Cape Town faces potential devastation from rising sea levels 
Andrew Donaldson 
Worst scenario is that two-storey waves will batter city shoreline within next 25 years.
Billions at stake if city battered by giant waves
This is what the sea would devour...

South Africa’s coastal cities and regions face potential devastation from rising sea levels, with damage that could run into tens of billions of rands.

Until recently, the horrifying scenario of vast chunks of territory being flooded by waves as high as 6.5m was considered unlikely this century — if not remote.

But, according to a study commissioned by the city of Cape Town, there is a one-in-five chance that this could happen in the next 25 years.

That is the worst-case scenario presented in “Global Climate Change and Adaptation — a sea-level rise risk assessment”, by Laquar Consultants. 

Less dramatic but nevertheless catastrophic events — like the storm with 2.5m waves that tore into Ballito in KwaZulu-Natal last year — are considered almost a certainty. 

The city of Cape Town administers about 307km of coastline — the city’s greatest economic and social asset. 

Gregg Oelofse, head of Cape Town’s environmental policy and strategy, said the study had attracted keen interest from other coastal cities. “Durban has also recently initiated a climate-change programme,” he said. Other coastal cities — Port Elizabeth and East London — could follow suit.

“The port authorities are also doing similar assessment work. The insurance industry is taking note as well.”

“There is,” the study warns, “a growing awareness that the complex and difficult-to-predict impacts produced by climate change render it impossible to ‘climate-proof’ a community or city.”

Effective climate adaptation, on the other hand, is worth pursuing. Echoing the UK’s official climate- change programme, it suggests: “The aim is not to be well adapted, but adapting well.” Cape Town’s options include moratoriums on:

ýLand reclamation — the Foreshore, Paarden Island and Sea Point promenade are all examples of such developments;

ýThe further degradation of coastal wetlands and estuaries, which are natural buffers against sea-level rise; and

ýThe degradation of dune cordons behind beaches in Blauberg, Milnerton, Hout Bay, Fish Hoek and the Strand, among other places, which provide a natural defence against sea-level rise but are

“flattened” by residents seeking better sea views, and by construction sites and sand mining.

Additional actions include engineering works. Of these, sea walls are the city’s most common form of protection against the sea, with varying degrees of success.

The Sea Point promenade, for example, has been in place for 70 years, but has to be periodically repaired following high tides and storm surges. This year the city issued a R12.5-million contract for its maintenance. Other walls, like the one at Strand, are less successful.

“(This) wall,” the study says, “is in a perpetual state of collapse due to wave action, and repair efforts are reactionary and increasingly unable to keep up with the rate of erosion. ”

“Biological options” are mooted as being the cheaper, more natural and more effective ways to counter sea-level rise. These include dune cordons, and estuary and wetland rehabilitation.

Seaweed, the study says, is also beneficial: “It is the practice on Cape beaches to remove kelp. .. in order to maintain ‘clean’ beaches for tourists and beach-goers. .. Unfortunately, the removal of kelp in conjunction with mechanical cleaning of beaches contributes to their destabilisation and vulnerability to erosion.” Institutional responses to sea-level rises have also been suggested.

These include the development of early warning systems, the application of a “blue-line”, or coastal buffer zone, below which new developments should be prevented, and appropriate corrections to the insurance market. 

Much of the insurance extended to coastal properties in the city does not factor in the risk of sea-level changes into assessments.

Get the full report at the city of Cape Town’s website, www.capetown.gov.za

Source: The Times, August 18, 2008
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UN to Help Pacific Island States Fight Climate Change

The United Nations and Samoa plan to establish an Inter-Agency Climate Change Centre to help coordinate support to Pacific Island countries to combat the impact of global warming in their region.

Given the direct impact of climate change on vulnerable countries in the region, the new agency will focus its support on the mitigation, adaptation and reduction of the risk of disaster facing the Islands, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said today in a message to the Pacific Islands Forum Summit meeting, held in Alofi, Niue. 

"I am very heartened that the Pacific island countries are making their voices heard on the subject of climate change," Ban said. "Climate change is not science fiction. As your countries know all too well, it is real and present." 

His statement was delivered by Noeleen Heyzer, the executive secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, to the 16 heads of government of the independent and self-governing states in the Pacific. 

