Climate Target is Not Radical Enough - Study

Guardian -- One of the world's leading climate scientists warns today that the EU and its international partners must urgently rethink targets for cutting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because of fears they have grossly underestimated the scale of the problem.

In a startling reappraisal of the threat, James Hansen, head of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, calls for a sharp reduction in C02 limits.

Hansen says the EU target of 550 parts per million of C02 - the most stringent in the world - should be slashed to 350ppm. He argues the cut is needed if "humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed". A final version of the paper Hansen co-authored with eight other climate scientists, is posted today on the Archive website. Instead of using theoretical models to estimate the sensitivity of the climate, his team turned to evidence from the Earth's history, which they say gives a much more accurate picture.

The team studied core samples taken from the bottom of the ocean, which allow C02 levels to be tracked millions of years ago. They show that when the world began to glaciate at the start of the Ice age about 35m years ago, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere stood at about 450ppm.

"If you leave us at 450ppm for long enough it will probably melt all the ice - that's a sea rise of 75 metres. What we have found is that the target we have all been aiming for is a disaster - a guaranteed disaster," Hansen told the Guardian.

At levels as high as 550ppm, the world would warm by 6C, the paper finds. Previous estimates had suggested warming would be just 3C at that point.

Hansen has long been a prominent figure in climate change science. He was one of the first to bring the crisis to the world's attention in testimony to Congress in the 1980s.

But his relationship with the Bush administration has been frosty. In 2005 he accused the White House and Nasa of trying to censor him. He has steadily revised his analysis of the scale of the global warming and was himself one of the architects of a 450ppm target. But he told the Guardian: "I realise that was too high."

The fundamental reason for his reassessment was what he calls "slow feedback" mechanisms which are only now becoming fully understood. They amplify the rise in temperature caused by increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases. Ice and snow reflect sunlight but when they melt, they leave exposed ground which absorbs more heat.

As ice sheets recede, the warming effect is compounded. Satellite technology available over the past three years has shown that the ice sheets are melting much faster than expected, with Greenland and west Antarctica both losing mass.

Hansen said that he now regards as "implausible" the view of many climate scientists that the shrinking of the ice sheets would take thousands of years. "If we follow business as usual I can't see how west Antarctica could survive a century. We are talking about a sea-level rise of at least a couple of metres this century."

The revised target is likely to prompt criticism that he is setting the bar unrealistically high. With the US administration still acting as a drag on international efforts, climate campaigners are struggling even to get a 450ppm target to stick.

Hansen said his findings were not a recipe for despair. The good news, he said, is that reserves of fossil fuels have been exaggerated, so an alternative source of energy will have to be rapidly put in place in any case. Other measure could include a moratorium on coal power stations which would bring the C02 levels to below 400ppm.

Hansen's revised position will pile yet further pressure on Britain over plans to build a new generation of coal power stations. Last year he wrote to Gordon Brown urging him to block the first such power station; the Royal Society has made similar suggestions to the government.

UK Biofuel Needs 'Threaten Delta'

A papyrus reed raft on Lake Tana, source of the Blue Nile and home to many bird species. Photograph: Michael S.Lewis/Corbis

The Guardian -- The lush, muddy wetlands of the Tana river delta, teeming with birds and home to hippos and crocodiles, lions and elephants, are more than 4,000 miles from Britain. But this patchwork of savannah and mangrove swamp on the east coast of Africa is the latest victim of the British thirst for biofuels.

To meet the worldwide demand and the regulation that, from next week, petrol and diesel sold in Britain must be mixed with bioethanol or biodiesel as part of a drive to cut the carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels, the Mumias Sugar Company in Kenya is planning to plant 20,000 hectares of the Tana delta to grow sugar cane for biofuels and food. The £165m project, including an ethanol refinery and food-processing plant, promises to create thousands of jobs in an area dominated by traditional cattle herding, small-scale rice and subsistence farming.

But environmental campaigners claim that the scheme would destroy the wetlands - home to 345 species of birds, including the threatened Basra reed warbler, the Tana river cisticola, and 22 species of waterbirds such as slender-billed gulls and Caspian terns, which are so numerous there they are considered 'internationally important' to the global populations. Globally the boom in this and other projects is causing growing concern about environmental damage and the part played by biofuels in pushing up food prices.

