Dick Cheney Defends the Use of Torture and Claims Waterboarding ‘Produced Phenomenal Results’
September 11, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media I guess former Vice President Dick Cheney wasn’t satisfied with only running in front of the cameras on every single network in town to try to hawk his new book and let everyone know how proud he is of being a war criminal. No, he decided to spend over an hour at the American Enterprise Institute this week as well for an interview with his former stenographer biographer, Stephen Hayes. Dick Cheney defends use of torture on al-Qaida leaders : Dick Cheney , the former US vice-president, has claimed Osama bin Laden would not have been tracked down and killed if it had not been for information gathered by torturing captured al-Qaida leaders. In a robust defence of what he called “enhanced interrogation”, Cheney said it produced “phenomenal” results and dismissed the Obama administration ‘s investigations of its legality as “objectionable” and a “terrible precedent”. Speaking ahead of ceremonies to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the former vice-president rejected accusations that the use of torture undermined the moral authority of the US overseas. “The notion that somehow the United States was wildly torturing anybody is not true,” he said. “One of the most controversial techniques is waterboarding … Three people were waterboarded. Not dozens, not hundreds. Three. And the one who was subjected the most often to that was Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, and it produced phenomenal results for us.” Khaled Sheikh Mohammed is awaiting trial before a US tribunal accused of being the architect of the 9/11 attacks. But while Cheney, who was appearing at a question and answer session at the conservative American Enterprise Institute to promote his new memoir, In My Time, insisted only a small number of men were subjected to “enhanced interrogation”, he made no mention of the rendition programme in which the US abducted individuals and handed them over to a third country for questioning under torture. Cheney said that waterboarding Khaled Sheikh Mohammed “helped produce the intelligence that allowed us to get Osama bin Laden”. As they noted, Hayes allowed Cheney to give Bush credit for the intelligence that might have led to killing Osama bin Laden, even thought his administration wasn’t all that concerned about him as has been noted over and over for years now — Flashback: Seven years ago today, Bush received ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.’ memo. : Today marks seven years since the day President Bush received a President’s Daily Brief entitled “ Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S. ” (See the memo here .) At the time, Bush was vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, TX and stayed on vacation the rest of August 2001. Here’s how the administration reacted , according to the 9/11 Commission report… Cheney was also apparently very proud of our country’s use of torture as Think Progress noted here — Cheney Claims Waterboarding ‘Produced Phenomenal Results’ : Dick Cheney wrapped up his book tour on home turf this morning at the American Enterprise Institute. The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes — the official Cheney biographer and famous peddler of the false “ connection ” between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and al Qaeda — moderated the event and eventually got to the sticky topic of torture. In what he called “a thoughtful critique,” Hayes asked Cheney to respond to those who argue “the things that we did amounted to torture and the sense that maybe the moral position of the United States was eroded because of the things that we did here in this country.” Cheney dismissed the question, saying they waterboarded only “a handful” of people, which, he claimed, “produced phenomenal results”: CHENEY: When we get into the whole area of one of the most controversial techniques, waterboarding. … Three people were waterboarded — not dozens, not hundreds. Three. And the one who was subjected most often to that was Khalid Sheik Mohammad and it produced phenomenal results for us . There are reports that the intelligence committee did of the results of the program which were declassified at my request and are now available on the internet that talk about the quality of information that we got as a result of our enhanced interrogation techniques applied to a handful of individuals. We are talking about only a handful of people who were indeed part of the al Qaeda organization. The “reports” Cheney is presumably referring to are two CIA documents the agency released in 2009 — at Cheney’s request. However, they do not prove torture worked and in fact, they “ actually suggest the opposite of Cheney’s contention: that non-abusive techniques actually helped elicit some of the most important information the documents cite in defending the value of the CIA’s interrogations.” The bottom line is that there is no evidence to support Cheney’s claim that torture “produced phenomenal results.” Here’s more of Haye’s softball interview with Cheney. Click here to view this media
