Obama outlines measures
for cutting carbon emissions


U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday laid out his agenda for fighting climate change.  The president will issue a series of executive orders to address the problem.
 
Obama put forth an ambitious, wide-ranging plan aimed at reducing the carbon emissions that are blamed for climate change.

And he said the debate over the existence of global warming is obsolete.

“The planet is warming, and human activity is contributing to it,” the president said. “So the question now is whether we will have the courage to act before it is too late.”

At Washington’s Georgetown University, the president said one of his main goals is for the government to regulate the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide put out by power plants.

“But power plants can still dump unlimited amounts of carbon pollution into the air for free.  That is not right,” Obama said. “It is not safe, and it needs to stop.”

Obama plans to implement his initiatives through executive orders, since Congress has blocked his environmental legislation in the past.

The top Senate Republican, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, said Tuesday imposing carbon rules on power plants amounts to an energy tax.

McConnell, from the coal-producing state of Kentucky, also blasted Obama’s call to end U.S. support for public financing for new coal-fired plants in other countries.

“Declaring a war on coal is tantamount to declaring a war on jobs,” he said. “It is tantamount to kicking the ladder out from beneath the feet of many Americans struggling in today’s economy.”

As part of a global effort, Obama said he would work with China and other major polluters to reduce carbon emissions.  He recently reached an agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping to phase out chlorofluorocarbons, greenhouse gases used in refrigerators and air conditioners.

“We compete for business with them, but we also share a planet,” Obama said.  “And we have to all shoulder the responsibility for keeping the planet habitable, or we are going to suffer the consequences together.”

The president’s initiative would also allow more wind and solar energy projects on government land.

It would raise government standards for vehicle fuel efficiency.

And it would send federal money to local governments to help them deal with the effects of climate change-related weather disasters.


Obama’s trip to Africa seen
as boost to economic status


U.S. officials say Sub-Saharan Africa is a center of global growth, home to many of the world’s poorest people, and a place where U.S. business investment and trade could help boost economic expansion.  U.S. President Barack Obama is headed to Africa along with key U.S. economic officials and will meet American and African business executives.

Economists say many of the world’s fastest-growing economies are in Africa, and the potential for future growth, particularly outside the resource sectors, is greater than it has been in decades.  Trade within Africa and with the United States is up and could grow more.

U.S. officials say rising African incomes and a growing middle class could boost demand for American-made products, and help create jobs in the United States.

But China has more trade with African nations, and some critics of U.S. policy say Beijing has made the continent more of a priority, and rarely imposes the kinds of political conditions on investments that come with some U.S. deals.

New U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman says American companies offer deals that build a future.

“Africa wants investors, particularly American investors.  They like the fact that when American companies invest, they hire, train and promote local staff, they invest in the communities and they’re focused not just on taking resources out of Africa, but also in investing in human resources in Africa as well.” said Froman.

Froman says these investments are not charity but hard-headed profit-oriented deals that participants expect to pay off.

The United States and other donors continue to send aid to help Africa’s poor.  Froman says the flow of investment and trade is a critical part of the U.S. development strategy to reduce poverty.

“We need trade, not just aid; investment, not just assistance,” he said.

The agenda for the trip includes talks on improving the rule of law.  Companies say they are much more likely to succeed, grow and hire people if they have effective and predictable courts to settle business disputes.

Trade officials say they will discuss efforts to improve regional trade.  One idea is to streamline the sometimes complex and slow process of paying tariffs on exports moving through Africa’s many nations, a problem that discourages exports and hurts economic growth.


South Africa is taking steps
for its own economic growth


This is only Obama’s second trip to sub-Saharan Africa, after he made a brief stop in 2009 in the West African nation of Ghana. There, he spoke about the importance of democracy.

This time, his focus is different. The president is expected to talk about economic growth, among other issues, with officials in Africa’s economic powerhouse, South Africa.

Trade between South Africa and the U.S. totaled $22 billion in 2011, according to the U.S. government.  South Africa is a major destination for international brands and also has its own burgeoning industries.

South Africa also benefits from duty-free import status to America, which has allowed the nation to export high-value items such as cars.