The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has called for a comprehensive review of the policy on biofuels as the crisis in world food prices threatens to trigger global instability. Last week former Labour Environment Minister Elliot Morley called for the government to delay the new biofuel requirement until 'comprehensive certification and assessment schemes are put in place', echoing criticism by the Environment Department's chief scientific adviser, Professor Robert Watson. The chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, has also spoken out against the risk of biofuels, especially of growing corn for ethanol in the US.

In the Tana delta, the two main worries are that monoculture planting would replace a large area of rich and diverse habitat, including unusual but unprotected Borassus palm savannah, and that irrigation for the new plants would use up to one third of the available water, claims the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which has taken the unusual step of protesting directly to the Kenyan government. Local campaigners say that Kenya's National Environment Management Authority is expected to approve the scheme. Mumias is also only one of a handful of schemes proposed in the delta, including commercial rice-growing and cattle breeding.

If approved, large areas would become 'ecological deserts', destroying wintering grounds for birds and the bugs they feed on, and dams would divert water essential to wildlife and cattle herders during the dry season, warned Paul Matiku, executive director of campaign group Nature Kenya. Matiku is also worried about water diversion causing soil erosion, pollution harming fish stocks and damage to the nascent tourism industry. 'This development would be a national disaster, wreaking havoc with the area's ecosystem and spelling the end for wildlife across much of the delta.' The plans submitted by Mumias suggest about half the crop could be used for food and half for biofuel, primarily to sell in Kenya. But high prices for biofuels overseas could force Mumias to sell to European and US buyers, said Paul Buckley, of the RSPB.

British consumers should be protected by 200 pages of regulations governing the sustainability of biofuels; however, critics claim that indirectly British demand will suck in supplies from other markets, which would then be forced to turn to new suppliers like Mumias. Farmers are also clearing new land for displaced food crops.

British regulations also rely, for the first two years at least, on embarrassing retailers by forcing them to publish details of where they buy their biofuel, but there is no punishment for buying from sources that cause damage to habitats, soil or water.

'It would appear to be the biofuel rage which has convinced them they can make an economic go of this,' said Buckley.

However, the Renewable Energy Association said that not all biofuels were equally harmful. Those planted on land cleared of 'carbon sinks' such as forests were 'clearly bad', and some biofuels, like US ethanol from corn, had little, if any, carbon savings, said Paul Thompson, the association's biofuel analyst. But biofuel made from wheat, and local projects, such as British Sugar's scheme to make bioethanol from sugar beet in Norfolk, were beneficial, he said. Supporters were also excited about the prospect of future biofuels from waste and algae.

Strict rules about which biofuels were considered 'sustainable' should also ensure that companies like BP and Shell bought only from reputable sources, said Thompson.

The Department for Transport said: 'Biofuels have the potential to help reduce the impact of transport on the environment, but we have always been clear about the need to ensure that they are sustainable ... In addition, we recently announced a study into the wider impacts of biofuel.'

'This development would be a national disaster, wreaking havoc with the area's ecosystem and spelling the end for wildlife across much of the delta.'

Barack Obama Delivers Speech on Race Relations

Hillary Clinton, John McCain - you're up next!

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Everybody Wants Obama!

Asharq Alawsat -- Suddenly Barack Obama, the candidate for the democratic presidential nomination for the US 2008 elections, has become everybody’s favourite topic of discussion and an example of a political success story.

In the Arab world, there is the famous following saying: “Everybody claims to be Laila’s love,” [Al kul yad’i hob Laila] and today everybody claims some kind of association with Barack Obama. Amongst all the chatter, several stories are being circulated about Obama. For example, some people claim that Obama’s forefathers immigrated from Quraish to Ethiopia and from there they settled and spread across the countries of the Horn of Africa until they arrived in Kenya!

In these discussions, people mention that Obama’s full name is Barack Hussein Obama, emphasising his middle name (which was his Indonesian stepfather’s name). During these conversations, people say that the name “Barack” is derived from “Baraka” [an Arabic word meaning blessing] and that blessings are undoubtedly on their way to shower us and our loved ones.

The people of Africa are in search of a legendary hero from amongst them to rule the world’s superpower, and in Africa Obama’s popularity has soared to a similar level of popularity enjoyed by pop stars and footballers.

Amongst the Afro-Americans however, there are mixed feelings; some of them believe in Obama and believe that he is “one of them” whilst others consider him different since his mother is white. In terms of coffee, they compare him to a “Cappuccino” or a “Latte” but not an “Espresso” in reference to his mixed heritage. The disease of ethnic purity has even reached them!