The main theme of this year's summit is climate change, as the effect of global warming is a threat to food security and safety of island communities. 

Many Pacific Island countries are already experiencing sea level rise as a consequence of climate change. 

Several UN agencies already collaborate with the Pacific Islands Forum, assisting on issues from farming and fisheries to urbanization. 

A UN report issued in July shows that climate change is already affecting the world's oceans. The report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization predicts that Earth's rising temperature will have serious consequences for the hundreds of millions of people who depend on fishing for their livelihoods, as many people do in the Pacific Island countries. 

It documents how changes in sea temperatures alter the body temperature of aquatic species that people eat. Warmer waters adversely impact the metabolism, growth rate, reproduction and susceptibility to diseases and toxins of these fish and shell fish. 

Climate change is being seen as an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, such as the El Niño sea surface warming phenomenon in the South Pacific; and in the general warming of the world's oceans, with the Atlantic in particular showing signs of warming deep below the surface; Warmer water species are now increasing toward the South and North Poles, the report states. 

There also has been an increase in salinity in near-surface waters in hotter regions. The opposite is occurring in colder areas because of greater precipitation and melting ice. 

In addition, the oceans are becoming more acidic with negative consequences for coral reefs and organisms that form calcium shells. 

Fishing communities in the world's high-latitudes, as well as those that rely on coral reef systems such as the Pacific Islands, will be most exposed to the impact of climate change, the FAO predicts. 

Fisheries located in deltas, coral atolls and ice-dominated coasts will be vulnerable to flooding and coastal erosion because of rises in sea level. 

The UN says about 42 million people work directly in the fishing sector, most of them in developing countries. Adding those who work in fish processing, supply, marketing and distribution, the fishing industry supports several hundred million jobs worldwide. 

Aquatic foods have high nutritional quality, contributing 20 percent or more of average per capita animal protein intake for more than 2.8 billion people, again mostly in developing countries. 

Fish is also the world's most widely traded food, the UN says, and is a key source of export earnings for many poorer countries. These issues have particular significance for Pacific small island States. 

Source: ENS, August 19, 2008
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Climate Change: Environmental conflicts to increase, Kenyan Don says 
George Kebasso 

When Ugandan soldiers opened fire on Turkana herdsmen from the neighbouring Kenya who had crossed the borders into their country last Sunday in the eye of diplomats, public servants called it a diplomatic breach but scientists say the aggression is an attribute of the environmental conflicts.

Environmental experts say that armed conflicts would rise in the future to unprecedented levels due to competition for meager natural resources which are already under pressure due to climate change.

As is tradition for nomads, herders migrate in search of pasture and water for their livestock because drought which is dictated largely by climatic variations sets in. 

Prof Richard Odingo who has spent 20 years doing research on environmental changes with the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said at the University of Nairobi that the pace for armed conflicts in the developing world would soar as global warming increase due to unchecked anthropogenic activities.

Odingo predicts that both internal and trans-boundary wars on water and other resources will increase unless deliberate collective measures are taken to avert the crisis.“Already there is war in many areas. Look at our border with Somalia, people are always fighting for water, others are fighting because they want grazing land, In fact among them are nomads of the East Africa and even in West Africa. There is always what one can call small scale warfares, “But now in the future even water would be a big problem, we will not have tribal wars, maybe we will have regional warfare, we might even have Somalia coming to attack us because they are looking for water,” Odingo said in his paper : The impact of Climate Change in Africa and its implications for peace and security.

He says that Africa lacks foresight for solutions to the problems of the future. “For example look at the water of River Nile, it is so important for all of us, Egypt also depends on it”, he said.

Odingo warned that if Climate changes continue uninhibited and coupled with the destruction of Mau Forest and other catchment areas, Lake Victoria would automatically be interfered with and this will be a clear recipe for war with the Egyptians.

He thus advises that, “to address such issues, we need to have people we call think tanks in the Office of the President and the Prime Minister’s- preparing papers for the government. We must also have a system where papers are developed- that can be called future studies that detail what we expect in terms of environmental changes.

He warns that in the next two decades, the world would watch the greatest climatic turbulence. “There will be no glaciers left on Mt. Kilimanjaro and equally, Mt. Kenya’s snow capped peak could be completely gone by then.

