Six In The Morning

Revealed: British government's plan to play down Fukushima
Internal emails seen by Guardian show PR campaign was launched to protect UK nuclear plans after tsunami in Japan
Rob Edwards
guardian.co.uk,

British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and before the extent of the radiation leak was known.

Internal emails seen by the Guardian show how the business and energy departments worked closely behind the scenes with the multinational companies EDF Energy, Areva and Westinghouse to try to ensure the accident did not derail their plans for a new generation of nuclear stations in the UK.

Read The Emails Here

Extreme weather link 'can no longer be ignored'
Scientists to end 20-year reluctance with study into global warming and exceptional weather events
By Steve Connor, Science Editor Friday, 1 July 2011
Scientists are to end their 20-year reluctance to link climate change with extreme weather – the heavy storms, floods and droughts which often fill news bulletins – as part of a radical departure from a previous equivocal position that many now see as increasingly untenable.

Climate researchers from Britain, the United States and other parts of the world have formed a new international alliance that aims to investigate exceptional weather events to see whether they can be attributable to global warming caused by

Damascus vibrations ripple in Baghdad

By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - For a variety of overlapping reasons, the situation in Syria is very alarming to Iraqis from every end of the political spectrum.

For starters, approximately 1 million Iraqis currently live in Syria, all of whom fled the mayhem in their country in 2003. They are worried that if security breaks down in Syria, or if the state can no longer accommodate them, they would have to unwillingly return home - where a very uncertain future awaits them.

A country that now has refugees on the border with Turkey will have a hard time absorbing refugees on its own territories - and certainly not Iraqi refugees.

Hu warns Chinese Communist Party
Chinese President Hu Jintao has warned members of the ruling Communist Party that corruption could cost them the support and trust of the people.



Mr Hu made the comments in an address in the Great Hall of the People in the capital, Beijing, marking the 90th anniversary of founding of the party.

He praised its achievements since taking power in 1949, but said members had to be more disciplined than ever.

The party is the biggest in the world, with 80 million members.

In the months leading up to the anniversary, the authorities launched their biggest crackdown against dissidents in almost 20 years.

Germany Approves End to the Nuclear Era
A Revolution for Renewables

Germany's federal parliament, the Bundestag, passed a historic package of laws Thursday that commits the nation -- once and for all -- to a phase-out of nuclear power by 2022. The step is unprecedented in Europe, and it marks the final act in a decades-long political drama that began with a grassroots anti-nuclear movement in the 1970s, which gave rise to the German Green Party.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has led the charge against nuclear power only since March, but the Bundestag this morning voted overwhelmingly to close Germany's remaining nine active plants according to a fixed, 11-year schedule. The vote was 513:79, with eight abstentions. Many of the "no" votes came from the Left Party, which argued for a swifter timeline.

Reluctance to engage in hotel battle raises questions of Afghan preparedness

Alissa Rubin
July 1, 2011
KABUL: Nazir Amini, an Afghan visiting from his home in Germany, had just come back from the buffet with a bowl of ice-cream when he saw two men armed with an AK-47 rifle and a machinegun emerge and start shooting at guests seated around the pool at the Intercontinental Hotel, one of the capital's most fortified buildings.

Women and their children screamed. Chairs tipped backwards. Food slid onto the lawn as people started to run. Mr Amini said he saw police officers running, too, gripping their AK-47s as they raced from the gunmen.