Barack Obama is a rising star and he, the son of a Kenyan migrant, entered Harvard University and graduated from the prestigious Harvard Law School. The rise of Obama continued in the political field until he became the only Afro-American currently serving in the US Senate.

Until Barack Hussein Obama reaches the presidential office and leads the United States, the fictitious stories about him will continue. Even the Chinese, the Indians and the Eskimos will demand their share in Obama’s upcoming glory.

Barack Obama is a phenomenon and represents the political craze that is occupying the entire world. Let us sit back and enjoy the race.

Meles Gives Castel Rent-Free Land for Wine Export

APTN -- It's perhaps surprising to learn that Ethiopia's wine industry reportedly dates back to the mid 16th century when Portuguese and Italian missionaries arrived in the country and used grapes for the ceremony of Holy Communion at church.

There's been little progression in wine-making since then and Ethiopia's wine-trade pales in comparison to other countries on the continent - like South Africa.

That's despite Ethiopia having a near-perfect climate for grape-growing - plenty of sunshine and rain.

But the nation's wine industry is about to get a much needed boost. "Castel", France's Dlargest wine producer, and the third biggest producer and trader in the world, is about to develop its own wine business in Ethiopia.

Castel subsidiary 'BGI' already brews three types of beer in Ethiopia ('Castel', 'St George' and 'Bati') and following talks with the Ethiopian Prime Minister last year the company has decided to make a move into the wine industry.

After almost a year of negotiations, the Ethiopian government has given Castel 500 hectares of rent-free land south of the capital Addis Ababa. The company plans to plant French vines this year and in three years time will produce its first bottle.

According to Castel, the success of the beer industry in the country led to the company's plans to invest in the wine industry there too.

Castel will take over this state owned farm in the town of Zeway, 170 kilometres from the capital.

The farm, one of just two state-owned, was established in 1980 and produces 250 tonnes of grapes per year.

The farm's not entirely sure which variety of grapes it grows right now, but agronomists have reportedly likened some to 'Grenache Noir'.

Fitsum Birhan manages the farm and says Ethiopia's proximity to the equator means the country's harvesting ability is unique, allowing it to harvest grapes twice a year.

At present all of the Zeway farm's grapes are supplied to the state-owned Awash winery in Addis Ababa. Established 60 years ago it's the only winery in the country.

But the Zeway farm is unable to produce enough grapes for the winery. As a result Ethiopia is importing up to 70% wine concentrate according to the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

Awash Winery's 500 permanent employees apparently produce five million litres of wine per year. They produce several different wines here including five types for export.

Red: Gouda, Dukum, Axumsite. White: Kamila, Crystal and also 'Shampagne' - a sparkling wine that is not allowed to be called Champagne.

They currently export wine to the US, Sweden, Russia, Djbouti, Uganda and other European countries.

Zerihun Bedasso, Awash Winery's Production and Technical Manager, welcomes Castel's investment and says the wine industry in Ethiopia has real potential, adding that the industry has been growing over the last seven years at a rate of 5-7% per annum - due to demand both locally and abroad.

In 2005, Ethiopia produced around five million litres of wine valued at nearly $8 million USD. Nearly 30,000 litres of that were exported - valued at around $85,000. (Source: Ministry of Trade and Industry)

Castel's aim is to get Ethiopia competing with the likes of South Africa, a 'New World Wine' producer which has seen it's popularity grow from strength to strength in recent years.

Once it starts producing wine, Castel plans to export up to 70%, leaving 30% in Ethiopia.

But convincing the locals to swap from their traditional 'tej-wine' - which is made from honey - to Ethiopian wine with a French twist could prove to be it's greatest challenge.

SEE story on National Geographic.

FOE Commentary on AP story:
Ethiopians won't swap Tej for Castel wine. No way.

Rain Forests Fall at 'Alarming' Rate

Associated Press - ABO EBAM, Nigeria - In the gloomy shade deep in Africa's rain forest, the noontime silence was pierced by the whine of a far-off chain saw. It was the sound of destruction, echoed from wood to wood, continent to continent, in the tropical belt that circles the globe.

From Brazil to central Africa to once-lush islands in Asia's archipelagos, human encroachment is shrinking the world's rain forests.

