an infected area.
Could Oyster Herpes Spread?
To keep the U.K. oyster-herpes outbreak from spreading, the British government has banned the shipping of oysters out of affected areas, most of which, like Whitstable, are around the mouth of the River Thames in southeastern England.
No matter what measures are taken, Denham said, oyster herpes is going to be tough to kick. Even if all the infected Pacific oysters are removed from oyster farms, wild Pacific oysters will still be present in surrounding waters, perhaps acting as "a reservoir for infection."
It's unlikely, though, that OsHV-1 μvar would end up in U.S. oyster beds, Renault said, because the United States doesn't typically import oysters from Europe.
But a less virulent, herpes-like virus has been detected in farmed oysters off California. If sea temperatures continue to rise, he said, perhaps μvar or something like it could emerge in U.S. waters too.
Stuart Williams Yahoo News 6 Aug 10;
MOSCOW (AFP) – A noxious smog from spreading wildfires choked Moscow Friday as Russia moved to protect military and nuclear sites from the relentless march of its worst ever blazes that have already killed 52 people.
The defence ministry ordered the evacuation of missiles from a depot outside Moscow as the authorities warned of the risk of fires reactivating contamination in an area hit by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Moscow residents and tourists, many wearing masks, wheezed as they made their way round the city in the thickest smog to hit the capital since Russia's worst heatwave in decades broke out in July.
The capital's most famous landmarks like the spires of the Kremlin towers or the onion domes of Orthodox churches were largely invisible from a distance. Some flights at its Domodedovo international airport were being diverted.
"I woke up this morning, looked out of the window and saw a monstrous situation," declared President Dmitry Medvedev. "We all want this heatwave to pass but this is not in our hands, it is decided above."
He called on Moscovites to show patience, although he acknowledged "we're suffocating, you can't breathe".
The emergencies ministry said the total area ablaze was down slightly at 179,600 hectares (444,000 acres) and for the first time it was putting out more fires than were appearing.
The fires have claimed the lives of 52 people, the ministry of health said Friday in an updated toll. The emergencies ministry called for volunteers to join the firefighting efforts.
NASA images have shown the fires are easily visible from space and the US space agency said the smoke had at times reached 12 kilometres (six miles) into the stratosphere.
A particular worry for the Russian authorities has been fires around the city of Sarov in central Russia which houses the country's main nuclear research centre. It is still closed to foreigners, as in Soviet times.
The Russian nuclear agency has said that all radioactive and explosive materials have been removed from the centre and the emergencies ministry has assured the public it has the situation under control.
The defence ministry meanwhile ordered weapons, artillery and missiles at a munitions depot at Alabinsk, about 70 kilometres (45 miles) southwest of Moscow, to be transferred to a secure site.
Military prosecutors said Friday that a fire on July 29 had destroyed a paratroops base outside Moscow, the second confirmed case of the wildfires hitting a major strategic site.
Medvedev has already warned Russia's top two naval commanders and sacked a string of officers for failing to halt a fire last week that destroyed 13 warehouses and 17 storage areas at a naval logistics base.
Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu said his forces were also working flat out to prevent the fires spreading to the Bryansk region in western Russia where the soil is still contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
"The government should pay a great deal of attention to the protection not only of military bases and science towns but to these places as well," said Nikolai Shmatkov of the World Wildlife Fund, Interfax reported.
However French experts said inhalation of smoke and fumes posed a greater health problem than any radioactivity released in the air.
"The radioactivity in these woods isn't sufficient to pose health problems. If the forests burn, then local residents will be exposed to two times the normal radiation," said Jean-Rene Jourdain, a researcher at France's IRSN nuclear safety institute.
Russia's chief doctor Gennady Onishchenko said 78 children's holiday camps had been closed due to the heatwave and smoke and 10,000 children taken home to their parents.
The mortality rate in Moscow soared by 50 percent in July compared to the same period last year, according to Yevgenia Smirnova, an official from the Moscow registry office.
