From CNN.com
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- For the war-beaten orphans of the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit, this big old shoe fits.
A monument to a shoe thrown at former President Bush is unveiled at the Tikrit Orphanage complex.
A monument to a shoe thrown at former President Bush is unveiled at the Tikrit Orphanage complex.
A huge sculpture of the footwear hurled at President Bush in December during a trip to Iraq has been unveiled in a ceremony at the Tikrit Orphanage complex.
Assisted by children at the home, sculptor Laith al-Amiri erected a brown replica of one of the shoes hurled at Bush and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki by journalist Muntadhir al-Zaidi during a press conference in Baghdad.
Al-Zaidi was jailed for his actions, and a trial is pending. But his angry gesture touched a defiant nerve throughout the Arab and Muslim world. He is regarded by many people as a hero. Demonstrators in December took to the streets in the Arab world and called for his release.
The shoe monument, made of fiberglass and coated with copper, consists of the shoe and a concrete base. The entire monument is 3.5 meters (11.5 feet) high. The shoe is 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) long and 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) wide.
The orphans helped al-Amiri build the $5,000 structure -- unveiled Tuesday -- in 15 days, said Faten Abdulqader al-Naseri, the orphanage director.
"Those orphans who helped the sculptor in building this monument were the victims of Bush's war," al-Naseri said. "The shoe monument is a gift to the next generation to remember the heroic action by the journalist."
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"When the next generation sees the shoe monument, they will ask their parents about it," al-Naseri said.
"Then their parents will start talking about the hero Muntadhir al-Zaidi, who threw his shoe at George W. Bush during his unannounced farewell visit."
Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi leader toppled by the United States in 2003, was from the Tikrit region.
Al-Zaidi marked his 30th birthday in jail earlier this month. One of his brothers said he is "in good health and is being treated well."
Al-Zaidi's employer, TV network al-Baghdadia, keeps a picture of him at the top left side of the screen with a calendar showing the number of days he has spent in detention. The network has been calling for his release.
By tradition, throwing a shoe is the most insulting act in the Arab world.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Lobbyists Skirt Obama's Earmark Ban
From the New York Times
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's ban on earmarks in the $825 billion economic stimulus bill doesn't mean interest groups, lobbyists and lawmakers won't be able to funnel money to pet projects.
They're just working around it -- and perhaps inadvertently making the process more secretive.
The projects run the gamut: a Metrolink station that needs building in Placentia, Calif.; a stretch of beach in Sandy Hook, N.J., that could really use some more sand; a water park in Miami.
There are thousands of projects like those that once would have been gotten money upfront but now are left to scramble for dollars at the back end of the process as ''ready to go'' jobs eligible for the stimulus plan.
The result, as The Associated Press learned in interviews with more than a dozen lawmakers, lobbyists and state and local officials, is a shadowy lobbying effort that may make it difficult to discern how hundreds of billions in federal money will be parceled out.
'''No earmarks' isn't a game-ender,'' said Peter Buffa, former mayor of Costa Mesa, Calif. ''It just means there's a different way of going about making sure the funding is there.''
It won't be in legislative language that overtly sets aside money for them. That's the infamous practice known as earmarking, which Obama and Democratic congressional leaders have agreed to nix for the massive stimulus package, expected to come up for a House vote this week.
Instead, the money will be doled out according to arcane formulas spelled out in the bill and in some cases based on the decisions of Obama administration officials, governors and state and local agencies that will choose the projects.
''Somebody's going to earmark it somewhere,'' said Howard Marlowe, a consultant for a coalition working to preserve beaches.
Lobbyists are hard at work figuring out ways to grab a share of the money for their clients, but the new rules mean they're doing so indirectly -- and sometimes in ways that are impossible to track.
Congressional earmarks have had a bad name since the 2004 scandal that sent superlobbyist Jack Abramoff to prison and earned the congressional spending committees a new nickname: ''The Favor Factory.''