The alarm was sounded decades ago by environmentalists — and was little heeded. The picture, meanwhile, has changed: Africa is now a leader in destructiveness. The numbers have changed: U.N. specialists estimate 60 acres of tropical forest are felled worldwide every minute, up from 50 a generation back. And the fears have changed.

Experts still warn of extinction of animal and plant life, of the loss of forest peoples' livelihoods, of soil erosion and other damage. But scientists today worry urgently about something else: the fateful feedback link of trees and climate.

Global warming is expected to dry up and kill off vast tracts of rain forest, and dying forests will feed global warming.

"If we lose forests, we lose the fight against climate change," declared more than 300 scientists, conservation groups, religious leaders and others in an appeal for action at December's climate conference in Bali, Indonesia.

The burning or rotting of trees that comes with deforestation — at the hands of ranchers, farmers, timbermen — sends more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all the world's planes, trains, trucks and automobiles. Forest destruction accounts for about 20 percent of manmade emissions, second only to burning of fossil fuels for electricity and heat. Conversely, healthy forests absorb carbon dioxide and store carbon.

"The stakes are so dire that if we don't start turning this around in the next 10 years, the extinction crisis and the climate crisis will begin to spiral out of control," said Roman Paul Czebiniak, a forest expert with Greenpeace International. "It's a very big deal."

The December U.N. session in Bali may have been a turning point, endorsing negotiations in which nations may fashion the first global financial plan for compensating developing countries for preserving their forests.

The latest data from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) helped spur delegates to action.

"Deforestation continues at an alarming rate of about 13 million hectares (32 million acres) a year," the U.N. body said in its latest "State of the World's Forests" report.

Because northern forests remain essentially stable, that means 50,000 square miles of tropical forest are being cleared every 12 months — equivalent to one Mississippi or more than half a Britain. The lumber and fuelwood removed in the tropics alone would fill more than 1,000 Empire State Buildings, FAO figures show.

Although South America loses slightly more acreage than Africa, the rate of loss is higher here — almost 1 percent of African forests gone each year. In 2000-2005, the continent lost 10 million acres a year, including big chunks of forest in Sudan, Zambia and Tanzania, up from 9 million a decade earlier, the FAO reports.

Across the tropics the causes can be starkly different.

The Amazon and other South American forests are usually burned for cattle grazing or industrial-scale soybean farming. In Indonesia and elsewhere in southeast Asia, island forests are being cut or burned to make way for giant plantations of palm, whose oil is used in food processing, cosmetics and other products.

In Africa, by contrast, it's individuals hacking out plots for small-scale farming.

Here in Nigeria's southeastern Cross Rivers State, home to one of the largest remaining tropical forests in Africa, people from surrounding villages of huts and cement-block homes go to the forest each day to work their pineapple and cocoa farms. They see no other way of earning money to feed their families.

"The developed countries want us to keep the forests, since the air we breathe is for all of us, rich countries and poor countries," said Ogar Assam Effa, 54, a tree plantation director and member of the state conservation board.

"But we breathe the air, and our bellies are empty. Can air give you protein? Can air give you carbohydrates?" he asked. "It would be easy to convince people to stop clearing the forest if there was an alternative."

The state, which long ago banned industrial logging, is trying to offer alternatives.

Working with communities like Abo Ebam, near Nigeria's border with Cameroon, the Cross Rivers government seeks to help would-be farmers learn other trades, such as beekeeping or raising fist-sized land snails, a regional delicacy.

The state also has imposed a new licensing system. Anyone who wants to cut down one of the forest's massive, valuable mahogany trees or other hardwoods must obtain a license and negotiate which tree to fell with the nearby community, which shares in the income. The logs can't be taken away whole, but must be cut into planks in the forest, by people like David Anfor.

He's a 35-year-old father of one who earns the equivalent of 75 U.S. cents per board he cuts with a whizzing chain saw. "The forest is our natural resource. We're trying to conserve," he said. "But I'm also working for my daily eating."

A community benefiting from such small-scale forestry is likely to keep out those engaged in illegal, uncontrolled logging. But enforcement is difficult in a state with about 3,500 square miles of pristine rain forest — and few forest rangers.

On one recent day deep in the forest, where the luxuriant green canopy allows only rare shards of sunlight to reach the floor, the trilling of a hornbill bird and the distant chain saw were the only sounds heard. As forestry officials rushed to investigate, the saw operator fled deeper into the forest, sign of an illegal operation.