Germany has closed its embassy in Moscow until further notice because of the smog, a foreign ministry spokesman said Friday.
Travel agents reported that all the package holidays abroad for the coming weekend had been snapped up by Muscovites desperate to escape their smog-filled city, the Interfax news agency reported.
The country is also facing a severe drought that has destroyed 10 million hectares of its arable land and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday banned exports from the world's third wheat exporter until year end.
Planes diverted, offices close as smoke chokes Moscow
* Pollution levels in Moscow soar to five times normal
* Planes diverted, office workers sent home
* Acrid smoke blankets Red Square
Amie Ferris-Rotman and Conor Humphries Reuters AlertNet 6 Aug 10;
MOSCOW, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Dense clouds of acrid smoke from peat and forest fires choked Russia's capital on Friday, seeping into homes and offices, diverting planes and prompting exhausted Muscovites to wear surgical masks to filter the foul air.
Air pollution surged to five times normal levels in the city of 10.5 million, the highest sustained contamination since Russia's worst heatwave in over a century began a month ago.
"It feels like I`m in a burning house and I can`t escape," said Yelena Petrenko, 32, who used a handkerchief to cover her mouth because drugstores she visited had run out of facemasks.
Officials urged Muscovites to stay indoors because of the dangerous levels of carbon monoxide and fine particles in the air. Weather forecasts said the smoke, which has reached even underground metro stations, would persist until Monday.
On Red Square, smoke shrouded the onion domes of St Basil's cathedral. The weekly changing of the guard ceremony in the Kremlin was cancelled for Saturday.
NASA satellite images showed a 3,000 km-long (1,850 mile) smoke cloud covering swathes of European Russia.
Moscow temperatures reached 36 Celsius (96.8 Fahrenheit) on Friday, breaking a daily record for the fifth straight day.
The deadliest wildfires in nearly four decades have killed at least 52 people and left more than 3,500 homeless as entire villages of wooden homes burned down, official figures say.
The true toll from the smoke and heatwave may be much higher. Interfax news agency quoted an "informed source" on Friday saying death rates in Moscow surged nearly 30 percent in July because of the "disastrous heat and smoke cloud".
Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has been silent on the smoke engulfing his city. A city government spokeswoman said he had left on holiday earlier in the week.
One of the world's top grains producers, Russia has announced a temporary ban on exports after crops were ravaged by the dry weather. The news sent world wheat prices soaring.
Despite a huge effort involving more than 160,000 people fighting fires, authorities appeared to be losing the battle.
The size of peat fires burning in the Moscow region almost doubled from 37.5 hectares on Thursday to 65.7 hectares on Friday, the regional Emergencies Ministry branch said.
The emergency has prompted the country's enfeebled opposition to complain of poor fire safety readiness and a slow, ineffective government response.
President Dmitry Medvedev visited an ambulance station in Moscow on Friday and expressed solidarity with smoke-choked Muscovites.
"I woke up this morning and looked around -- it's a monstrous situation," Medvedev said. "Have patience, because I hope this will all end."
AIRCRAFT DIVERTED
Russia's state-controlled media have been at pains to show a vigorous government effort to fight the blazes and have avoided detailed reporting on the hazards to health.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has toured fire-stricken regions promising generous compensation to residents and ordering officials to step up efforts to extinguish the blazes.
The government has warned that the fires could pose a nuclear threat by releasing radioactive particles buried in trees and plants by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
A senior Emergencies Ministry official, Vladimir Stepankov, said the most difficult fire situations were in the regions ringing Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod, including the closed town of Sarov, home to a nuclear arms facility.
Russia's nuclear chief on Thursday assured Medvedev that all explosive and radioactive material had been removed.
Sarov's firefighting headquarters said firefghters were trying to extinguish two blazes inside the perimeter of the closed city on Friday, while soldiers cut firebreaks in a burning forest to the south, state-run news agency RIA reported.
