Mitchell to sue Sun over 'plebgate'

28 March 2013 Last updated at 13:16 ET

Four people have been arrested as part of the inquiry into the row involving Mr Mitchell

Police investigating claims that a Cabinet minister called officers "plebs" say they have passed a file of evidence to prosecutors.

Four people have so far been arrested after an investigation into the incident which happened in Downing Street in September last year.

Initial reports had said that Andrew Mitchell, who was chief whip, lost his temper and swore at police when they refused to open the gates for him as he cycled out.

He resigned from the Cabinet, but Mr Mitchell denied directly swearing at the officer and insisted he did not lose his temper or call the officer a "pleb".

CCTV footage of the incident cast doubt on the police reports.

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Treaty on global arms trade blocked

28 March 2013 Last updated at 21:38 ET

Campaigners in the US have been lobbying the White House to back a treaty

Iran, North Korea and Syria have blocked what would have been the first treaty to regulate the $70bn (£46bn) global trade in conventional arms.

The draft would require states to ensure that conventional weapons are not transferred across borders if they are to be used in human rights abuses.

Supporters were hoping to secure the backing of all 193 UN member states.

They are now expected to take the draft to the UN General Assembly, where it will likely pass by a large majority.

"This is not a failure, today is success deferred and deferred by not very long," said the chief UK negotiator, Jo Adamson, who called the draft a "good, strong treaty".

Diplomats have worked for nearly a decade to agree on a set of principles to stop the unchecked flow of arms, and the BBC's Nada Tawfik reports from New York that on Thursday many believed the treaty was close to achieving consensus.

The treaty would prohibit states from exporting conventional weapons in violation of arms embargoes, or weapons that would be used for acts of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or terrorism.

It would also require states to prevent conventional weapons reaching the black market.

'Too narrow'

Iran's representative, Mohammad Khazaee, said the treaty was "hugely susceptible to politicisation and discrimination".

He said it failed to ban transfers of arms to those who "commit acts of aggression", apparently a reference to rebel groups.

Syrian Ambassador Bashar Jaafari objected to the draft treaty's failure to include an embargo on transferring arms to "terrorist armed groups and to non-state actors".

"Unfortunately our national concerns were not taken into consideration," he said.

Anna Macdonald, head of arms control at Oxfam, said the treaty was too narrow.

"We need a treaty that covers all conventional weapons, not just some of them,'' she said.

"We need a treaty that will make a difference to the lives of the people living in Congo, Mali, Syria and elsewhere who suffer each day from the impacts of armed violence."

Last year, efforts to reach agreement on the treaty broke down after the US, followed by Russia and China, said more time was needed to consider the issues.

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Goals: Cleaner gasoline, lower-pollution cars - Pioneer Press

WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency will move ahead Friday, March 29, with a rule requiring cleaner gasoline and lower-pollution vehicles nationwide, amounting to one of President Barack Obama's most significant air pollution initiatives, according to people briefed on the decision.

The proposed standards would add less than a penny a gallon to the cost of gasoline while delivering an environmental benefit akin to taking 33 million cars off the road, according to a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the announcement had not been made yet.

Oil industry officials, however, said the cost would be at least double the administration's estimate, and could add up to 9 cents a gallon in some places.

The proposed standards, which had been stuck in regulatory limbo since 2011, would reduce the amount of sulfur in U.S. gasoline by two-thirds and impose fleetwide pollution limits on new vehicles by 2017.

The Obama administration's decision to go ahead with the regulations deals a political blow to the oil and gas industry, which had mobilized dozens of lawmakers in recent days to lobby the White House for a one-year delay.

It also comes as the administration angered many environmentalists by weighing a delay in limits on greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants. Unlike the sulfur limits, the administration has argued, the power plant limits could immediately hurt the struggling economy.

While

gasoline sulfur itself does not pose a public health threat, it hampers the effectiveness of catalytic converters, which in turn leads to greater tailpipe emissions. These emissions -- nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide and fine particles -- contribute to smog and soot, which can cause respiratory and heart disease.

The proposed standards were first reported by The Washington Post on Thursday afternoon and confirmed by the administration Thursday night.

The regulations are supported by environmental advocates, state regulators and even automobile companies, who would prefer uniform sulfur standards for fuel nationwide. But oil industry officials and their congressional allies say it will cost up to $10 billion to upgrade refineries and an additional $2.4 billion in annual operating costs.

Both public health advocates and the administration say the ultimate cost would be much lower because of provisions giving refiners flexibility in complying with the standards. The EPA estimates annual health benefits of up to $23 billion by 2030.

The agency surveyed 111 U.S. refineries and found 29 already can meet the sulfur standard or come close to it; 66 can reach it with modest modifications; and 16 would require a major overhaul.