Environmentalists say such a conservation approach may work for rural, agrarian people in Nigeria, which lost an estimated 15 million acres between 1990 and 2005, or about one-third of its entire forest area, and has one of the world's highest deforestation rates — more than 3 percent per year.

But lessons learned in one place aren't necessarily applicable elsewhere, they say. A global strategy is needed, mobilizing all rain-forest governments.

That's the goal of the post-Bali talks, looking for ways to integrate forest preservation into the world's emerging "carbon trading" system. A government earning carbon credits for "avoided deforestation" could then sell them to a European power plant, for example, to meet its emission-reduction quota.

"These forests are the greatest global public utility," Britain's conservationist Prince Charles said in the lead-up to Bali. "As a matter of urgency we have to find ways to make them more valuable alive than dead."

Observed the World Wildlife Fund's Duncan Pollard, "Suddenly you have the whole world looking at deforestation."

But in many ways rain forests are still a world of unknowns, a place with more scientific questions than answers.

How much carbon dioxide are forests absorbing? How much carbon is stored there? How might the death of the Amazon forest affect the climate in, say, the American Midwest? Hundreds of researchers are putting in thousands of hours of work to try to answer such questions before it is too late.

Sossina Haile: The Power Behind Cooler, Greener Energy

Supra-heroine: Haile makes a green technology greener

Newsweek -- Sossina Haile created a new type of fuel cell by default. In the late '90s, the Caltech scientist had an idea that she thought might dramatically improve fuel cells, the clean technology that converts chemical energy to electricity to power cars, buses and power plants. Haile's idea was to employ an entirely new type of "superprotonic" compound that might help supply power at dramatically lower cost. But when fuel-cell makers balked at revamping their entire systems to try her solution, Haile decided to fabricate the world's first solid-acid fuel cell in her lab. Early in 2008 a Pasadena, Calif., start-up called Superprotonic—founded by two of her former grad students—will ship the first commercial prototypes to energy-systems makers. The output is barely enough to power a 100-watt bulb, but hopes are high that the small start will someday produce powerful fuel cells for commercial use. "This is potentially a breakthrough technology," says former senator Bill Bradley, who sits on the Superprotonic board.

She's hardly alone in seeing the promise of fuel cells, which produce energy through chemical reactions; their chief emission is pure water. (To prove that point, Haile once drank the tailpipe emission of a fuel-cell car on camera.) Not only do we need to find carbon-neutral fuel sources to slow global warming, but the world's energy needs will continue to grow—by an estimated 50 percent by 2050. Today, small fuel cells power a few cars and buses (Honda will begin leasing a fuel-cell FCX Clarity next summer), while large ones produce electricity at some factories and universities. They are expensive, but Haile's fuel cells may be cheaper and more durable.

Haile, a mother of two, has never followed a conventional path. Her family fled Ethiopia during the coup in the mid-'70s, after soldiers arrested and nearly killed her historian father, then settled in rural Minnesota before Haile, now 41, went to MIT and grad school. Superprotonic launched in 2003, with Haile as science adviser.

Haile's discovery may someday fill a need for a fuel cell that generates power at midrange temperatures. Low-temperature cells (20 degrees to 100 degrees Celsius) require costly platinum catalysts to speed the reactions; superhot "solid oxide" fuel cells react easily, but require expensive ceramic materials that can withstand operating temperatures of 600 degrees to 1,000 degrees Celsius. Finding a material that operates well in a midrange "is quite important," says Jack Brouwer, associate director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center at the University of California, Irvine, though he adds that it's too early to say if Haile's cell will be commercially viable.

Haile is confident it will, but she's also busy "tweaking" high-temperature systems to increase power output and lower costs. For her, the race to find new energy sources is fascinating. She says, "There's nothing better than being able to combine an intellectually exciting topic with the knowledge that it will be beneficial. To me, that's just glory."

In Nubia, Fears of Another Darfur

LA Times -- The tranquil Nubian villages along this Nile River stretch are best known for the brightly painted gates that adorn many of the simple mud-brick homes. With geometric shapes and hieroglyphic-like pictures, the oversized gates hark back to the stone-carved doorways the villagers' ancestors once built on pyramids that rivaled Egypt's.

These days, however, the elaborate entryways are shadowed by black flags. Government soldiers patrol once-quiet dirt streets, occasionally drawing stones from angry youths. Protest graffiti mar the walls, including one scrawling of an AK-47 with the simple caption: "Darfur 2."