This would lead to further environmental complications as rivers and springs that flow down from the two continental tourist sites, dry up and increase more competition for water as the number of foreign visitors to these areas decline,” he says.

The scientist is sad that besides presenting a recipe for internal and regional armed conflicts, Climate Change is bound to interrupt economic development in many African countries where by the nature and spread of its impacts will vary from one region to another.

“Already the impacts of climate change are being felt in many African countries as witnessed by frequent droughts and floods,” said Odingo. 

But as the professor was warning of the effects of Climate change, the people of North Horr in Northern Kenya are faced with a menace of its own kind. 

Strong winds have been blowing in the semi desert region for the last two weeks, resulting in the creation of heaps of sand dunes- both outside and buildings. They have also rendered roads in the area impassable.

Odingo suggested that, special provisions for the people living in marginalised areas – Arid and semi Arid Lands (ASAL) - must be established to answer to their problems which range from scarcity of water and pasture for their animals.

These people are part of the one third of Africa’s population that live in drought-prone areas, and are vulnerable to drought impacts. 

Floods like droughts also disrupt economies, both in the ASAL parts of the continent and will result in forced population movements within and across boundaries thereby exacerbating conflict. This situation will be compounded with food shortages which are likely to increase conflicts.

And that is why Odingo criticised the government and writers of the Kenya Vision 2030 for lacking foresight when crafting such an important economic document.

“The Climate resources of Africa are valuable and an essential element for economic growth. Those who plan economic development cannot afford to ignore the climate resources and in the context of this fast moving human-induced climate change, the need to understand its role in economic growth, and for peace, and security is paramount,” warned Odingo in his paper that was positively approved by the guests who attended the public lecture. 

Vision 2030 predicts that Kenya would be at par with other world industrial economies in the next twenty two years. But ironically it is this two decades that Odingo also predicts that environmental resources would be under greatest pressure to satisfy the world’s population which is rising steadily.

He faulted the crafters of Vision 2030 for not fully integrating Climate Change into the economic programme raising doubts that the planners will not even be there when the country will be facing water shortages because such scenario has not been factored.

“It is good to write such papers but when you are planning for them where have you placed climate change, where will you be when there will be no water. You will be dead but dead fools” he said of the Vision 2030 planners. 

Former National Environment Management Authority Director General, Prof. Ratemo Michieka who attended the meeting backed Odingo’s worries saying, “Due to increased human activities which include; the demand for food, energy, water and anything that can enhance livelihood, climate change has become frequent.”And this is the reason why other scientists including; Prof. Elias Ayiemba, the Chairman of the Geography and Environmental Studies at the UON and Emily Massawa at NEMA’s Department of Adaptation, think that man has become his own enemy for devastatingly reaping without creating solutions for replacement.

Subsequent to such competition, peace and tranquility in the world have been pushed to the dead end and now scientists believe that these activities are catalysts for pollution of the environment from industrial production, green house farming and increased motor transport.

The results, according to Michieka, as people compete for the economic gains and survival as they seek for livelihood is the increase in global warming due to pollution of the atmosphere that generates climate change.

Source: Africa Science News Service, August 19, 2008
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Mengi takes swipe at rich countries on climate change
Patrick Kisembo

IPP Limited Executive Chairman Reginald Mengi has said poor countries are economic victims of climate change, and are made to benefit rich countries. 

He made the remarks on Sunday in Dar es Salaam when closing the International Students` Week in Tanzania (ISWiT). 

Mengi, who was addressing an audience of students from different countries, said rich countries have been urging African countries to plant trees to curb climate change although they continued running their industries that emit poisonous gases. 

``Those who tell us to plant trees have industries which make them a lot of money while they pay Africa very little. It is not fair,`` he said. 

Mengi, who was named ISWiT patron, said: ``We can not afford to see them expanding their factories while they tell us to plant trees. It is not fair.`` 

He said climate change required the participation and effective role of all people in the world. 

On the ISWiT that had carried the theme `Global citizenship: The youth perspective,` Mengi blamed the media for being responsible in destroying the chances for global citizenship. 