Continue reading …‘Moneyball’: Billy Beane Talks Brad Pitt, ‘Surreal’ Movie Experience At Toronto Premiere
September 11, 2011 No Comment
With a line bursting with stargazers snaking all the way around a massive public square, the Toronto International Film Fest premiere of “Moneyball” was a raucous scene that turned into a kind of makeshift victory parade for Brad Pitt, the baseball film’s magnetic leading man. That the film celebrates a true story — and features Pitt playing an actual person — seemed to have been forgotten for the moment, such was the euphoria of the crowd’s feting of the actor. So, in slipped Billy Beane, the trailblazing Oakland Athletics general manager whom Pitt portrays in the film, virtually unnoticed ahead of the “Moneyball” cast. Luckily, HuffPost was able to flag him down to talk about the movie, his experience during its production and what he thought about Pitt’s portrayal. (To read quotes from the film’s press conference earlier in the day, click here). HuffPost: Have you seen the film yet? What did you think? Beane: It was good. I got used to it after a while. It was surreal. I was a little desensitized after the third of fourth showing. It’s good. HuffPost: How was the experience of making the film? Beane: They were really respectful the whole time, because I said at the beginning, I have a day job. And they were very very, not only respectful, but they handled everything in a first class way, starting with Sony to Bennett to Brad to the producers, Mike DeLuca and Rachel Horovitz, and so, at the end of the day, it was relatively painless. HuffPost: When the first try at the film collapsed, did you think it was done? Or did you think it would come back? Beane: You know, I did think it was. But a month after that — Brad made it clear from the start that this was something he was really passionate about, which gave me a lot of confidence actually in ultimately what would end up happening, and so it became apparent, [even though] that they sort of shut down production a couple of years ago, they were going to get this made. HuffPost: They delve into your past as a prospect and things like that; how did you feel about them analyzing your psyche? Beane: You know, I’ve gotten used to it. It’s part of the deal. I didn’t realize — well, I guess I’ll wait for everyone to see — but at the end of the day, I think I was pleased with the movie. HuffPost: How do you think Brad did, playing you? Beane: I haven’t figured out quite how to answer that. Listen, it’s incredibly flattering and I haven’t come up with the right answer but the best thing to say is that he had his hands full from the beginning, so we’ll see if he pulled it off. HuffPost: Now, non-baseball fans are going to think of Brad Pitt as you, but then there’s still you, running a baseball team. Beane: Yeah, that was the hardest thing to sort of juggle, and at the beginning, that’s why everyone was great. I said listen, I have a career and something that I’m currently doing and something I love doing. And they were once again, from Brad to Bennett to Sony, were very very respectful of that, and from that standpoint, it really wasn’t a distraction. Our organization had a great time with it. HuffPost: Once the book came out [in 2003] and you guys did really well, made the playoffs, obviously things changed around baseball. How do you think teams are going to react now to sabermetrics being glorified and that much more touted? Beane: Yeah, you know, when the book came out, certainly there was a part of that, but as I said, ultimately that’s part of the deal. HuffPost: You’re going to have to change your strategy again. Beane: Yeah, I mean, there are some really smart people running baseball teams and they have a lot of resources. All you have to do is look a little bit to the east between the Yankees and Red Sox, there are some really smart guys with money and they’re tough to compete with.