Obama, who campaigned promising a more transparent and accountable government, is advocating a system that will eventually let the public track exactly where stimulus money goes through an Internet-powered search engine. In addition, Democratic lawmakers have devised an elaborate oversight system, including a new board to review how the money is spent.
But none of that will happen until after the bill becomes law. Even critics of the earmarks system acknowledge that specifying projects upfront offers some measure of transparency.
''We hate earmarks, but at least it's a way of tracking where influence is had,'' said Keith Ashdown of the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. ''There is a challenge now that projects will be added behind closed doors without a paper trail.''
Indeed, some lawmakers hearing from local groups say they're doing their own lobbying of governors and state and local officials who could have say-so over the funds.
''I've talked to my governor and suggested some things I think are important in our area,'' said Republican Rep. C.W. Bill Young, who represents St. Petersburg, Fla. ''He knows what the needs are.''
Democratic Rep. Ed Pastor of Arizona suggested it's not entirely accurate to say there will be no earmarks in the measure. ''There are and there aren't,'' Pastor said. ''A lot of it depends on what the formula looks like.''
For instance, the House measure, which includes $358 billion for road, water and energy programs among others, gives priority to transportation projects in high-unemployment areas that could be begun and completed quickly and that state and metropolitan transportation authorities have included in their long-term plans.
In California, Buffa, now board chairman of the Orange County Transportation Authority, said he's changed his strategy from asking for specific projects to pleading for more favorable general guidelines, including more money for infrastructure projects overall and a formula that lets cities -- not states -- decide how to spend it.
His organization has enlisted Potomac Partners, a large firm that specializes in lobbying for project spending, to help.
In most cases, lawmakers know exactly which projects in their districts can benefit from the money, even though the legislation won't spell them out. State and local officials have released lists of projects that could start quickly and be completed within a few years.
In Orange County, they include freeway improvements and the Placentia Metrolink station. The American Shore and Beach Preservation Association, which is pushing for more water projects to be funded, wants repair and restoration of beaches from Sandy Hook, N.J., to Newport Beach, Calif.
Members of Congress are privately outlining their priorities, too.
''Everybody's making their list and checking it twice,'' said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the minority leader. ''You are inevitably going to have a lot of projects that are not going to pass the smell test.''
Some groups are careful not to get too specific, fearing that public scrutiny could draw unwelcome attention to projects easily caricatured as special-interest goodies, such as a 2007 earmark for spinach growers that found its way into an Iraq war spending bill or the now-infamous ''Bridge to Nowhere'' in Alaska.
The United States Conference of Mayors released a 300-plus-page list of some $150 billion in ''ready-to-go'' projects that quickly became fodder for criticism. It included money for the Miami water park, which McConnell has ridiculed publicly, and a skate park in Portland, Maine.
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials was more guarded about its list of 5,000 projects totaling $64 billion. No specific projects were mentioned -- just the number in each state and an overall dollar amount -- making it impossible for lawmakers, advocacy groups or members of the public to criticize any one item.
Peter J. ''Jack'' Basso, an association executive, said it's up to states to decide what goes on their ''ready-to-go'' wish lists, but that the projects must meet rigorous tests including clearing environmental reviews.
''We really rely on them to pick things that, frankly, are not bridges to nowhere,'' Basso said.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's ban on earmarks in the $825 billion economic stimulus bill doesn't mean interest groups, lobbyists and lawmakers won't be able to funnel money to pet projects.
They're just working around it -- and perhaps inadvertently making the process more secretive.
The projects run the gamut: a Metrolink station that needs building in Placentia, Calif.; a stretch of beach in Sandy Hook, N.J., that could really use some more sand; a water park in Miami.
There are thousands of projects like those that once would have been gotten money upfront but now are left to scramble for dollars at the back end of the process as ''ready to go'' jobs eligible for the stimulus plan.
The result, as The Associated Press learned in interviews with more than a dozen lawmakers, lobbyists and state and local officials, is a shadowy lobbying effort that may make it difficult to discern how hundreds of billions in federal money will be parceled out.