South Africa has also made its own move to boost trade by becoming the newest member of BRICS, a group of emerging economies comprising Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

The U.S. consulate in Johannesburg has placed itself squarely in the middle of the bustling Sandton business district, home of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

Senior Commercial Officer Larry Farris says trade between Africa and the U.S. is growing and changing.

“The interesting thing is, is it’s gone from being, just primarily a focus on import of raw materials and primary products to be one that shows a lot more diversity and a lot more interests in looking at both trade into the US and into South Africa in areas that represent higher value, represent technology, represent a lot of where the growth in the international markets are,” said Farris.

Officials could not say what sort of deals Obama may sign while in Africa.  But Farris says the engines of business are churning on the continent.

“I think there’s a lot of excitement about some of the things that are going on in eastern Africa right now, where a number of the countries there have come together, working on free trade agreements, working on increasing connections between their countries, infrastructure and the like, and all of that is really good for business. At the same time, there’s a real focus on that part of the continent on making a really solid business environment,” he said.


U.S. Supreme Court voids
section of voting rights law


The U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday struck down a key provision in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the most significant civil rights laws ever passed by Congress.  The law is designed to ensure the rights of minority voters, but critics have argued that some aspects of the law have become outdated.

The high court split along traditional conservative-liberal lines by a vote of five to four. The majority opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts who said the law relies on 40-year old data that does not reflect the racial changes that have occurred in much of the country.

The law was enacted in 1965 to address glaring problems, primarily in southern states where African-Americans were routinely blocked from voting.  The law sets out standards for close federal monitoring of voting and has been reauthorized by Congress several times since.

This latest Supreme Court decision strikes down a part of the law that sets the formula for which states and localities must make changes in voting procedures.  But the high court did not strike down another section of the law that requires states and localities to get pre-clearance from the federal government for any voting changes they may want to make.

Civil rights groups were disheartened by the ruling.

“We are deeply disappointed by the court’s decision today,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, who is with the Legal Defense and Educational Fund of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She spoke to reporters in front of the Supreme Court. “Make no mistake about what has happened.  The court has decided that it stands in a better position than Congress to determine how to protect voting discrimination.”

The Supreme Court decision leaves it up to Congress to change the part of the law that it finds out of date.

The White House issued a statement that said President Barack Obama was disappointed by the decision and called on Congress to ensure all Americans have equal access to the polls.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the law remains a useful tool to block discriminatory voting practices.

“These problems have not been consigned to history,” he said. “They continue to exist.  Their effects are real.  They are of today, not yesterday, and they corrode the foundations of our democracy.”

Conservative groups welcomed the high court decision.

“Back in 1965, an average black man in many areas in the United States couldn’t vote because there were things that were put in their way and various impediments to their voting,” said David Almasi, executive director of the National Center for Public Policy Research in Washington. “Now we have a black president and we have in those same areas that were considered discriminatory back in 1965, we have black office holders that are very common.  We live in a much different world that needs to be figured into things.”

Almasi is also skeptical that Congress will move quickly to update the Voting Rights Act given that the House of Representatives is controlled by Republicans.

“We are looking at some potential problems because it is a hot issue and Congress tends to not want to deal with the hot issues,” he said. “I think people need to realize that it is not the same world as it was back in 1965.”

The voting rights case was one of the most closely-watched cases of this Supreme Court term.  The high court will close out its annual session on Wednesday with two more highly-anticipated rulings on same sex marriage.


Distant star system hosts
three habitable zone planets


Astronomers have discovered three new planets orbiting in the habitable zone around the star Gliese 667C. The habitable zone is where temperatures would allow liquid water to exist.

Counting the three newly discovered planets, which scientists are calling “super-Earths,” the Gliese 667C system contains at least six planets in total.

“We knew that the star had three planets from previous studies, so we wanted to see whether there were any more,” says Mikko Tuomi of the University of Hertfordshire, UK in a statement. “By adding some new observations and revisiting existing data we were able to confirm these three and confidently reveal several more. Finding three low-mass planets in the star’s habitable zone is very exciting!”

Gliese 667C, an M-dwarf star, is just over one third the mass of the Sun and is part of a triple star system known as Gliese 667, which is 22 light years away from Earth in the constellation of Scorpius.