The first Soviet nuclear weapon was made in 1949 in Sarov at the Institute of Experimental Physics, which remains the main nuclear design and production facility in Russia.
With visibility low, Russia's aviation authority said at least 60 planes had been diverted to as far away as Ukraine from Moscow's busy airports. Flights and trains out of Moscow were booked solid as residents tried to flee the smoke.
Office workers were sent home as smoke crept into buildings. A spokesman for Russia's No. 1 retailer X5 said all 1,500 staff were ordered home.
"I can smell smoke right here in the office," an employee at a bank, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.
A trader at another bank said smoke had entered the building and staff were given permission to leave. (Additional reporting by Alexei Anishchuk, Nastassia Astrasheuskaya, Maria Plis, Dmitry Sergeyev and Andrey Ostroukh; writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman, Michael Stott and Steve Gutterman; Editing by Alison Williams and Mark Heinrich)
* Heavy rains expected over flood areas
* Zardari damages his political career
* Rains complicate relief efforts
Waseem Sattar Reuters AlertNet 6 Aug 10;
SUKKUR, Pakistan, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Heavy rains are expected to lash areas of Pakistan already devastated by the worst floods in 80 years, probably intensifying a calamity that has cast more doubts about the leadership of President Asif Ali Zardari.
"We're forecasting widespread rains in the country, especially in flood-affected areas," Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, director general of the department, told Reuters, adding the downpours are expected in the next two days.
At least 1,600 people have been killed by the flooding. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said 12 million people have been affected in two provinces hit by the floods and figures were not yet available for southern Sindh.
The floods have stoked popular anger at absent Zardari, who went ahead with state visits to Europe at the height of the disaster, which swallowed up entire villages.
"This trip seems to have been the litmus test, and any benefit of the doubt that the president had remaining in his favour, has now entirely ceased to exist in the eyes of the public," said Fasi Zaka, a radio talk show host and columnist.
The floods have also inundated crop-producing areas, dealing a crippling blow to the agricultural-based economy.
Floods are expected to heavily damage mainly rural areas in Sindh after roaring down from the northwest and through the central agricultural heartland of Punjab, along a path at least 1,000 km (621 miles) long.
Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, addressing the nation for the first time since the disaster struck after visiting flooded areas, described the loss of human life and infrastructure as "colossal" and appealed for international aid.
Many Pakistanis were already critical of Zardari's leadership of a country where militants pose a security threat despite offensives, poverty is widespread and corruption is rampant.
U.S. officials, aware of the impact hurricane Katrina had on the fortunes of former President George W. Bush, have privately expressed frustration with Zardari's refusal to return to Pakistan and personally handle the crisis.
In a conference call with U.S.-based journalists, U.S. ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson sidestepped questions over the political impact of Zardari's absence.
Pressed on whether it would have been more helpful if Zardari had stayed in Pakistan, she said: "I don't know whether that would have been helpful or not. What we are trying to do is focus on getting supplies to people stranded by the flood and that is what the Pakistani government is trying to do."
Pakistan is a key U.S. ally, and its stability is seen as crucial to battling a Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.
Food supplies are becoming a serious issue. In many areas, drinking water wells are also full of mud. U.N. officials said more than half a million people had been evacuated in Sindh.
ZARDARI ABSENT
One Punjab village saw a mass exodus, as families piled carts, pulled by camels or tractors, with their livestock, belongings and relatives and headed for higher ground.
Some people were reluctant to leave collapsed villages for safer ground.
"I didn't intend to leave but they sent me out forcibly. I don't know what will happen to my hens," said an elderly woman being led through deep water by her son in a Punjab village.
In Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces alone, 650,000 houses have been either damaged or destroyed in the floods. Reconstruction will require at least $2.5 billion, said NDMA.