Continue reading …‘Moneyball’: Billy Beane Talks Brad Pitt, ‘Surreal’ Movie Experience At Toronto Premiere
September 11, 2011 No Comment
With a line bursting with stargazers snaking all the way around a massive public square, the Toronto International Film Fest premiere of “Moneyball” was a raucous scene that turned into a kind of makeshift victory parade for Brad Pitt, the baseball film’s magnetic leading man. That the film celebrates a true story — and features Pitt playing an actual person — seemed to have been forgotten for the moment, such was the euphoria of the crowd’s feting of the actor. So, in slipped Billy Beane, the trailblazing Oakland Athletics general manager whom Pitt portrays in the film, virtually unnoticed ahead of the “Moneyball” cast. Luckily, HuffPost was able to flag him down to talk about the movie, his experience during its production and what he thought about Pitt’s portrayal. (To read quotes from the film’s press conference earlier in the day, click here). HuffPost: Have you seen the film yet? What did you think? Beane: It was good. I got used to it after a while. It was surreal. I was a little desensitized after the third of fourth showing. It’s good. HuffPost: How was the experience of making the film? Beane: They were really respectful the whole time, because I said at the beginning, I have a day job. And they were very very, not only respectful, but they handled everything in a first class way, starting with Sony to Bennett to Brad to the producers, Mike DeLuca and Rachel Horovitz, and so, at the end of the day, it was relatively painless. HuffPost: When the first try at the film collapsed, did you think it was done? Or did you think it would come back? Beane: You know, I did think it was. But a month after that — Brad made it clear from the start that this was something he was really passionate about, which gave me a lot of confidence actually in ultimately what would end up happening, and so it became apparent, [even though] that they sort of shut down production a couple of years ago, they were going to get this made. HuffPost: They delve into your past as a prospect and things like that; how did you feel about them analyzing your psyche? Beane: You know, I’ve gotten used to it. It’s part of the deal. I didn’t realize — well, I guess I’ll wait for everyone to see — but at the end of the day, I think I was pleased with the movie. HuffPost: How do you think Brad did, playing you? Beane: I haven’t figured out quite how to answer that. Listen, it’s incredibly flattering and I haven’t come up with the right answer but the best thing to say is that he had his hands full from the beginning, so we’ll see if he pulled it off. HuffPost: Now, non-baseball fans are going to think of Brad Pitt as you, but then there’s still you, running a baseball team. Beane: Yeah, that was the hardest thing to sort of juggle, and at the beginning, that’s why everyone was great. I said listen, I have a career and something that I’m currently doing and something I love doing. And they were once again, from Brad to Bennett to Sony, were very very respectful of that, and from that standpoint, it really wasn’t a distraction. Our organization had a great time with it. HuffPost: Once the book came out [in 2003] and you guys did really well, made the playoffs, obviously things changed around baseball. How do you think teams are going to react now to sabermetrics being glorified and that much more touted? Beane: Yeah, you know, when the book came out, certainly there was a part of that, but as I said, ultimately that’s part of the deal. HuffPost: You’re going to have to change your strategy again. Beane: Yeah, I mean, there are some really smart people running baseball teams and they have a lot of resources. All you have to do is look a little bit to the east between the Yankees and Red Sox, there are some really smart guys with money and they’re tough to compete with.
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Even debt collectors or telemarketers aren’t this persistent. Thankfully. No surprise here: a Dutch woman is charged with stalking after placing an extreme number of phone calls to her former lover. The 42-year-old allegedly called her ex-boyfriend 65,000 times in a single year. She received no answer until last week – but it wasn’t the
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The Northwest Passage was, again, free of ice this summer and the polar region could be unfrozen in just 30 years Arctic sea ice has melted to a level not recorded since satellite observations started in 1972 – and almost certainly not experienced for at least 8,000 years, say polar scientists. Daily satellite sea-ice maps released by Bremen university physicists show that with a week’s more melt expected this year, the floating ice in the Arctic covered an area of 4.24 million square kilometres on 8 September. The previous one-day minimum was 4.27m sq km on 17 September 2007. The US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, which also tracks the extent of sea ice , has not posted data for a week but is expected to announce similar results in the next few days. The German researchers said the record melt was undoubtedly because of human-induced global warming. “The sea-ice retreat can no