``It is the media that writes negative stories on many issues. If you take, for instance, the western media like in the USA or Germany, 68 per cent of what is written on Africa is negative, to the extent that whatever is known about Africa is always negative,`` he said. 

He said global citizenship could not be achieved if all what was written or made on the other side of the world was negative while we are all one people in one garden, the world. 

He also challenged the students to address what he described as `mental poverty,` saying it was poverty of the mind that ``kills Africa.`` 

Earlier on, one of the students, Rose Wanjui, sharing her group`s presentation on climate change, blamed developed nations for refusing to sign protocols intended to address the issue. 

``Developed countries have contributed in accelerating issues of climate change since they have refused to sign protocols designed to end activities, particularly industrial ones, that destroy the ozone layer,`` she said. 

The students` dean, Dr Martha Qorro, expressed gratitude to Mengi for the great lesson he had given to the students. 

ISWiT president Philomena Modu thanked Mengi for accepting the honor of becoming ISWiT patron. 

Students from around the world, including Uganda, Kenya, Iran and Bosnia, gathered at the University of Dar es Salaam for the annual event, where they discussed issues of climate change, global citizenship, security, education and tradition and culture. 

SOURCE: Guardian 

Source: IPP Media, August 19, 2008
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Wastewater 'widely used' in urban agriculture, report finds
Hepeng Jia

Many of the major cities in developing countries are using untreated or partially treated wastewater to irrigate nearby farmland, according to the International Water Management Institute (IWMI).

In a report, released yesterday (18 August) at the World Water Week summit in Stockholm, Sweden, the IWMI highlights the need to develop practical measures in utilising wastewater while avoiding potential environmental and health risks.

Wastewater, mainly produced in cities, is directly used to solve the shortage of irrigation water in many developing countries. The IWMI says that wastewater irrigation occurs on around 20 million hectares of farmland across the developing world.

The authors of the report surveyed 53 cities across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. They found that over 80 per cent of the cities studied used untreated or partially treated wastewater for agriculture. 

Wastewater can contain high amounts of nutrition for crops, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, saving fertiliser costs for farmers. However, untreated water may also contain high amounts of organic pollutants or heavy metals, which can enter the food chain directly through irrigation. 

But the authors do not recommend banning or reducing the practice by imposing stricter water criteria, since poor infrastructure and lack of funding in developing countries would hinder such measures and adversely affect farmers dependent on wastewater.

Instead, they say that innovative indigenous practices can be built upon to help reduce the health risks from wastewater agriculture. For example, in Ghana, Indonesia, Nepal and Vietnam, farmers store wastewater in ponds to allow suspended solids to settle out before use in irrigation. 

The authors say the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on clean water should more closely link policies and investments for improvements in the water supply sector with those of the sanitation and waste disposal sector. 

"The MDGs should rightly have a sanitation goal, but also mention safe disposal of water for productive and environmentally friendly reuse where feasible," David Molden, deputy director-general for research at the IWMI, told SciDev.Net.

Feng Shaoyuan, deputy director of China Agricultural Water Research Centre, says the report highlights the need for better policies to regulate wastewater farming. 

"For example, wastewater irrigation should only be used for forest, grasslands and non-food crops. Also, wastewater irrigation should not be used near potable or clean water sources to avoid pollution," Feng told SciDev.Net. 

"With these policies, the health and environmental impacts of it can be greatly reduced even if there is insufficient infrastructure to treat wastewater,"

Source: SciDevNet, August 19, 2008
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This Year So Far Coolest For at Least 5 Years - WMO 

The first half of 2008 was the coolest for at least five years, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said on Wednesday. 

The whole year will almost certainly be cooler than recent years, although temperatures remain above the historical average. 

Global temperatures vary annually according to natural cycles. For example, they are driven by shifting ocean currents, and dips do not undermine the case that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are causing long-term global warming, climate scientists say. 

Chillier weather this year is partly because of a global weather pattern called La Nina that follows a periodic warming effect called El Nino. 

"We can expect with high probability this year will be cooler than the previous five years," said Omar Baddour, responsible for climate data and monitoring at the WMO. "Definitely the La Nina should have had an effect, how much we cannot say." 

"Up to July 2008, this year has been cooler than the previous five years at least. It still looks like it's warmer than average," added Baddour. 