The requirements also have the potential to cut major contributors to smog-forming ozone and pollution -- nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, or soot -- by 80 percent and 70 percent, respectively, according to the administration official.

S. William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, said the new standard could be "the most significant air pollution policy President Obama will adopt in his second term. ... There is not another air pollution control strategy that we know of that will produce as substantial, cost-effective and expeditious emissions reductions."

Automakers have lobbied in favor of the rule in part because they must already meet stricter emissions standards in California.

Environmentalists and public health advocates said reducing sulfur content is particularly important for more than a third of Americans who live in communities that do not meet federal air quality standards.

Bob Greco, group director for downstream and industry operations at the American Petroleum Institute, said the nation's refiners are struggling to meet other federal environmental requirements, including renewable-fuel mandates.

"Our industry is already facing a tsunami of regulations from EPA," Greco said. "We're just making it that much harder for refiners to compete globally and stay up and running."

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N Korea 'readies rocket force'

28 March 2013 Last updated at 23:15 ET

North Korea called the stealth bombers flown over South Korea on Thursday 'a dangerous provocation'

Continue reading the main story

• What is driving Pyongyang's threats?
• Anxiety in South over rhetoric
• How potent are the threats?
• Do sanctions persuade or provoke?

North Korea says it has put missile units on stand-by to attack US military bases in response to US stealth bomber flights over the Korean peninsula.

State news agency KCNA said leader Kim Jong-un signed off on the order at a late-night meeting of top generals.

The time had come to "settle accounts" with the US, KCNA quoted him as saying, with the B-2 flights an "ultimatum".

Pyongyang has been angered by fresh UN sanctions and annual US-South Korea military drills.

The US - which flew two stealth bombers over the peninsula on Thursday as part of the ongoing military drills - has said it is ready for "any eventuality" on the peninsula.

Kim Jong-un placed the rocket units on standby after an emergency meeting at 00:30 on Friday (15:30 GMT), KNCA said.

Tensions in the Korean peninsula are high following North Korea's third nuclear test on 12 February.

North Korea has also made multiple threats against both the US and South Korea in recent weeks, including warning of a "pre-emptive nuclear strike" on the US and the scrapping of the Korean War armistice.

North Korea is not thought to have the technology to strike the US mainland with either a nuclear weapon or a ballistic missile, but it is capable of targeting some US military bases in Asia with its mid-range missiles.

On Wednesday, Pyongyang cut a military hotline with the south - the last direct official link between the two nations.

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Met Office advice was 'not helpful'

28 March 2013 Last updated at 21:07 ETBy Roger Harrabin Environment analyst

Between March and April 2012, the UK experienced an extraordinary shift in pressure and downpours

The Met Office has admitted issuing advice to government that was "not helpful" during last year's remarkable switch in weather patterns.

Between March and April 2012, the UK experienced an extraordinary shift from high pressure and drought to low pressure and downpours.

But the Met Office said the forecast for average rainfall "slightly" favoured drier than average conditions.

The three-month forecast is said to be experimental.

It is sent to contingency planners but has been withheld from the public since the Met Office was pilloried for its "barbecue summer" forecast.

Last spring's forecast has been obtained by BBC News under Freedom of Information.

The Met Office three-monthly outlook at the end of March stated: "The forecast for average UK rainfall slightly favours drier than average conditions for April-May-June, and slightly favours April being the driest of the three months."

A soul-searching Met Office analysis later confessed: "Given that April was the wettest since detailed records began in 1910 and the April-May-June quarter was also the wettest, this advice was not helpful."

In a note to the government chief scientist, the Met Office chief scientist Julia Slingo explains the difficulty of constructing long-distance forecasts, given the UK's position at the far edge of dominant world weather systems.

She says last year's calculations were not actually wrong because they were probabilistic.

The Met Office forecast that the probability that April-May-June would fall into the driest of five categories was 20-25%, whilst the probability it would fall into the wettest was 10-15% (The average probability would be 20%).

The Met Office explained it this way: "The probabilistic forecast can be considered as somewhat like a form guide for a horse race.

"It provides an insight into which outcomes are most likely, although in some cases there is a broad spread of outcomes, analogous to a race in which there is no strong favourite. Just as any of the horses in the race could win the race, any of the outcomes could occur, but some are more likely than others."

It said: "The creation of the three monthly outlook relies upon the fact that weather is influenced by the slow variation of ocean conditions (and other processes) which can be predicted months in advance.

"Whilst there is a very strong dependence of tropical weather on processes such as El Nino ,the UK's weather is dominated by the highly variable atmospheric circulation over the North Atlantic, making it much harder to what will happen weeks and months ahead."