Zardari is currently in Britain for a visit, where he and Prime Minister David Cameron pledged to do more to fight Islamist militancy, brushing over a diplomatic spat that followed British criticism of Pakistani efforts in countering extremism. [nLDE675108]
Many Pakistanis, however, were not impressed.
"Our president prefers to go abroad rather than supervising the whole relief operation in such a crisis," said Ghulam Rasool, a resident of the town of Sukkur. "They don't care about us. They have their own agendas and interests."
The army's spearheading of the relief efforts reinforces a view that only the military can take charge in crises.
Nevertheless, the military, which has ruled Pakistan for more than half of its history, is unlikely to make a grab for power. For one, analysts say, it is preoccupied with the threat of Taliban insurgents who have survived several army offensives.
Islamabad is also heavily dependent on Western countries such as the United States, which want a stable Pakistan to help end the war in Afghanistan.
Across the country, Pakistanis fended for themselves.
Many are out in the open and are likely to be displaced again, just like cattle-breeder Khair Mohammad. "We don't have anything, no one has given us even a single penny," he said, standing under a rain that had not stopped all morning. (Additional reporting by Augustine Anthony and Kamran Haider in ISLAMABAD and Junaid Khan in Swat Valley; Stephanie Nebehay in GENEVA; Sue Pleming in WASHINGTON; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Peter Graff)
Marlowe Hood Yahoo News 6 Aug 10;
PARIS (AFP) – UN climate talks tasked with curbing the threat of global warming are backsliding, delegates from both rich and developing nations said Friday at the close of a week-long session in Bonn.
Even as evidence mounts that deadly impacts are upon us, negotiators said, chances for a compromise deal under the 194-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) are slipping away amid furious finger pointing.
"These negotiations have if anything gone backwards," said the EU's climate action commissioner Connie Hedegaard.
"This imbalance is not helpful and could seriously endanger the prospects of securing the successful outcome the world needs from the Cancun climate conference next December" in Mexico.
"At this pace the world will simply collectively miss the train," she warned.
Record global temperatures, forest fires in Russia, lethal floods in Pakistan "are all consistent with the kind of changes we could expect from climate change, and they will get worse if we don't act quickly," said US negotiator Jonathan Pershing.
"Unfortunately, what we have seen over and over this week is that some countries are walking back from the progress made in Copenhagen," he told journalists, referring to the 11th-hour accord hammered out at the climate summit in December.
The Copenhagen Accord enshrined the goal of capping the increase of global temperatures at 2.0 degree Celsius (3.6 degree Fahrenheit), but did not muster the commitments needed to attain it.
It also pledged long-term financing to the tune of 100 billion dollars a year to help poor countries green their economies and cope with climate change impacts, but without specifying where the money would come from.
Dessima Williams of Grenada, speaking for the 43-nation Association of Small Island States, said she was "greatly concerned" by the slow pace of the talks.
"The situation on the ground for all our countries is worsening," she said at a press conference.
But even in areas where agreement had been reached, such as technology transfer and forest management, "there seems to be some backsliding. This is very lamentable and very unhealthy," she said.
The likely failure of the US Congress to pass climate legislation this year has also cast a pall over the negotiations, many delegates said.
"I've heard a lot of people say it is not encouraging for the process," Wittoeck said.
Major emerging nations such as China and India have resisted legally binding requirements to cut emissions, saying that rich countries historically responsible for global warming must take the lead.
Efforts to hammer out a draft negotiating text ahead of the next major climate summit at the end of the year in Cancun also suffered a blow, with many countries throwing in last-minute additions.
Only one more negotiating session -- from October 4-9 in Tianjin -- remains before Cancun, which is expected, at best, to finalise some of the building blocks for a future, legally-binding deal.
The first six months of 2010 registered the warmest combined global land and ocean surface temperatures since 1880, when reliable temperature readings began, according the US government scientists.
Arctic ice cover -- another critical yardstick of global warming -- had also retreated more than ever before by July 1, putting it on track to shrink beyond its smallest area to date.