'''No earmarks' isn't a game-ender,'' said Peter Buffa, former mayor of Costa Mesa, Calif. ''It just means there's a different way of going about making sure the funding is there.''
It won't be in legislative language that overtly sets aside money for them. That's the infamous practice known as earmarking, which Obama and Democratic congressional leaders have agreed to nix for the massive stimulus package, expected to come up for a House vote this week.
Instead, the money will be doled out according to arcane formulas spelled out in the bill and in some cases based on the decisions of Obama administration officials, governors and state and local agencies that will choose the projects.
''Somebody's going to earmark it somewhere,'' said Howard Marlowe, a consultant for a coalition working to preserve beaches.
Lobbyists are hard at work figuring out ways to grab a share of the money for their clients, but the new rules mean they're doing so indirectly -- and sometimes in ways that are impossible to track.
Congressional earmarks have had a bad name since the 2004 scandal that sent superlobbyist Jack Abramoff to prison and earned the congressional spending committees a new nickname: ''The Favor Factory.''
Obama, who campaigned promising a more transparent and accountable government, is advocating a system that will eventually let the public track exactly where stimulus money goes through an Internet-powered search engine. In addition, Democratic lawmakers have devised an elaborate oversight system, including a new board to review how the money is spent.
But none of that will happen until after the bill becomes law. Even critics of the earmarks system acknowledge that specifying projects upfront offers some measure of transparency.
''We hate earmarks, but at least it's a way of tracking where influence is had,'' said Keith Ashdown of the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. ''There is a challenge now that projects will be added behind closed doors without a paper trail.''
Indeed, some lawmakers hearing from local groups say they're doing their own lobbying of governors and state and local officials who could have say-so over the funds.
''I've talked to my governor and suggested some things I think are important in our area,'' said Republican Rep. C.W. Bill Young, who represents St. Petersburg, Fla. ''He knows what the needs are.''
Democratic Rep. Ed Pastor of Arizona suggested it's not entirely accurate to say there will be no earmarks in the measure. ''There are and there aren't,'' Pastor said. ''A lot of it depends on what the formula looks like.''
For instance, the House measure, which includes $358 billion for road, water and energy programs among others, gives priority to transportation projects in high-unemployment areas that could be begun and completed quickly and that state and metropolitan transportation authorities have included in their long-term plans.
In California, Buffa, now board chairman of the Orange County Transportation Authority, said he's changed his strategy from asking for specific projects to pleading for more favorable general guidelines, including more money for infrastructure projects overall and a formula that lets cities -- not states -- decide how to spend it.
His organization has enlisted Potomac Partners, a large firm that specializes in lobbying for project spending, to help.
In most cases, lawmakers know exactly which projects in their districts can benefit from the money, even though the legislation won't spell them out. State and local officials have released lists of projects that could start quickly and be completed within a few years.
In Orange County, they include freeway improvements and the Placentia Metrolink station. The American Shore and Beach Preservation Association, which is pushing for more water projects to be funded, wants repair and restoration of beaches from Sandy Hook, N.J., to Newport Beach, Calif.
Members of Congress are privately outlining their priorities, too.
''Everybody's making their list and checking it twice,'' said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the minority leader. ''You are inevitably going to have a lot of projects that are not going to pass the smell test.''
Some groups are careful not to get too specific, fearing that public scrutiny could draw unwelcome attention to projects easily caricatured as special-interest goodies, such as a 2007 earmark for spinach growers that found its way into an Iraq war spending bill or the now-infamous ''Bridge to Nowhere'' in Alaska.
The United States Conference of Mayors released a 300-plus-page list of some $150 billion in ''ready-to-go'' projects that quickly became fodder for criticism. It included money for the Miami water park, which McConnell has ridiculed publicly, and a skate park in Portland, Maine.
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials was more guarded about its list of 5,000 projects totaling $64 billion. No specific projects were mentioned -- just the number in each state and an overall dollar amount -- making it impossible for lawmakers, advocacy groups or members of the public to criticize any one item.
