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20080523
• Oceans - Global - Climate - Science - Environmental - Atmospheric - Industrial - Factories - Cars - History - Animals - Seattle - Washington - California - Oregon - US - Canada - Mexico - "Acidified seawater showing up along coast ahead of schedule." ... "Climate models predicted it wouldn't happen until the end of the century." ... "So a team led by Seattle [Washington] researchers was stunned to discover that vast swaths of acidified seawater already are showing up along the Pacific Coast as greenhouse-gas emissions upset the oceans' chemical balance." ... "In surveys from Vancouver Island [British Columbia, Canada] to the tip of Baja California [Mexico], reported Thursday in the online journal Science Express, the scientists found the first evidence that large amounts of corrosive water are reaching the continental shelf — the shallow sea margin where most marine creatures live." ... "Off Northern California, the acidified water was only four miles from shore." ... ""What we found ... was truly astonishing," said oceanographer Richard Feely, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. "This means ocean acidification may be seriously impacting marine life on the continental shelf right now."" ... "All along the coast, the scientists found regions where the water was acidic enough to dissolve the shells and skeletons of clams, corals and many of the tiny creatures at the base of the marine food chain. Acidified water also can kill fish eggs and a wide range of marine larvae." ... ""Entire marine ecosystems are likely to be affected," said co-author Debby Ianson, an oceanographer at Fisheries and Oceans Canada." ... "Though it hasn't received as much attention as global warming, ocean acidification is a flip side of the same phenomenon. The increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide from power plants, factories and cars that is raising temperatures worldwide also is to blame for the increasing acidity of the world's oceans." ... "Normally, seawater is slightly alkaline. When carbon dioxide from the atmosphere dissolves into the water, it forms carbonic acid — the weak acid that helps give soda pop its tang. The process also robs the water of carbonate, a key ingredient in the formation of calcium carbonate shells." ... "Since the Industrial Revolution, when humans began pumping massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, Feely estimates the oceans have absorbed 525 billion tons of the man-made greenhouse gas — about one-third of the total released during that period." ... "By keeping some of the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, the oceans have blunted the temperature rise due to global warming. But they've suffered for that service, with a more than 30-percent increase in acidity." ... "The acidified water upwelling along the coast today was last exposed to the atmosphere about 50 years ago, when carbon-dioxide levels were much lower than they are now. That means the water that will rise from the depths over the coming decades will have absorbed more carbon dioxide and will be even more acidic." -By Sandi Doughton -SeattleTimes

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20080421
• Corporate - Hackers - Manufacture - Electronics - Technology - California - Texas - US - Global - TV - Telecom - Media - Copyright - Enforcement - German - Canada - UK - Israeli - Intelligence - Spying - "Rupert Murdoch Firm Goes on Trial for Alleged Tech Sabotage." ... "Did a Rupert Murdoch company go too far and hire hackers to sabotage rivals and gain the top spot in the global pay-TV war?" ... "This is the question a jury will be facing in a spectacular five-year-old civil lawsuit that is finally being tried this month in California but which has, oddly, received little notice from U.S. [United States] media." ... "The case involves a colorful cast of characters that includes former intelligence agents, Canadian TV pirates, Bulgarian and German hackers, stolen e-mails and the mysterious suicide of a Berlin [Germany's capital] hacker who had been courted by the Murdoch company not long before his death." ... "On the hot spot is NDS Group, a UK-Israeli firm that makes smartcards for pay-TV systems like DirecTV. The company is a majority-owned subsidiary of Murdoch's News Corporation. The charges stem from 1997 when NDS is accused of cracking the encryption of rival NagraStar, which makes access cards and systems for EchoStar's Dish Network and other pay-TV services. Further, it’s alleged NDS then hired hackers to manufacture and distribute counterfeit NagraStar cards to pirates to steal Dish Network's programming for free." ... "NagraStar and one of its parent companies, EchoStar, are seeking about $101 million for damages for piracy, copyright infringement, misconduct and unfair competition. The list of witnesses in the case includes EchoStar's founder and CEO Charlie Ergen; several hackers and pirates; and Reuven Hazak, an Israeli who heads security for NDS and is a former deputy head of Shabak, or Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security agency (the equivalent of Britain's MI5)." ... "According to court documents, the scheme began to unravel in 2000 when law-enforcement agents in Texas seized suspicious packages containing CD and DVD players stuffed with more than $40,000 in cash. Parcels similar to this were being sent almost daily from Canada, via Texas, to a hacker in California named Christopher Tarnovsky, who was working for NDS as an engineer. The money was allegedly part of the conspiracy between Tarnovsky and NDS Group to sabotage NagraStar's cards." -By Kim Zetter -Wired

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20080218
• Afghanistan - People - Military - Politics - Iraq - US - Canada - "140 Afghans Killed in 2 Days of Bombings." ... "A suicide car bomber killed 38 Afghans at a crowded market Monday, pushing the death toll from two days of militant bombings to about 140." ... "The marketplace blast, which targeted a Canadian army convoy, came a day after the country's deadliest insurgent attack since a U.S. invasion defeated the Taliban regime in late 2001. The toll from that bombing in a crowd watching a dog fight rose to more than 100." ... "The back-to-back blasts in the southern province of Kandahar could be a sign insurgents are now willing to risk high civilian casualties while attacking security forces. Though their attacks occasionally have killed dozens, militants in Afghanistan have generally sought to avoid targeting civilians, unlike insurgents in Iraq's war." ... "The previous deadliest bombing in Afghanistan killed about 70 people _ mostly students _ in November [2007], part of a record year of violence in 2007 that included more than 140 suicide attacks." (1, 2) -By Allauddin Khan and Noor Khan with contributions by Matiullah Achakzai, Rahim Faiez and Paul Ames -AP -WashingtonPost