more be explained with the natural variability from one year to the next, caused by weather influence,” said Georg Heygster, head of the Institute of Environmental Physics at Bremen. “It seems to be clear that this is a further consequence of the man-made global warming with global consequences. Climate models show that the reduction is related to the man-made global warming, which, due to the albedo effect, is particularly pronounced in the Arctic,” he said. The albedo effect is related to a surface’s reflecting power – whiter sea ice reflects more of the sun’s heat back into space than darker seawater, which absorbs the sun’s heat and gets warmer. Floating Arctic sea ice naturally melts and re-freezes annually, but the speed of change in a generation has shocked scientists – it is now twice as great as it was in 1972, according to the NSIDC, with a decline of about 10% per decade. Arctic temperatures have risen more than twice as fast as the global average over the past half century. Separate, less reliable, research suggests that Arctic ice is in a downward spiral, declining in area but also thinning. Using records of air, wind and sea temperature, scientists from the Polar Science Centre of the University of Washington , Seattle, announced last week that the Arctic sea-ice volume reached its lowest ever level in 2010 and was on course to set more records this year. The new data suggests that the volume of sea ice last month appeared to be about 2,135 cubic miles – just half the average volume and 62% lower than the maximum volume of ice that covered the Arctic in 1979. The research will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research . “Ice volume is now plunging faster than it did at the same time last year when the record was set,” said Axel Schweiger. If current trends continue, a largely ice-free Arctic in the summer months is likely within 30 years –that is up to 40 years earlier than was anticipated in the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report. The last time the Arctic was uncontestably free of summertime ice was 125,000 years ago, at the height of the last major interglacial period, known as the Eemian. ” This stunning loss of Arctic sea ice is yet another wake-up call that climate change is here now and is having devastating effects around the world,” Shaye Wolf , climate science director at the Centre for Biological Diversity in San Francisco told journalists. Arctic ice plays a critical role in regulating Earth’s climate by reflecting sunlight and keeping the polar region cool. Retreating summer sea ice is widely described by scientists as both a measure and a driver of global warming, with negative impacts on a local and planetary scale. This year, both the North-west and North-east passages were mostly ice free, as they have been twice since 2008. Last month, the 74,000-tonne STI Heritage tanker passed through the North-east Passage with the assistance of ice breakers in just eight days on its way from Houston, Texas, to Thailand . The north-east sea route, which links the Atlantic to the Pacific, is likely to become a commercial ship operator’s favourite, saving thousands of miles and avoiding tolls on the Suez Canal tolls. Further evidence of dramatic change in the Arctic came last week from Alan Hubbard, a Welsh glaciologist at Aberystwyth University, who has been studying the Petermann glacier in northern Greenland for several years. The glacier, which covers about 6% of the icecap, is 186 miles (300km) long and up to 3,280ft (1km) high. In August last year, a 100 square-mile (260 sq km) block of ice calved from the glacier. Photographs show that by July this year it had melted and disappeared. “I was gobsmacked. It [was] like looking into the Grand Canyon full of ice and coming back two years later to find it full of water,” said Hubbard. Last year (2010) tied with 2005 as the warmest year on record. Climate change Arctic Glaciers Greenland Climate change Sea level Water transport John Vidal guardian.co.uk
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The Northwest Passage was, again, free of ice this summer and the polar region could be unfrozen in just 30 years Arctic sea ice has melted to a level not recorded since satellite observations started in 1972 – and almost certainly not experienced for at least 8,000 years, say polar scientists. Daily satellite sea-ice maps released by Bremen university physicists show that with a week’s more melt expected this year, the floating ice in the Arctic covered an area of 4.24 million square kilometres on 8 September. The previous one-day minimum was 4.27m sq km on 17 September 2007. The US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, which also tracks the extent of sea ice , has not posted data for a week but is expected to announce similar results in the next few days. The German researchers said the record melt was undoubtedly because of human-induced global warming. “The sea-ice retreat can no more be explained with the natural variability from one year to the next, caused by weather influence,” said Georg Heygster, head of the Institute of Environmental Physics at Bremen. “It seems to be clear that this is a further consequence of the man-made global warming with global consequences. Climate