The global mean temperature to end-July was 0.28 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average, the UK-based MetOffice Hadley Centre for climate change research said on Wednesday. That would make the first half of 2008 the coolest since 2000. 

"Of course at the begining of the year there was La Nina, and that would have had the effect of suppressing temperatures somewhat as well," Met Office meteorologist John Hammond said. "But actually La Nina is showing signs of moving towards a more neutral state." 

The weakening of the La Nina effect over the last few months could see the global mean temperature creep up again in the latter part of the year, he added. 

The past decade ending in 2007 was the hottest since reliable records began around 1850, according to the WMO. World temperatures are about 0.74 Celsius (1.2 F) higher than a century ago. 

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of hundreds of scientists, last year said global warming was "unequivocal" and that manmade greenhouse gas emissions were very likely part of the problem. The WMO releases its final figures for global temperature and ranking for 2008 in December. 

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE 

Source: Planet Ark, August 21, 2008
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New clues to air circulation in the atmosphere

Air circulates above the Earth in four distinct cells, with two either side of the equator, says new research out today (21 August) in Science. 

The new observational study describes how air rises and falls in the atmosphere above the Earth's surface, creating the world's weather. This process of atmospheric circulation creates weather patterns and influences the climate of the planet. It is important to understand these processes in order to predict weather events, and to improve and test climate models.

Previous theories have claimed that there are just two large circular systems of air in the atmosphere, one either side of the equator. These theories suggested that air rises at the equator and then travels towards either the north or south polar regions, where it falls. 

The new research suggests instead that there are two cells in both the northern and southern hemispheres. In the first cell, air rises at the equator and then falls in the subtropics. In the second cell, air rises in the mid-latitudes - approximately 30 to 60 degrees north and south of the equator – and then falls in the polar regions. 

The researchers say that this second cell of rising air is a mechanism responsible for setting the distribution of temperature and winds in the mid-latitudes which has not been fully appreciated before. The mid-latitudes include the UK, Europe and most of the United States.

Dr Arnaud Czaja from Imperial College London's Department of Physics and the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, one of the authors of the new research, explains: "Our model suggests that there is a second cell of air in each hemisphere which is characterised by air rising, clouds forming, storms developing and other processes associated with moisture in the air occurring in the mid-latitudes." 

Current theories to describe weather patterns in the mid-latitudes do not take these moisture-based processes into consideration. Dr Czaja argues that these theories are therefore incomplete, and that water vapour plays as much of an important role in the weather systems of the mid-latitudes as it does in the tropics, where it is a well-documented driver of weather events.

The research team carried out their study by conducting new analyses of extensive meteorological data. Dr Czaja says that he hopes the research will lead to a more detailed understanding of how air circulation in our atmosphere works, and how it affects the weather:

"With more attention than ever before being focused on understanding our planet's climate, weather systems and atmosphere, it's important that scientists challenge their own assumptions and current theories of how these complex processes work. I think our study sheds new light on the driving forces behind the weather in the mid-latitudes," Dr Czaja added. 

Source: EurekAlert, August 21, 2008
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Warming threatens crucial Himalayan water resources

Climate change poses a serious threat to essential water resources in the Himalayan region putting the livelihoods of 1.3 billion people at risk, experts said Thursday.

The mountainous region, home to the world’s largest glaciers and permafrost area outside the Polar Regions, has seen rapid glacial melting and dramatic changes in rainfall, experts at the World Water Week conference in Stockholm said.

“Himalayan glaciers are retreating more rapidly than anywhere else in the world,” said Mats Eriksson, programme manager for water and hazard management at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development.

Although high altitudes, remoteness and cooperation difficulties between countries in the region have made it difficult to conduct comprehensive studies, Eriksson said it was obvious “the region is very strongly affected by climate change.” “The glaciers’ retreat is enormous — up to 230 feet per year,” he told AFP.

Xu Jianchu, who heads the Centre for Mountain Ecosystem Studies in China, pointed out that temperatures on the Tibetan Plateau, for instance, were increasing by 0.3 degrees Celsius each decade. “That’s double the worldwide average,” he said.

This has a large impact in a region where melting glaciers and snow account for about 50 percent of the water that flows down mountains, feeding into nine of the largest rivers in Asia.