Peter J. ''Jack'' Basso, an association executive, said it's up to states to decide what goes on their ''ready-to-go'' wish lists, but that the projects must meet rigorous tests including clearing environmental reviews.
''We really rely on them to pick things that, frankly, are not bridges to nowhere,'' Basso said.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
In Final Legal Act, Bush Appeals Spy Ruling
By David Kravets
With just 64 minutes left in its last full day in office, the Bush administration asked a San Francisco federal judge late Monday to stay enforcement of a court ruling that keeps alive a lawsuit testing whether a sitting president may bypass Congress and eavesdrop on Americans without warrants.
With just 64 minutes left in its last full day in office, the Bush administration asked a San Francisco federal judge late Monday to stay enforcement of a court ruling that keeps alive a lawsuit testing whether a sitting president may bypass Congress and eavesdrop on Americans without warrants.
The request was lodged with U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker of San Francisco at 10:56 p.m. EST on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
The filing was among now former President George W. Bush's final legal acts in office. President Barack Obama was sworn in as Bush's successor early Tuesday.
The Bush administration asked Walker's permission to appeal his Jan. 5 decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Walker had ruled that "sufficient facts" exist that two U.S.-based lawyers for an Islamic charity might have been spied upon for the case to proceed to the next stage.
The case seeks the courts to rule on the constitutionality of the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program the president approved in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
Congress authorized the spy program last year as part of legislation immunizing participating telecommunication companies from lawsuits accusing them of violating their customers' civil liberties, but the spying in this case allegedly happened in 2004. Eric Holder, the incoming U.S. attorney, said the Obama administration supported the spy legislation and would defend it in a separate challenge.
On Monday, the Bush administration sought to prevent the disclosure of a Top Secret document at the center of a closely watched spy case, a document Walker ruled could be admitted.
The suit involves two American lawyers who the Treasury Department accidentally gave a Top Secret document in 2004 showing they were illegally eavesdropped on by the government when working for a now-defunct Islamic charity that year.
Their suit looked all but dead in July when they were initially blocked from using the document to prove they were spied on. They were forced to return it to the government.
But two weeks ago, Walker said the document could be used in the case because there was sufficient, anecdotal evidence unrelated to the document that suggests the lawyers for the Al-Haramain charity were spied upon. Without the document, the lawyers — Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoo — don't likely have a case.
In its Monday filling, (.pdf) the government repeated its assertion that the use of the document in the case would jeopardize national security. The administration said the document was protected by the so-called state secrets privilege and objected to even Walker reviewing it — yet alone the lawyers for Belew and Ghafoo — who Walker said could see it in private.
"If the court were to find … that none of the plaintiffs are aggrieved parties, the case obviously could not proceed, but such a holding would reveal to plaintiffs and the public at large information that is protected by the state secrets privilege — namely, that certain individuals were not subject to alleged surveillance," the administration wrote.
By the same token, the administration argued, if Walker allowed the case to proceed after reviewing the document, it "would confirm that a plaintiff was subject to surveillance."
The government continued: "Indeed, if the actual facts were that just one of the plaintiffs had been subject to alleged surveillance, any such differentiation likewise could not be disclosed because it would inherently reveal intelligence information as to who was and was not a subject of interest, which communications were and were not of intelligence interest, and which modes of communication were and were not of intelligence interest, and which modes of communication may or may not have been subject to surveillance."
A hearing is scheduled in Walker's courtroom on Friday.
"We filed this lawsuit to establish a judicial precedent that the president cannot disregard Congress in the name of national security," said Jon Eisenberg, the lawyer for Belew and Ghafoo. "Plaintiffs have a right to litigate the legality of the surveillance."
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
16-year-old Chinese boy dies from H5N1 bird flu
By AUDRA ANG, Associated Press Writer Audra Ang, Associated Press Writer
BEIJING – A 16-year-old boy infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus died Tuesday in central China, the country's third fatality from the disease this month.