In the case of last spring, Dr Slingo says the forecast may have been pushed awry by a little-understood climate phenomenon, the Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO) - a pattern of thunderstorms that starts in the Indian Ocean. The Met Office calls it "one of the great unsolved challenges of tropical meteorology".

The irregular phenomenon is an envelope of thunderstorms starting in the Indian Ocean and moving into the Pacific. The MJO concentrates tropical rainfall within the envelope, with blue skies around it.

Nick Klingaman from Reading University says that, as it moves east, the MJO influences monsoon rainfall in Australia, India, Southeast Asia, South America and Africa.

These "bursts" and "breaks" in the monsoon cause floods and droughts that impact agriculture, river systems and infrastructure. The "long arm of the MJO" even extends into the middle latitudes.

"The thunderstorm activity generates waves in the atmosphere that move toward the poles," he told me. "The position of the MJO today has been shown to influence the position of the Pacific and Atlantic jet streams 10-15 days later."

He says the MJO can be an important predictor of the state of the North Atlantic Oscillation - which controls much of our weather in the UK - about 2-4 weeks in advance.

And that's how a thunderstorm off the coast of India might trigger a pattern of events which led to the weather switch last spring.

Some weather models can predict the MJO three weeks ahead, he said, but others struggle to predict it a week ahead.

Forecasts have greater skill when the MJO is already active. Reading University is working with the Met Office on improving MJO forecasting, he said.

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North Korea says it has cut last military hotline with South - Washington Post

SEOUL — Raising tensions with South Korea yet again, North Korea on Wednesday cut its last military hotline with Seoul, a link that has been essential to running the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation: an industrial complex in the North that employs hundreds of workers from the South.

There was no immediate word about what cutting one of the few remaining official North-South links means for South Korean workers at the Kaesong industrial complex. When the link was last cut, in 2009, many South Koreans were temporarily stranded in the North.

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The hotline shutdown is the latest of many provocative actions and threats from North Korea, which is angry about U.S.-South Korean military drills and recent U.N. sanctions punishing it for its February nuclear test. In a statement announcing the shutdown, the North repeated its claim that war might break out at any moment.

Outside North Korea, Pyongyang’s actions are seen in part as an effort to spur dormant diplomatic talks with a view toward gaining aid, as well to strengthen internal loyalty to young leader Kim Jong Un and build his military credentials.

South Korean officials said that about 750 South Koreans were in Kaesong on Wednesday and that the two Koreas had normal communications over the hotline earlier in the day, when South Korean workers traveled back and forth to the complex as scheduled. The hotline is used by the countries’ militaries to arrange border crossings by the workers.

Workers at Kaesong could be contacted directly by phone from South Korea on Wednesday.

A South Korean employee of Pyxis, a company that produces jewelry cases at Kaesong, said in a phone interview that he wasn’t scared.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I’ve worked and lived with tension here for eight years now. I’m used to it.”

Pyongyang’s action was announced in a message that North Korea’s chief delegate to inter-Korean military talks sent to his South Korean counterpart.

Seoul’s Unification Ministry called the move an “unhelpful measure for the safe operation of the Kaesong complex.”

North Korea recently cut a Red Cross hotline with South Korea and another with the U.S.-led U.N. command at the border.

The Unification Ministry said three telephone hotlines remain between the North and the South, and those are used only for exchanging information about air traffic.

— Associated Press

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New crew reaches ISS in fastest-ever time - The Australian

A NEW Russian-American crew arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) after an express trip from Earth of under six hours, the fastest ever journey to the orbiting laboratory.

A NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts opened the hatches of their Soyuz-TMA spaceship on Friday and floated into the ISS to a warm welcome from the three incumbent crew, live pictures broadcast on Russian television showed.

Russia's Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin and American Chris Cassidy are now expected to spend the next five months aboard the station after a hitch-free launch and docking.

Their record-breaking trip from blast-off at Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to docking with the ISS lasted less than six hours, slashing the travel time for arriving at the station.

Previously, trips to the ISS had taken over two full days as spaceships orbited the Earth 30 times before docking with the space station.

However, under a new technique now employed by the Russian space agency, the Soyuz capsule this time only orbited Earth four times before docking.

The successful fast-track voyage is a huge boost for the embattled Russian space programme, whose reputation has been battered by several failed satellite launches in the last year.

However, there have been no problems to date with the manned spaceflight programme.

After the retirement of the US space shuttle, Russia is now the sole nation capable of transporting humans to the ISS.

On board the three spacemen are joining incumbent crew Chris Hadfield of Canada, Tom Marshburn of NASA and Russia's Roman Romanenko.

Hadfield has over the last months built up a huge following online with colourful tweets from space and spectacular pictures of the Earth below.

"They're docked! I was right at the hatch, heard/felt the metal sliding, heavy thump, then Soyuz pulling to check latched. So very cool," he said on Twitter.

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