models show that the reduction is related to the man-made global warming, which, due to the albedo effect, is particularly pronounced in the Arctic,” he said. The albedo effect is related to a surface’s reflecting power – whiter sea ice reflects more of the sun’s heat back into space than darker seawater, which absorbs the sun’s heat and gets warmer. Floating Arctic sea ice naturally melts and re-freezes annually, but the speed of change in a generation has shocked scientists – it is now twice as great as it was in 1972, according to the NSIDC, with a decline of about 10% per decade. Arctic temperatures have risen more than twice as fast as the global average over the past half century. Separate, less reliable, research suggests that Arctic ice is in a downward spiral, declining in area but also thinning. Using records of air, wind and sea temperature, scientists from the Polar Science Centre of the University of Washington , Seattle, announced last week that the Arctic sea-ice volume reached its lowest ever level in 2010 and was on course to set more records this year. The new data suggests that the volume of sea ice last month appeared to be about 2,135 cubic miles – just half the average volume and 62% lower than the maximum volume of ice that covered the Arctic in 1979. The research will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research . “Ice volume is now plunging faster than it did at the same time last year when the record was set,” said Axel Schweiger. If current trends continue, a largely ice-free Arctic in the summer months is likely within 30 years –that is up to 40 years earlier than was anticipated in the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report. The last time the Arctic was uncontestably free of summertime ice was 125,000 years ago, at the height of the last major interglacial period, known as the Eemian. ” This stunning loss of Arctic sea ice is yet another wake-up call that climate change is here now and is having devastating effects around the world,” Shaye Wolf , climate science director at the Centre for Biological Diversity in San Francisco told journalists. Arctic ice plays a critical role in regulating Earth’s climate by reflecting sunlight and keeping the polar region cool. Retreating summer sea ice is widely described by scientists as both a measure and a driver of global warming, with negative impacts on a local and planetary scale. This year, both the North-west and North-east passages were mostly ice free, as they have been twice since 2008. Last month, the 74,000-tonne STI Heritage tanker passed through the North-east Passage with the assistance of ice breakers in just eight days on its way from Houston, Texas, to Thailand . The north-east sea route, which links the Atlantic to the Pacific, is likely to become a commercial ship operator’s favourite, saving thousands of miles and avoiding tolls on the Suez Canal tolls. Further evidence of dramatic change in the Arctic came last week from Alan Hubbard, a Welsh glaciologist at Aberystwyth University, who has been studying the Petermann glacier in northern Greenland for several years. The glacier, which covers about 6% of the icecap, is 186 miles (300km) long and up to 3,280ft (1km) high. In August last year, a 100 square-mile (260 sq km) block of ice calved from the glacier. Photographs show that by July this year it had melted and disappeared. “I was gobsmacked. It [was] like looking into the Grand Canyon full of ice and coming back two years later to find it full of water,” said Hubbard. Last year (2010) tied with 2005 as the warmest year on record. Climate change Arctic Glaciers Greenland Climate change Sea level Water transport John Vidal guardian.co.uk
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The Northwest Passage was, again, free of ice this summer and the polar region could be unfrozen in just 30 years Arctic sea ice has melted to a level not recorded since satellite observations started in 1972 – and almost certainly not experienced for at least 8,000 years, say polar scientists. Daily satellite sea-ice maps released by Bremen university physicists show that with a week’s more melt expected this year, the floating ice in the Arctic covered an area of 4.24 million square kilometres on 8 September. The previous one-day minimum was 4.27m sq km on 17 September 2007. The US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, which also tracks the extent of sea ice , has not posted data for a week but is expected to announce similar results in the next few days. The German researchers said the record melt was undoubtedly because of human-induced global warming. “The sea-ice retreat can no more be explained with the natural variability from one year to the next, caused by weather influence,” said Georg Heygster, head of the Institute of Environmental Physics at Bremen. “It seems to be clear that this is a further consequence of the man-made global warming with global consequences. Climate models show that the reduction is related to the man-made global warming, which, due to the albedo effect, is particularly pronounced in the Arctic,” he said. The albedo effect is related to a surface’s reflecting power – whiter sea ice reflects more of the sun’s heat back into space than