Authorities also stepped up bird flu precautions on fears the virus can survive longer in cold weather as tens of millions of people travel between cities and rural hometowns for the Lunar New Year holiday, which typically includes feasts with poultry.
The student surnamed Wu, who had been in critical condition, died Tuesday morning in Huaihua, a city in Hunan province, the official Xinhua News Agency said. He fell ill on Jan. 8 in his hometown in the neighboring province of Guizhou and was transferred to a hospital in Huaihua on Jan. 16, when his condition worsened.
He had contact with dead poultry, the report said without giving other details.
The two other bird flu deaths were a 27-year-old woman in Shandong province in the country's east who died on Saturday and a 19-year-old woman who died in Beijing on Jan. 5.
Also Tuesday, a 2-year-old girl who had been critically ill with the H5N1 virus in Hunan was in stable condition and returned to her home in the north, China Central Television said in its noon newscast. The state television report said the girl had been to live poultry markets "many times" but did not elaborate.
The girl's mother died earlier this month from pneumonia after being exposed to poultry, a Hunan health bureau official said in an interview published Tuesday in the state-run China Business News newspaper. However, the official surnamed Peng could not confirm a link to H5N1.
Most bird flu cases stem from exposure to sick birds, but human-to-human transmission of bird flu has happened about a dozen times in the past in countries including China, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Turkey. In nearly every case, transmission has occurred among blood relatives who have been in close contact, and the virus has not spread into the wider community.
"Whenever there is a case of humans contracting the H5N1 virus, there is a concern," said Nyka Alexander, a Beijing-based spokeswoman for the World Health Organization. "As long as H5N1 continues to circulate in poultry, there is the risk of human infection. This is why it is so important to treat each case seriously."
While the disease remains hard for humans to catch, scientists have warned if outbreaks among poultry are not controlled, the virus may mutate into a form more easily passed between people. A new influenza virus could quickly turn into a pandemic, infecting millions of people with no immunity.
No sick poultry has been found in the areas where the four people fell ill this year, despite officials inspecting hundreds of thousands of birds. This could mean that surveillance needs to be tightened or that poultry may be carrying the virus but not showing symptoms or falling sick. Vaccinations also reduce the amount of virus circulating, but low levels of H5N1 may still be causing outbreaks — without the obvious signs of dying birds.
Until this month, no new human cases had been reported in China since February 2007. Shu Yuelong, a flu expert at China's National Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said a spike in infections was likely because the H5N1 virus is more active in lower temperatures.
The cases come as an estimated 188 million people travel between cities and rural hometowns for Lunar New Year, the country's biggest holiday, which begins next week.
Celebratory family meals often include dishes made from freshly slaughtered chicken and duck feature, meaning a potentially greater risk of exposure to sick birds as people shop in markets for poultry or when the birds are transported to be sold.
The Agriculture Ministry has ordered tighter monitoring of disease outbreaks at all levels and proper vaccination of all poultry. It would also increase checks across the country and at borders.
According to the WHO, bird flu has killed 249 people worldwide since 2003. The tally does not include Tuesday's death in China, where a total of 34 infections have been reported.
Monday, January 19, 2009
UPS man delivers daughter
From UPI.com
Craig Ramirez, 34, of Carol Stream and his wife Lisa, 31, already have four children, so he thought it would be another routine labor when she woke him Saturday at 3:30 a.m. to go to the hospital, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Sunday.CAROL STREAM, Ill., Jan. 18 (UPI) -- A UPS deliveryman in Illinois says he handled his most unusual -- and most precious -- package when his wife unexpectedly gave birth in their living room.
Craig Ramirez, 34, of Carol Stream and his wife Lisa, 31, already have four children, so he thought it would be another routine labor when she woke him Saturday at 3:30 a.m. to go to the hospital, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Sunday.CAROL STREAM, Ill., Jan. 18 (UPI) -- A UPS deliveryman in Illinois says he handled his most unusual -- and most precious -- package when his wife unexpectedly gave birth in their living room.