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20080204
• Child - Soldier - War Criminal - Canadian - Afghanistan - Cuba- Guantanamo - Prison - US - Criminal - Justice - Politics - "U.S. says no one too young for Guantanamo court." ... "A Canadian accused of killing a U.S. [United States] soldier in Afghanistan should not be tried as a war criminal because he was a child soldier for al Qaeda, too young to voluntarily join its forces, his military defense lawyer told a U.S. war court on Monday." ... "Navy [Lieutenant] Lt. William Kuebler asked a military judge to throw out the charges against Canadian defendant Omar Khadr, who was shot and captured at age 15 in a firefight at a suspected al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan in 2002." ... ""He is a victim of al Qaeda, not a member of al Qaeda," Kuebler said." ... "But a U.S. Department of Justice attorney [under Republican President Bush], arguing for the prosecution, said that if Congress intended to exclude juveniles from the Guantanamo war court [in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba], it would have explicitly written that, because lawmakers knew Khadr could face charges. Instead, Congress wrote the law using the term "person," which legally refers to "anyone born alive," Justice Department attorney Andy Oldham said." (1, 2) -By Jane Sutton with contributions by Tom Brown and Alan Elsner -Reuters 

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20080125
• John McCain - Rick Davis - Russian - Crime - Money - Politics - Switzerland - Ukraine - Canada - Britain - Lawsuits - Ga - NH - Virginia - Arizona - 2008 Election - US - International - "Aide Helped Controversial Russian Meet McCain: Davis, Then a Lobbyist, Has Spurred Debate in Reform-Focused Campaign." ... "A top political adviser in [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate and Arizona Senator]  Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign helped arrange an introduction in 2006 between McCain and a Russian billionaire whose suspected links to anti-democratic and organized-crime figures are so controversial that the U.S. [United States] government revoked his visa." ... "Rick Davis, who is now McCain's campaign manager, helped set up the encounter between McCain and Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska in [World Economic Summit at Davos] Switzerland during an international economic conference. At the time, Davis was working for a lobbying firm and seeking to do business with the billionaire." ... "With a net worth of more than $13 billion, Deripaska is one of the richest men in Russia and a close ally of President Vladimir Putin." ... "When Deripaska met McCain, Davis was part of Davis Manafort, a lobbying firm that was being paid to provide political advice to pro-Russian and oligarch-funded candidates in Ukraine, according to interviews and news accounts." ... "Davis, who has been a political adviser to McCain on and off since 1999, was part of a lobbying firm that worked not only for Ukrainian politicians but also for telecommunications firms, a lottery services provider and freight companies." ... "Davis's firm provided political advice to a pro-Russian party in Ukraine during the parliamentary elections of 2006." ... "He [Oleg Deripaska] has been accused of shady business practices in lawsuits in the United States and Britain, and his multiple-entry U.S. visa was yanked by the State Department in the summer of 2006." ... "The first gathering that brought McCain and Deripaska together occurred in January 2006, when McCain was part of a congressional delegation trip. He and a small group of senators, including [Georgia Republican Senator] Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.[Republican-Georgia]) and [New Hampshire Republican Senator] John E. Sununu (R-N.H.[Republican-New Hampshire]), met for a drink near Davos, Switzerland, at an apartment where they were greeted by Davis and Deripaska. The group then went to a dinner at the ski chalet of Peter Munk, founder of Barrick Gold, the world's largest gold-mining company, based in Toronto [Canada]. Participants at the buffet dinner said Munk complimented his sometime business partner Deripaska during his brief remarks to the 40 or so guests." ... "Later that month, Deripaska wrote to Davis and his partner, GOP political consultant Paul J. Manafort, to thank them for arranging the meeting. "Thank you so much for setting up everything in Klosters so spectacularly," he wrote. "It was very interesting to meet Senators McCain, Chambliss and Sununu in such an intimate setting."" ... "The letter was sent to Davis at the Reform Institute, a Virginia-based nonprofit group that McCain helped start to promote many of his trademark reform efforts, including increasing the transparency of lobbying and campaign financing." ... "Davis was the institute's president from January 2003 until December 2005. During that time, he was also a registered lobbyist at Davis Manafort. The institute was located at the Davis Manafort offices until January 2006." ... "Seven months later, in August 2006, Davis was present again at a social gathering that was also attended by McCain and Deripaska, this time in Montenegro, another Eastern European country in which Davis's firm was working." (1, 2, 3) -By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and John Solomon with contributions by Peter Baker -WashingtonPost

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20080121
• Worldwide - US - Britain - France - Germany - Canada - Brazil - Argentina - "Stock Markets Plunge Worldwide." ... "Stocks fell sharply worldwide Monday following declines on Wall Street last week amid investor pessimism over the U.S. [United States] government's stimulus plan to prevent a recession." ... "U.S. markets were closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but the downbeat mood from last week's market declines there circled through Europe, Asia and the Americas. Britain's benchmark FTSE-100 slumped 5.5 percent to 5,578.20, France's CAC-40 Index tumbled 6.8 percent to 4,744.15, and Germany's blue-chip DAX 30 plunged 7.2 percent to 6,790.19." ... "In Canada, the S&P/TSX composite index on the Toronto Stock Exchange fell 4.8 percent. Brazilian stocks plunged 6.6 percent on the main index of Sao Paulo's Bovespa exchange, and Argentina's benchmark Merval index fell 6.3 percent to close under 1,900 for the first time since August 2006." -By Toby Anderson with contributions by Cassie Biggs, Ramola Talwar Badam, Elaine Kurtenbach, and Carl Freire -AP via -Yahoo 

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