First, southern Sudan erupted in a 20-year civil war, followed by the east and, most recently, the western region of Darfur. Now many fear that Sudan's northern territory of Nubia will be the next to explode over the fight for resources and all-too-familiar accusations of "ethnic cleansing" and complaints of marginalization by an Arab-dominated government.

Tensions have been high here since soldiers opened fire on an anti-government protest of 5,000 Nubians in June, killing four young men and wounding nearly two dozen. The government has arrested nearly three dozen Nubian leaders and four journalists who were trying to cover the violence.

Now a recently formed rebel group, calling itself the Kush Liberation Front, is advocating armed resistance to overthrow the central government, which it accuses of oppressing Nubians and other indigenous peoples in Sudan.

"Our efforts will not succeed unless they are backed by military action," said Abdelwahab Adem, a Nubian former businessman and co-founder of the Kush Liberation Front. "We need to get rid of the Arabs. Our goal is to realize a new Sudan, by force if necessary."

Adem said the new movement would rely on "guerrilla fighting," targeting the capital, Khartoum, and other major Sudanese cities. He declined to specify what sort of tactics might be used or how many fighters the group has.

With a separate language and culture, Nubians view themselves as a distinct ethnic group and take pride in being one of Africa's oldest civilizations. Political observers say the budding movement appears to be taking its cue from the rebellions in Darfur and southern Sudan.

"That's the lesson of Darfur," said one Western diplomat in Khartoum, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"The government will only listen to you when you pick up a gun."

Darfur rebels are a potential source of weapons and training for the Kush Liberation Front, observers said.

"We have good relations with our brothers in Darfur," said Adem, who is based in London. But he denied receiving support from the western Sudanese rebels.

The spark for recent unrest was a government proposal to construct two or three electricity-producing dams along the Nile in the Nubian heartland, between the villages of Kajbar, about 350 miles north of Khartoum, and Dal, about 100 miles from the Egyptian border.

This fertile Nile River strip is home to an estimated 300,000 Nubians, many of whom would be forced to relocate if rising river waters swallowed scores of villages.

Also at risk are some of the world's richest archeological ruins, notably those around the ancient city of Kerma, the first Nubian capital, settled at least 8,000 years ago and lying just downstream from where the proposed 200-megawatt Kajbar dam would be built. The site is home to the oldest known man-made structure in sub-Saharan Africa: a 50-foot, 3,500-year-old mud-brick temple known as the Deffufa.

The proposals come on top of another controversial project, the 1,250-megawatt Merowe Dam, which is already under construction about 150 miles to the east. Flooding from that project will displace 70,000 Arab farmers and engulf several hundred miles of unexplored Nubian archeological sites.

"They want to cut us from our roots and flood all of Nubia and its history," said Sharif Adeen Ali, 53, a Nubian farmer in the village of Sebu. "They've done this before."

In 1964, construction of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt forced the relocation of 50,000 Sudanese Nubians in the Wadi Halfa region near the Egyptian border and nearly 800,000 Nubians in Egypt.

Nubians see the new dams as a plot by Arab governments in Sudan and Egypt to exterminate their communities and seize the land.

"The two countries have never liked having Nubians, who are not Arabs, in the middle," said Abdul Halim Sabbar, a former doctor who is part of the Kajbar Dam Resistance Committee.

In Sebu, one of the Nubian communities that would be submerged by the Kajbar dam, once-welcoming residents now peer warily at the parade of unfamiliar trucks and SUVs that speeds through town carrying Chinese engineers to a work site a mile away. Though government officials say they are only conducting a feasibility study, Chinese crews are installing giant cranes, water towers, floodlights and other equipment that suggest to villagers that construction is underway.

On a recent morning, nearly 400 government soldiers marched and drilled at a new military camp set up on the edge of Sebu to protect the Chinese workers. On hills overlooking the village, uniformed lookouts with rifles over their shoulders positioned themselves behind rocks.

"It's become very tense," said one villager, who was afraid to be identified. "Many eyes are watching."

Officials at Sudan's Dams Implementation Unit declined to comment.

A leader in Sudan's ruling party defended the dams, contending that they would help the Nubian communities by providing electricity and irrigation for farming.

"It's going to economically transform the area," said Osman Khalid Mudawi, foreign affairs chairman in Sudan's parliament. He estimated that a lake created by the dam would irrigate 750,000 acres of newly arable land.