By the time they reached the front door, however, the baby's head was coming out. "I said, 'No, it can't be coming," Craig recalled. "It can't. That's not even in the realm of reality.'"
Craig called 911 as Lisa stood and leaned on a sofa. Craig then got on his knees, put his hands on the baby's head and with a push from Lisa, the infant slid into her father's arms. The birth happened so quickly there was no time even to turn the lights on.
The parents and little Amelia Yvonne Ramirez were reported doing well, with Craig saying he was prepared to be peppered with delivery jokes when he returned to work at UPS.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Life on Mars?
By PAUL SUTHERLAND
From The Sun.com
ALIEN microbes living just below the Martian soil are responsible for a haze of methane around the Red Planet, Nasa scientists believe.
The gas, belched in vast quantities in our world by cows, was detected by orbiting spacecraft and from Earth using giant telescopes.
Discovery ... gas around Mars
Nasa are today expected to confirm its presence during a briefing at their Washington HQ.
And the find is seen as exciting new evidence that Martian microbes are still alive today.
To read more of our exclusive UFO stories click here.
Some scientists reckon methane is also produced by volcanic processes. But there are NO known active volcanoes on Mars.
Furthermore, Nasa has found the gas in the same regions as clouds of water vapour, the vital “drink” needed to support life.
Mission ... probe on the surface of Mars
Experts speculate that the methane is being emitted as a waste product by organisms called methanogens living in water beneath underground ice.
And they would have to be alive today because the methane would otherwise have been lost from the Martian atmosphere.
What a scoop ... Phoenix lander dug up chunks of ice last year
John Murray — a member of the Mars Express European space probe team — believes the mini-Martians may be in a form of suspended animation and could even be REVIVED.
He has found overwhelming evidence of a vast frozen ocean beneath the dust near the Martian equator where simple life could have thrived as microbes.
Today’s briefing will feature a star panel of Mars experts headed by Michael Meyer, chief scientist for Nasa’s Mars programme.
UK Mars expert Professor Colin Pillinger believes the methane can only point to the presence of life on the planet.
Space neighbours ... Earth and Venus rise over Mars in mock-up
His ill-fated Beagle 2 probe was carrying a laboratory that would have looked directly for such signs of life when it crashed on Christmas Day 2003.
Prof Pillinger told The Sun last night: “Methane is a product of biology. For methane to be in Mars’ atmosphere, there has to be a replenishable source.
“The most obvious source of methane is organisms. So if you find methane in an atmosphere, you can suspect there is life.
“It’s not proof, but it makes it worth a much closer look.”
Nasa’s findings confirm studies by Europe’s Mars Express probe, which has been orbiting the planet for five years and also reported signs of methane in 2004.
Britain’s top space expert Nick Pope last night hailed the new evidence of life as “the most important discovery of all time”.
He said: “What could be more profound than to know it’s not just us out there?
Expert ... Colin Pillinger
"We’ve really only scratched the surface — it’s an absolute certainty that there is life out there and we are not alone.
“If there is life on Mars then the logical conclusion is that there must be life elsewhere too.
“If it’s happened here on Earth, then why shouldn’t it happen anywhere? The implication is this is a universal law.
“Mars is very similar to Earth. It’s about the same size, it’s a rocky inner planet.
“Most scientists believe it probably has liquid water which is almost universally agreed as the pre-requisite for life. I am certain there is other life in the Universe and, most likely, intelligent life.”
The Red Planet has gripped the public imagination for more than a century as a possible home for aliens.
But life could not survive on its surface because, unlike the Earth, Mars has no magnetic shield to protect it against deadly sun radiation.
The planet resembles our own in many ways. It is made of rock, it has an atmosphere and weather systems.
Although much smaller with a diameter of around 4,222 miles, Mars’ day is just 40 minutes longer than ours and its tilted axis gives it seasons.
Water has been found in the form of buried ice and scientists believe that two billion years ago, Mars was covered with liquid oceans.