darker seawater, which absorbs the sun’s heat and gets warmer. Floating Arctic sea ice naturally melts and re-freezes annually, but the speed of change in a generation has shocked scientists – it is now twice as great as it was in 1972, according to the NSIDC, with a decline of about 10% per decade. Arctic temperatures have risen more than twice as fast as the global average over the past half century. Separate, less reliable, research suggests that Arctic ice is in a downward spiral, declining in area but also thinning. Using records of air, wind and sea temperature, scientists from the Polar Science Centre of the University of Washington , Seattle, announced last week that the Arctic sea-ice volume reached its lowest ever level in 2010 and was on course to set more records this year. The new data suggests that the volume of sea ice last month appeared to be about 2,135 cubic miles – just half the average volume and 62% lower than the maximum volume of ice that covered the Arctic in 1979. The research will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research . “Ice volume is now plunging faster than it did at the same time last year when the record was set,” said Axel Schweiger. If current trends continue, a largely ice-free Arctic in the summer months is likely within 30 years –that is up to 40 years earlier than was anticipated in the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report. The last time the Arctic was uncontestably free of summertime ice was 125,000 years ago, at the height of the last major interglacial period, known as the Eemian. ” This stunning loss of Arctic sea ice is yet another wake-up call that climate change is here now and is having devastating effects around the world,” Shaye Wolf , climate science director at the Centre for Biological Diversity in San Francisco told journalists. Arctic ice plays a critical role in regulating Earth’s climate by reflecting sunlight and keeping the polar region cool. Retreating summer sea ice is widely described by scientists as both a measure and a driver of global warming, with negative impacts on a local and planetary scale. This year, both the North-west and North-east passages were mostly ice free, as they have been twice since 2008. Last month, the 74,000-tonne STI Heritage tanker passed through the North-east Passage with the assistance of ice breakers in just eight days on its way from Houston, Texas, to Thailand . The north-east sea route, which links the Atlantic to the Pacific, is likely to become a commercial ship operator’s favourite, saving thousands of miles and avoiding tolls on the Suez Canal tolls. Further evidence of dramatic change in the Arctic came last week from Alan Hubbard, a Welsh glaciologist at Aberystwyth University, who has been studying the Petermann glacier in northern Greenland for several years. The glacier, which covers about 6% of the icecap, is 186 miles (300km) long and up to 3,280ft (1km) high. In August last year, a 100 square-mile (260 sq km) block of ice calved from the glacier. Photographs show that by July this year it had melted and disappeared. “I was gobsmacked. It [was] like looking into the Grand Canyon full of ice and coming back two years later to find it full of water,” said Hubbard. Last year (2010) tied with 2005 as the warmest year on record. Climate change Arctic Glaciers Greenland Climate change Sea level Water transport John Vidal guardian.co.uk
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The Northwest Passage was, again, free of ice this summer and the polar region could be unfrozen in just 30 years Arctic sea ice has melted to a level not recorded since satellite observations started in 1972 – and almost certainly not experienced for at least 8,000 years, say polar scientists. Daily satellite sea-ice maps released by Bremen university physicists show that with a week’s more melt expected this year, the floating ice in the Arctic covered an area of 4.24 million square kilometres on 8 September. The previous one-day minimum was 4.27m sq km on 17 September 2007. The US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, which also tracks the extent of sea ice , has not posted data for a week but is expected to announce similar results in the next few days. The German researchers said the record melt was undoubtedly because of human-induced global warming. “The sea-ice retreat can no more be explained with the natural variability from one year to the next, caused by weather influence,” said Georg Heygster, head of the Institute of Environmental Physics at Bremen. “It seems to be clear that this is a further consequence of the man-made global warming with global consequences. Climate models show that the reduction is related to the man-made global warming, which, due to the albedo effect, is particularly pronounced in the Arctic,” he said. The albedo effect is related to a surface’s reflecting power – whiter sea ice reflects more of the sun’s heat back into space than darker seawater, which absorbs the sun’s heat and gets warmer. Floating Arctic sea ice naturally melts and re-freezes annually, but the speed of change in a generation has shocked scientists – it is now twice as great as it was in 1972, according to the NSIDC, with a decline of about 10% per decade. Arctic