The Himalayas stretch across China, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Myanmar, Bhutan and Afghanistan, and the mountain range thus constitutes a major source of water for some of the most populous parts of the planet. “Snow and glacial ice melting provide a very important source for fresh water for irrigation, energy and drinking water downstream,” Xu said.

Glaciers hold numerous capacities to store water, so although water levels initially rise as the ice melts, in the long term their disappearance leads to less available water downstream.

“Livelihoods will be severely affected by this,” Eriksson said. At the same time as glaciers are melting, scientists say precipitation patterns in many parts of the Himalayas are changing dramatically, serving up more rain in the monsoon periods and less in dry seasons.

“The drier areas are becoming drier, while the wetter areas are becoming wetter,” said Rakhshan Roohi of the Water Resource Research Institute in Pakistan. Eriksson said changes had been especially felt in the drier western part of the Himalayas.

“In the past, the rivers had a fairly constant flow throughout the summer due to melt-water ... Now you have a lot of rain in the spring and then you have fairly dry conditions throughout the rest of the summer,” he said.

On top of the more uncertain harvest conditions, which are prompting many people to migrate, farmers and others also face a growing number of natural disasters like flash floods and bursting glacier lakes.

“Maybe before your district was suffering from one flash flood every season, and that was perhaps what people managed to cope with. But if you get three or four or five flash floods, maybe that’s too much. The question is how much more can people tolerate without losing their basis for livelihood,” Eriksson said.

The Himalayan Mountains do not produce much of the greenhouse gases that are so drastically altering its ecosystem, and in fact function as a carbon sink, capturing carbon dioxide to mitigate global warming.

Xu however cautioned that increased glacial melting means the captured CO2 will seep back into the atmosphere. “This will transform the carbon sink into a carbon source ... more soil carbon will be released with the melting of glaciers and permafrost,” he said. afp

Source: Daily Times, August 25, 2008 
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Protection zones not helping reefs, study finds 
Michael Kahn

Conservation zones in the Indian Ocean set up to protect fish stocks are not preventing coral reefs from collapsing due to warmer temperatures or helping to speed their recovery, researchers reported on Wednesday.

The reason is many of these non-fishing areas are located in warmer waters where coral reefs have a harder time surviving when temperatures rise suddenly, said Newcastle University marine biologist Nick Graham, who led the study.

The survey of 66 sites in 7 countries is the largest study of its kind and underscores the need for urgent action to save the important marine ecosystem, the researchers said.

The findings also show fishing limits that keep boats out and people out of fragile areas do not protect coral the way many scientists had thought, the researchers said.

"The Indian Ocean hosts some of the most diverse reefs in the world," Graham said in a telephone interview. "Current marine protected areas don't show any potential for faster recovery than non-protected areas."

Coral reefs, delicate undersea structures resembling rocky gardens made by animals called coral polyps, are important nurseries and shelters for fish and other sea life.

They are also considered valuable protection for coastlines from high seas, a critical source of food, important for tourism and a potential storehouse of medicines for cancer and other diseases.

But overfishing, climate change and human development are threatening reefs worldwide, including in the Indian Ocean where warmer water temperatures due to the El Nino weather system in 1998 devastated the coral population, researchers said.

"The West Indian ocean lost about half of its coral and some areas lost up to 90 percent," Graham said.

The researchers, who reported their findings in the journal PLoS One, looked at the coral population over a 10-year period beginning in 1994 to compare the before and after effects of the 1998 destruction.

They found that nine protected areas varying in size from 1 square kilometre to 14 square kilometres in the Seychelles and off the coasts of Kenya and Northern Tanzania were boosting fish stocks but not doing much for the coral.

Instead, coral was rebounding much faster in areas with cooler waters in Southern Tanzania, Reunion Island and Mauritius -- all areas with very few of the protected zones set up in the 1960s and 1970s.

The findings do not suggest existing protected areas should be scrapped but rather point to a need to focus conservation efforts on faster-recovering areas and manage the system as a whole, Graham said.

"We need to focus on areas that are recovering faster or escaping the impacts of climate change," he said. "This is where your brood stocks of coral areas are that will help seed other areas." (Reporting by Michael Kahn, Editing by Giles Elgood) 

Source: AlertNet, August 27, 2008
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