Proof that water is still on Mars came in 2007 when Mars Express used ground-piercing radar to study the region around the planet’s South Pole.
Nasa’s latest lander Phoenix dug up chunks of Martian ice last year. It swiftly evaporated into the thin atmosphere.
Nasa have controversially hit the headlines before for claiming evidence for Martians.
In 1996, they said they had discovered fossilised organisms in a meteorite from the planet.
But other scientists were sceptical.
Today’s conference will be broadcast live online by NASA TV (www.nasa.gov/ntv) at 7pm.
Monday, January 12, 2009
We're Borrowing Like Mad. Can the U.S. Pay It Back?
By Greg Ip at the washingtonpost.com
In its battle against the financial crisis, the U.S. government has extended its full faith and credit to an ever-growing swath of the private sector: first homeowners, then banks, now car companies. Soon, President-elect Barack Obama will put the government credit card to work with a massive fiscal boost for the economy. Necessary as these steps are, they raise a worry of their own: Can the United States pay the money back?
The notion seems absurd: Banana republics default, not the world's biggest, richest economy, right? The United States has unparalleled wealth, a stable legal tradition, responsible macroeconomic policies and a top-notch, triple-A credit rating. U.S. Treasury bonds are routinely called "risk-free," and the United States has the unique privilege of borrowing in the currency that other countries like to hold as foreign-exchange reserves.
Yes, default is unlikely. But it is no longer unthinkable. Thanks to the advent of credit derivatives -- financial contracts that allow investors to speculate on or protect against default -- we can now observe how likely global markets think it is that Uncle Sam will renege on America's mounting debts. Last week, markets pegged the probability of a U.S. default at 6 percent over the next 10 years, compared with just 1 percent a year ago. For technical reasons, this is not a precise reading of investors' views. Nonetheless, the trend is real, and it is grounded in some pretty fundamental concerns.
The most important is the coming surge in the federal debt. At the end of the last fiscal year, in September, the total public debt held by the American people (excluding debt issued to the Social Security Trust Fund or held by the Federal Reserve) stood at $5.8 trillion, or 41 percent of gross domestic product -- about what the debt-to-GDP ratio has averaged since 1956. But the Congressional Budget Office projects deficits of $1.9 trillion over the next two years. Add almost $800 billion of stimulus spending, and U.S. debt soars to 60 percent of GDP by 2010 -- the highest level since the early 1950s, when the nation was working off its World War II and Korean War debts.
The other major cause for concern is that the federal government has taken on massive "contingent liabilities" -- loans and guarantees that don't become actual costs until the borrower defaults and the federal guarantee has to be honored. For example, Washington has purchased $45 billion of preferred stock of Citigroup but has also agreed to backstop up to about $240 billion of its losses. Bianco Research, a Chicago financial research firm, puts the total of such contingent liabilities (as of Dec. 29) at more than $8 trillion. The U.S. government won't shell out anything close to that, of course; it may not pay out any money and might even turn a profit. But the worse the economy gets, the more likely it is that some of those contingent liabilities will become actual liabilities.
How unprecedented would default be? The United States has never failed to repay a debt in its history. But it has twice altered the repayment terms, notes a study by Carmen M. Reinhart of the University of Maryland and Kenneth S. Rogoff of Harvard University. In 1790, when the infant republic took over the states' colonial-era debts, it deferred some interest for 10 years. A more pertinent case occurred during the Great Depression. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt devalued the dollar by 41 percent against gold. This helped end the vicious cycle of bank failures, deflation and default that had worsened the economic downturn, but it created another dilemma. Since the Civil War, borrowers in the United States, including the government, had routinely issued bonds that allowed the holder to demand repayment in gold or its dollar equivalent, based on the price of gold when the bond was issued. Devaluation would have dramatically raised, in dollar terms, the burden of repayment. So in 1933, Congress repealed the gold clause, a decision the Supreme Court upheld in 1935.