temperatures have risen more than twice as fast as the global average over the past half century. Separate, less reliable, research suggests that Arctic ice is in a downward spiral, declining in area but also thinning. Using records of air, wind and sea temperature, scientists from the Polar Science Centre of the University of Washington , Seattle, announced last week that the Arctic sea-ice volume reached its lowest ever level in 2010 and was on course to set more records this year. The new data suggests that the volume of sea ice last month appeared to be about 2,135 cubic miles – just half the average volume and 62% lower than the maximum volume of ice that covered the Arctic in 1979. The research will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research . “Ice volume is now plunging faster than it did at the same time last year when the record was set,” said Axel Schweiger. If current trends continue, a largely ice-free Arctic in the summer months is likely within 30 years –that is up to 40 years earlier than was anticipated in the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report. The last time the Arctic was uncontestably free of summertime ice was 125,000 years ago, at the height of the last major interglacial period, known as the Eemian. ” This stunning loss of Arctic sea ice is yet another wake-up call that climate change is here now and is having devastating effects around the world,” Shaye Wolf , climate science director at the Centre for Biological Diversity in San Francisco told journalists. Arctic ice plays a critical role in regulating Earth’s climate by reflecting sunlight and keeping the polar region cool. Retreating summer sea ice is widely described by scientists as both a measure and a driver of global warming, with negative impacts on a local and planetary scale. This year, both the North-west and North-east passages were mostly ice free, as they have been twice since 2008. Last month, the 74,000-tonne STI Heritage tanker passed through the North-east Passage with the assistance of ice breakers in just eight days on its way from Houston, Texas, to Thailand . The north-east sea route, which links the Atlantic to the Pacific, is likely to become a commercial ship operator’s favourite, saving thousands of miles and avoiding tolls on the Suez Canal tolls. Further evidence of dramatic change in the Arctic came last week from Alan Hubbard, a Welsh glaciologist at Aberystwyth University, who has been studying the Petermann glacier in northern Greenland for several years. The glacier, which covers about 6% of the icecap, is 186 miles (300km) long and up to 3,280ft (1km) high. In August last year, a 100 square-mile (260 sq km) block of ice calved from the glacier. Photographs show that by July this year it had melted and disappeared. “I was gobsmacked. It [was] like looking into the Grand Canyon full of ice and coming back two years later to find it full of water,” said Hubbard. Last year (2010) tied with 2005 as the warmest year on record. Climate change Arctic Glaciers Greenland Climate change Sea level Water transport John Vidal guardian.co.uk
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Silent tribute to 20,000 dead and missing as pessimism over recovery and anxiety over radiation remain Japan on Sunday marked six months since an earthquake and tsunami devastated its north-east coast, amid pessimism about the recovery effort and anxiety over radiation leaks from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Across the region hit by the disaster, people bowed their heads in silence at 2:46 pm, the moment a magnitude-9 earthquake – the biggest in Japan’s recorded history – struck, setting off a tsunami that would leave about 20,000 people dead or missing, and trigger the world’s worst nuclear accident for 25 years. The tsunami damaged or destroyed 80,000 homes and disrupted supply lines to key industries, while the nuclear crisis spread radiation over large areas and forced the evacuation of about 100,000 people living in or near a 20-kilometre exclusion zone around the plant. The recovery effort is expected to take years to complete at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars. So far, only four of the 31 communities worst affected by the disaster have completed draft reconstruction plans. On Saturday, Japan’s new prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, made his first visit to the tsunami disaster zone, promising local leaders he would speed up the reconstruction effort. Despite progress in rehousing an estimated 400,000 displaced people and clearing millions of tonnes of debris, many survivors say they face a bleak future. According to a survey by the public broadcaster NHK, 158,000 people lost their jobs in the three hardest-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima. Half of those surveyed said they had no prospect of finding work or would lose their incomes within a year. The Red Cross said Japanese bureaucracy had delayed the provision of assistance to victims. “The speed and scope of implementing the response during the emergency phase was not as swift and comprehensive as [we] wished, partly due to the structure of disaster management in Japan, partly because of insufficient preparedness,” it said