The view from one of the newly identified planets would be spectacular. They orbit the fainter of the three stars in the system, and the other two stars would be visible in the daytime. At night, they would provide roughly the light of a full moon.

This is the first time that three such planets have been spotted orbiting in the habitable zone of the same star system. The super-Earths are more massive than Earth, but not as big as Neptune or Uranus.

“The number of potentially habitable planets in our galaxy is much greater if we can expect to find several of them around each low-mass star — instead of looking at 10 stars to look for a single potentially habitable planet, we now know we can look at just one star and find several of them,” adds co-author Rory Barnes of the University of Washington.

The habitable zone around Gliese 667C is very close to the star, roughly within the size of Mercury’s orbit of Earth’s Sun. Gliese 667C is the “first example of a system where such a low-mass star is seen to host several potentially rocky planets in the habitable zone,” according to the research.

The observations were made using a HARPS instrument at European Southern Observatory’s 3.6 meter telescope in Chile. HARPS observes potential planets by detecting the effect their gravity has on the parent star, often causing the star to wobble or twitch.


Burma censors Time magazine
over radical monk on cover


Burma has banned distribution of a Time Magazine cover story that portrays a fundamentalist Burmese monk as an inciter of terrorism against Muslims.

In a statement late Tuesday, the Burmese government said the ban is aimed at preventing a recurrence of violence between majority Buddhists and minority Muslims.

The magazine cover features a photo of the fundamentalist monk known as Wirathu, with the words “The Face of Buddhist Terror.”

Officials said a committee investigating recent Buddhist-Muslim violence made the decision to block the magazine cover and accompanying article. It is not clear whether the rest of Time Magazine’s latest issue will be distributed in Burma.

Radical monks, such as Wirathu, have been urging Burmese Buddhists to boycott Muslim-owned businesses and avoid marriages with Muslims. His critics say the boycott appeals have encouraged Buddhist extremists to commit violence against Muslims.

Wirathu insists he is a man of peace. Many Buddhists have objected to the Time Magazine story, saying it distorts the peaceful nature of their faith.

Wirathu was jailed in 2003 for inciting deadly anti-Muslim riots, but was released in 2012 as part of a general amnesty. Some analysts say new freedoms of speech introduced in Burma since the end of military-rule have made it easier for radicals to promote their views.

Deadly confrontations between Burmese Buddhists and Muslims have killed more than 200 people in the past year, most of them Muslims.


Question is who let Snowden
flee with all that data to China?


The U.S. government is accusing Edward Snowden of espionage for leaking classified information about American surveillance programs.

Ariel Cohen, with the Heritage Foundation, said this is a huge embarrassment for the Obama administration, given the security breach.

“Somebody with so much access is allowed to just board the plane carrying, allegedly, four laptops with him and skipping to Hong Kong.  That is a failure of security of enormous proportions.”

Snowden did not stay in Hong Kong as Chinese authorities allowed him to leave for Moscow.

White House spokesman Jay Carney strongly criticized that decision.

“This was a deliberate choice by the government to release a fugitive, despite a valid arrest warrant and that decision unquestionably has a negative impact on the U.S.-China relationship,” he said.

Carney also urged Russian officials to expel Snowden to the United States.

But Charles Kupchan, with Georgetown University, says in China and Russia, there are domestic political pressures to help Snowden.

“There is a certain frustration and impatience with American lecturing about domestic freedoms, the lack of democracy, domestic surveillance  and now, all of a sudden, the United States has been shown carrying out its own surveillance,” said Kupchan. “I think there is a certain amount of what one might call schadenfreude, enjoyment on behalf of others of the plight that the United States finds itself in.”

Some analysts are asking what the United States can do to pressure Moscow to expel Snowden.

“There are lots of issues in play with the Russians from Iran to Afghanistan, to the issue of intelligence cooperation in dealing with extremism, to the question of missile defense and arms control,” said Kupchan. “But does the United States really want to take one of those issues in which it has clear geopolitical interests and tie it to Snowden? I think the answer is that that kind of linkage is problematic.”

As for China, Kupchan said the United States doesn’t want to end up doing things that harm its own interests.