Without steep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, the global thermometer could rise by 6.0 degrees Celsius (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial levels, making large swathes of the planet unlivable, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned.
Voluntary national pledges made in Copenhagen would likely cap that increase at 3.5 C to 4.0 C (6.3 F to 7.2 F), still fall far short of the 2.0 C (3.6 C) limit that most scientists agree is the threshold for dangerous warming.
U.N. climate deal retreats as Bonn talks end
* Countries mull new text, seen larger than needs to be
* Backtracking, insertions, U.S. blamed for slow progress
* Lot of work left to do in China, then Mexico
Nina Chestney Reuters AlertNet 6 Aug 10;
BONN, Aug 6 (Reuters) - U.N. climate talks have moved backward rather than forward toward a hoped-for deal later this year as nations make slow progress on pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions and add more proposals to the working document.
As talks in Bonn on a new climate treaty draw to an end on Friday, there is still a lot of work to be done at remaining meetings in Tianjin, China and Mexico at the end of the year.
"I came to Bonn hopeful of a deal in Cancun, but at this point I am very concerned as I have seen some countries walking back from progress made in Copenhagen," said Jonathan Pershing, the U.S. deputy special climate envoy.
A new climate text under discussion has increased to 34 pages from 17 as new proposals are added or old ones reinserted.
The blueprint contains a set of draft decisions for final U.N. talks in Cancun, Mexico in November, including the impact of agriculture on emissions, carbon market mechanisms and the mechanics and impact of moving to a low-emissions future.
The European Union's co-lead negotiator, Artur Runge-Metzger, accused some countries of adding text in a "tit for tat" way and said, "It is important in Tianjin to turn that spirit around."
U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres said the text would not be allowed to grow further and that some progress had been made towards deciding on the shape of a future deal.
"If you see the bigger picture, we have progress here in Bonn. It is hard to cook a meal without a pot, and governments are much closer to actually making the pot," she said.
But the Climate Action Network, a coalition of about 500 non-profit organisations, said heads of state need to give their representatives clearer direction to concentrate on areas where they can find convergence to make real progress in Cancun.
SLOW PACE
The pace of negotiations has slowed as some countries have gone back on issues agreed last year in Copenhagen such as monitoring and measuring greenhouse gas emissions and ways of cutting emissions from rich nations and developing countries.
"The mitigation discussion even went backwards and became more polarized," said Gordon Shepherd at campaign group WWF.
Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) was also reopened over the definition of what it covered.
The Alliance of Small Island States complained rich nations' pledges to cut emissions fell short of what was needed.
"We cannot anticipate any major shift from what we had in Copenhagen, which was a 12 to 18 percent reduction when the IPCC called for 25 percent. We are far from that in the aggregate figures," said the group's chair, Dessima Williams.
The U.S. said the talks focused too much on putting the onus only on rich nations to deliver cuts, rather than all countries.
Climate finance is also an area of disagreement. The Copenhagen Accord last December set a long-term goal of raising $100 billion a year by 2020 to avert the effects of climate change and a short-term goal of $10 billion a year by 2012.
The architecture of that finance is far from defined and Pershing said some countries were seeking "staggering sums out of line with reality."
Another setback to the talks arose from the lack of legislation to curb emissions in the United States.
The U.S. Senate dropped efforts to put emissions curbs in an energy bill that is now focused narrowly on reforming offshore drilling, but the country has said it will stick by its 2020 target for reducing emissions.
"It has been taken as a signal by some that the process should be slowed or we should wait for the U.S.," Williams said. (Editing by Jane Baird)
Climate talks appear to slip backward
Arthur Max, Associated Press Yahoo News 6 Aug 10;
BONN, Germany – Global climate talks appeared to have slipped backward after five days of negotiations in Bonn, with rich and poor countries exchanging charges of reneging on agreements they made last year to contain greenhouse gases.
Delegates complained that reversals in the talks put negotiations back by a year, even before minimal gains were scored at the Copenhagen summit last December.