But some scientists and environmentalists questioned whether the dams would expand food production, noting that the region's soil is mostly desert sand and granite. Farming is possible only along the riverbanks, thanks to rich silt deposits from the Nile.

A recent report by the United Nations Environmental Program noted that Sudan's existing dams suffer from declining performance because they are clogged with silt, which has proved difficult to remove. Water loss as a result of the high evaporation rates in the desert heat is another problem. Meanwhile, downstream from the dams, farm production has fallen because the soil is no longer enriched by the silt.

It's a similar story at the Aswan High Dam, where the lake created by the dam is filling with silt much faster than anticipated and downstream farmers are resorting to artificial fertilizers for the first time.

Nubians argue that the new dams are not intended to provide electricity and irrigation in Sudan, but to rescue the Aswan High Dam by capturing silt before it reaches Egypt. "These dams don't look at all like development," said Sabbar, the resistance committee member. "It's clearly part of a programmed scheme between Egypt and Sudan."

For decades, Nubians have lived in relative isolation, shunning politics and priding themselves on self-sufficiency. Some years the region found itself entirely left out of the federal budget, which is evident from the lack of paved roads and electricity. Nubians built their own hospitals and schools, though they are still prohibited by law from teaching in their native language.

The threat of renewed flooding, however, has drawn Nubians out of the political desert, and they are mobilizing for a fight.

In addition to demonstrations in Sudan, Nubians abroad are pressing the issue with the United Nations, U.S. State Department and human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. They've protested at the Sudanese and Chinese embassies in Washington and uploaded graphic footage of the June 13 clashes on the Internet.

"We have more freedom to express ourselves than those still inside Sudan," said Nuraddin Abdulmannan, a Nubian activist who is heading the resistance committee in Washington. He says it is the duty of the international community to preserve the region's archeological sites, which include temples and pyramids built when Nubian kings briefly reigned over Egypt's pharaohs around 730 BC.

"This is an international treasure, and there's an international responsibility to protect it."

For many, the June clash with government troops was the final indignity. Witnesses said soldiers tear-gassed the noisy but peaceful demonstrators, forcing many to jump into the river to escape the fumes. When protesters began to regroup, soldiers opened fire without warning.

"It was a murder, an assassination," said Ahmed Abdullahi Ameen, 63, whose son, 28, was one of the four killed. The young man, Sheik Adeen Haj Ahmed, was shot in the back of the head as he climbed out of the river.

Many Nubians say they have little to lose. Izzadin Idriss Mohammed, 71, a Nubian activist in the village of Farig, described the tensions with an old Nubian saying:

"One who is sinking in the Nile will reach for any branch to survive."

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Sign the Petition to Rescue Nubia!

Photo Courtesy: http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerma

Tiny Statue of Lioness Sells for Record $57.2 Million

Bloomberg -- An ancient limestone statue of a regal lioness just 3 inches tall sold today for $57.2 million including commissions at Sotheby's in New York, doubling the previous auction record for sculpture.

The price more than tripled the sculpture's presale high estimate of $18 million. The previous record was $28.6 million, set in June for a Roman bronze of Artemis, goddess of the hunt.

The buyer, dressed in a gray suit, attended the sale and was identified by Sotheby's as English. He declined to comment. The sale price didn't surprise at least one observer.

``It's completely understandable,'' said Robert Simon, a New York art dealer who specializes in Old Master paintings. ``It's a phenomenal piece. It has tremendous power.''

Known as the Guennol Lioness, the 5,000-year-old Elam statue is said to have been made in what is now Iran and found near Baghdad, Sotheby's said. It's been on view at the Brooklyn Museum since 1948, on loan from Alastair Bradley Martin, the grandson of steel magnate Henry Phipps.

Martin and his late wife assembled an art collection ranging from Mexican folk sculpture to a Willem de Kooning painting to Japanese porcelains. They named their Long Island home and collection ``Guennol,'' the Welsh word for Martin, a romantic nod to their honeymoon in Wales.

The Guennol Collection was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1969 and the Brooklyn Museum in 2000. Martin has served as a trustee and president of the board of the Brooklyn Museum. The sale benefits a charitable trust established by the Martin family.

The final price includes a buyer's premium, or commission, of 25 percent of the hammer price up to $20,000, 20 percent of the price from $20,000 to $500,000, and 12 percent above $500,000.

Related Links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elam

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behistun_Inscription

http://www.ancientscripts.com/elamite.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kish_%28Sumer%29