“And in that respect, I don’t think the U.S. has a lot of sharp arrows in its quiver. There is a lot at stake with China and yes, the U.S. can and should express its displeasure with the fact that Hong Kong let Snowden out,” said Kupchan. “But it’s hard to see powerful punishments that don’t in some ways work to the disadvantage of the United States.”

Kupchan says in the final analysis, it is better for the United States to let the Snowden affair run its course.


Iceland residents just crazy
for fascinating game of golf


The names of the world’s greatest golf venues roll off the tongue like a putt rolling toward the cup. Pebble Beach. St. Andrews. Valderrama.
 
Then there are Vestmannaeyja and Porlakshafnar. Those names don’t trip off the tongues of anyone except the hardy residents of Iceland. Surprisingly, this island in the frigid North Atlantic is one of the most golf-obsessed places on earth.
 
With 65 courses for a population of 322,000, Iceland has more courses per person, one for every 5,000 people, than any other country.
 
Though many are just nine holes, that’s nearly twice as many courses per capita as Scotland, according to a 2007 survey by Golf Digest. The magazine said Scotland had the most courses per capita but it didn’t count countries with fewer than 500,000 people.
 
About 10 percent of Iceland’s population plays golf, a higher rate than the United States or Britain. That makes it the country’s second most popular sport, after soccer.
 
In contrast to America and Britain, golf club membership in Iceland is still growing, albeit more slowly than before the country’s banking bubble burst five years ago.
 
“We joke that if just three or four people are living near one another, they’ll probably start a golf club,” said Haukur Orn Birgisson, a young attorney who serves as vice chairman of the Icelandic Golf Union.
 
Indeed, some clubs have as few as 20 members, dedicated souls who will upkeep the course themselves.
 
Birgisson’s club, Golfklubberinn Oddur,  just outside Reykjavik, is among the country’s largest, with 1,300 members. Like most clubs in Iceland it is open to the public as well as members, charging a guest fee of 6,900 Icelandic krona ($57).
 
Iceland’s golf season includes the annual Arctic Open tournament, scheduled this year for June 27 to 29. Open to amateurs and professionals alike, it’s played at the Akureyri Golf Club in northern Iceland, which boasts of being “the most northerly 18-hole golf course” on earth.
 
Golf is popular in Iceland despite the obvious drawbacks. The season lasts just four months, from mid-May to mid-September. Summer temperatures rarely venture above 15 degrees Celsius (59 Fahrenheit) and even then occasional days of wicked winds and steady mist can keep all but the most foolhardy or dedicated off the course.
 
Iceland does offer unique advantages and challenges to golfers. Most notably, in June, July and August, golfers can play virtually 24 hours a day.
 
Golfklubburinn Keiler in suburban Reykjavik is booked solid all summer with starting times from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m.. Playing under the midnight sun can be surreal.
 
Another advantage: Iceland’s cool, moist climate makes for lush, green fairways. Also, golf courses don’t have trees to disrupt errant shots. Trees aren’t native in Iceland.
 
Iceland does, however, have lava beds, volcanic rock from past eruptions. They dominate the rough on many courses and are filled with crevices that can swallow golf balls like a whale gulping down krill.
 
The lava beds also are nesting sites for Arctic terns, birds that migrate from pole to pole. Golfers hitting near a tern’s nest will find themselves playing their next shot under aerial bombardment from the ill-tempered birds.
 
Formidable lava beds line the course on Heimaey Island, population 4,500, about three hours by car south east of Reykjavik. A lava flow from a 1973 volcanic eruption almost choked the harbor, but today cruise ships bring bird watchers, nature lovers and, yes, golfers.
 
The sheer cliffs, lava beds and sea vistas made it “the most dramatic course I have ever played”, said Kimber Bilby, an American from Michigan who played the course recently in calm weather. One of their favorites was the par three 17th hole, which requires a tee shot across a sea inlet and lava beds to reach the green.
 
As for why golf is so popular here, Birgisson cites the Icelandic character.
 
“We always seem to go ‘all in,’ and golf is no exception,” he explained. “That mentality didn’t serve us well leading up to the banking crisis, but it has taken us far with golf.”