in a report. Noda, Japan’s seventh prime minister in five years , is dealing with the first crisis of his administration with the resignation of his trade and industry minister, who described the area near Fukushima Daiichi as “towns of death”. Yoshio Hachiro, who had been in the post for just over a week, apologised for the remark, made after a visit to areas near Fukushima Daiichi that have been declared no-go zones. He added: “You can’t find a place like that anywhere. I couldn’t think of any other way to describe it.” Hachiro’s fate was sealed on Saturday after newspaper reports that he had also pretended to rub his sleeve against a journalist while joking that he might be contaminated with radiation. Noda, who took office vowing to bring stability to Japanese politics, said: “I apologise deeply to the people of Fukushima, who have had their feelings badly hurt. I continue to believe that without a revival in Fukushima, there will be no revival of Japan.” Last month the government warned that dangerously high radiation levels could make areas near the plant unfit for human habitation for years , possibly decades. On Sunday, thousands demonstrated against nuclear power in Tokyo and several other cities. In one of the biggest protests, 2,500 people marched past the headquarters of Fukushima Daiichi’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power, and formed a human chain around the trade ministry, which oversees the nuclear power industry. Japan Japan disaster Nuclear power Justin McCurry guardian.co.uk
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Silent tribute to 20,000 dead and missing as pessimism over recovery and anxiety over radiation remain Japan on Sunday marked six months since an earthquake and tsunami devastated its north-east coast, amid pessimism about the recovery effort and anxiety over radiation leaks from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Across the region hit by the disaster, people bowed their heads in silence at 2:46 pm, the moment a magnitude-9 earthquake – the biggest in Japan’s recorded history – struck, setting off a tsunami that would leave about 20,000 people dead or missing, and trigger the world’s worst nuclear accident for 25 years. The tsunami damaged or destroyed 80,000 homes and disrupted supply lines to key industries, while the nuclear crisis spread radiation over large areas and forced the evacuation of about 100,000 people living in or near a 20-kilometre exclusion zone around the plant. The recovery effort is expected to take years to complete at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars. So far, only four of the 31 communities worst affected by the disaster have completed draft reconstruction plans. On Saturday, Japan’s new prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, made his first visit to the tsunami disaster zone, promising local leaders he would speed up the reconstruction effort. Despite progress in rehousing an estimated 400,000 displaced people and clearing millions of tonnes of debris, many survivors say they face a bleak future. According to a survey by the public broadcaster NHK, 158,000 people lost their jobs in the three hardest-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima. Half of those surveyed said they had no prospect of finding work or would lose their incomes within a year. The Red Cross said Japanese bureaucracy had delayed the provision of assistance to victims. “The speed and scope of implementing the response during the emergency phase was not as swift and comprehensive as [we] wished, partly due to the structure of disaster management in Japan, partly because of insufficient preparedness,” it said in a report. Noda, Japan’s seventh prime minister in five years , is dealing with the first crisis of his administration with the resignation of his trade and industry minister, who described the area near Fukushima Daiichi as “towns of death”. Yoshio Hachiro, who had been in the post for just over a week, apologised for the remark, made after a visit to areas near Fukushima Daiichi that have been declared no-go zones. He added: “You can’t find a place like that anywhere. I couldn’t think of any other way to describe it.” Hachiro’s fate was sealed on Saturday after newspaper reports that he had also pretended to rub his sleeve against a journalist while joking that he might be contaminated with radiation. Noda, who took office vowing to bring stability to Japanese politics, said: “I apologise deeply to the people of Fukushima, who have had their feelings badly hurt. I continue to believe that without a revival in Fukushima, there will be no revival of Japan.” Last month the government warned that dangerously high radiation levels could make areas near the plant unfit for human habitation for years , possibly decades. On Sunday, thousands demonstrated against nuclear power in Tokyo and several other cities. In one of the biggest protests, 2,500 people marched past the headquarters of Fukushima Daiichi’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power, and formed a human chain around the trade ministry, which oversees the nuclear power industry. Japan Japan disaster Nuclear power Justin McCurry guardian.co.uk
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