"It's a little bit like a broken record," said European Union negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger. "It's like a flashback," agreed Raman Mehta, of the Action Aid environment group. "The discourse is the same level" as before Copenhagen.
The sharp divide between rich and poor nations over how best to fight climate change — a clash that crippled the Copenhagen summit — remains, and bodes ill for any deal at the next climate convention in Cancun, Mexico, which begins in November.
"At this point, I am very concerned," said chief U.S. delegate Jonathan Pershing. "Unfortunately, what we have seen over and over this week is that some countries are walking back from progress made in Copenhagen, and what was agreed there."
Dessima Williams of Granada, who speaks for island states, charged that rich countries were "backsliding" on pledges of help to the poorest countries. Devastating floods in Pakistan, deadly fires and drought in Russia, a food crisis in West Africa — and reports that the first decade of this century was the hottest on record — provided a stark backdrop to the talks.
"The situation in all of our countries is worsening," Williams said.
In Bonn, negotiating text doubled in length over the last week as countries put forward claims that had been deleted last year and delegations jockeyed for last-minute advantage before heading into the final stage of negotiations before Cancun.
Christiana Figueres, the top U.N. climate official, said the Bonn meeting was the last chance for countries to put forward maximum national demands, but they must "radically narrow down their choices" at the next meeting. One more round of talks is scheduled for October in China.
Expectations for Cancun already have been deflated to avoid the sense of fiasco that followed Copenhagen, which had been invested with high hopes of a comprehensive deal and with the efforts of 120 world leaders who attended, including President Barack Obama.
Copenhagen ended with a three-page political statement pledging to limit the rise of the Earth's average temperature to 2 degrees Celsius (3.8 F) above levels recorded before industries began pumping carbon dioxide into the air 200 years ago. It promised rich nations would help developing countries slow the growth of their emissions, while reducing their own.
Figueres said the objective of Cancun was a set of operational decisions that could later be turned into an international treaty. They include the transfer of billions of dollars a year and cutting-edge energy technology from industrial to developing countries and giving them the skills to adapt to changing weather patterns, she said.
She challenged the view that the Bonn talks were a step backward. Delegates may feel let down if their issues of interest had not advanced, "but if you see the bigger picture, we have progress."
Some of the problems occurred when countries tried to translate the intentions of the Copenhagen Accord into legal documents. Runge-Metzger, the EU delegate, said China objected to U.S. suggestions on monitoring Chinese actions to contain emissions, saying they went too far in infringing on Chinese sovereignty.
Pershing declined to give details of disputes raised in closed-door negotiations, but he said major developing countries were backing away from commitments to slow the growth of their greenhouse gas emissions, and now say emission controls should apply only to industrial countries.
China, India, Brazil and South Africa were among the major developing nations at the Copenhagen summit. Since then, China has become the world's largest consumer of energy, to add to its earlier position of being the world's biggest greenhouse gas polluter.
Another point of contention, Pershing said, was an agreement in Copenhagen for wealthy countries to raise $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poor countries adapt to climate change. Now poor nations say that is not enough.
Williams, the Granada delegate, confirmed the $100 billion figure was likely to be challenged.
"It sounds very large," she said. "For the donor countries it is a lot to ask taxpayers to pay. But you must weigh that against the need" of countries that may be devastated by the effects of global warming.
Williams said one of the reasons for the setback in the talks was the recent failure of the U.S. Congress to pass a climate bill.
Some countries argued for a slowdown in the talks because the lack of legislation cast doubt on Washington's international commitment.
"That has been taken as a signal by some that nothing can occur," Williams said.
Pershing assured the negotiators, in public and in private talks, that Obama remained committed to reducing U.S. carbon emissions 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, and he had not given up on passing a sweeping climate and energy bill.
In the meantime, "we have multiple tools at our disposal. We will use all of those tools," he told reporters.
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