Reinhart argues that these episodes show that there are many forms of default other than the outright failure to redeem a bond. She thinks it exceedingly unlikely that the United States would ever default on its Treasury debt but says that a default is more likely to happen on the "periphery": A state government or a federally backed entity might renege. Reinhart notes that Washington has issued a lot of guarantees recently, such as the Treasury Department's declaration that it "effectively" backs the debts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Future governments could balk at honoring those guarantees.
Now, one reason the United States should not have to default is that, in a pinch, it can print the money it needs to pay off its debt. In practice, it would not literally print dollar bills; rather, the Federal Reserve would purchase its bonds. Still, the effect is the same: The Fed, by "monetizing" government debt, would create vast new supplies of dollars to chase the same goods and services and thus also create inflation. This money-printing option is not available to countries that issue debt payable in foreign currencies or to countries that have adopted the euro, which is controlled by the independent European Central Bank.
All the same, a country may not always prefer inflation to default. Reinhart and Rogoff found numerous instances of countries defaulting on their domestic currency debts, such as Russia, which did so in 1998. "Why would a government refuse to pay its domestic public debt in full when it can simply inflate the problem away?" they ask. "Sometimes, the government may view repudiation as the lesser evil." Default would certainly seem preferable to the social and economic unrest that hyperinflation has visited on Zimbabwe today or on Latin America in the 1980s.
Of course, it would be ridiculous to put the United States in the same company as Russia, much less Zimbabwe. Nonetheless, even if Washington never defaults, it can still suffer if questions about its ability to repay its debts affect its creditworthiness and thus its cost of borrowing.
Consider Japan, which spent the 1990s running up enormous budget deficits in an effort to kick-start economic growth. It failed, and gross government debt rose from 71 percent of GDP in 1990 to 115 percent in 1998, when Moody's Investors Service stripped Japan of its triple-A credit rating. Moody's figured that Japan's probability of default, while still low, had nonetheless risen -- even though that debt was owed almost entirely in yen. Japan's rating continued to slide until 2002, at which point its gross debt had reached 154 percent of GDP. Having its credit rating slashed was a stunning comedown for the world's second-largest economy and largest creditor nation. Nonetheless, Japan's borrowing costs weren't much affected, in part because almost all its debt was held by Japanese investors, who were not much inclined to sell it. The U.S. government might not have the same good fortune: More than half of its publicly held debt is owned by foreigners. (Of course, many of those foreigners are central banks with no attractive alternatives to the dollar.)
One key lesson of Japan's experience: It's not just the level of debt that affects a country's creditworthiness but the performance of the underlying economy. The size of the economy determines the resources the government can call on to repay its debts.
Economic growth was critical to the decline in America's debt-to-GDP ratio from its two previous peaks. The cost of World War II drove U.S. debt to an unnerving 109 percent of GDP in 1946, but the peace dividend and the postwar economic boom steadily brought the ratio down. Between 1981 and 1993, that ratio rose again, from 26 percent of GDP to 49 percent. It subsequently declined, thanks to the peace dividend from the end of the Cold War, the Clinton-era tax increases and a long economic boom.
It could, and probably will, happen again. But it's going to look a lot worse before it looks better. In another paper, Reinhart and Rogoff found that banking crises worldwide are typically followed by skyrocketing debt: It went up by 86 percent on average, after inflation, over three years, largely because the recessions that usually follow financial meltdowns devastate tax revenues and spur governments to spend aggressively.
So what's the moral of the story? The Obama administration should not focus on debt reduction now, which could actually undermine the prospects for a recovery in the real economy. With households and businesses trying to spend less and save more, the federal government must spend more and save less -- that is, borrow more -- in order to prevent a self-feeding downward spiral in economic activity. Once the recession is over, getting our debt burdens down will hinge on Obama's and Congress's willingness to confront the looming cost of Social Security and Medicare benefits for the aging U.S. population.
The chances of default remain pretty remote. But remote does not mean impossible. The best way to keep those chances remote is for policymakers to vow to get the deficit down once the recession is over -- and mean it.
In its battle against the financial crisis, the U.S. government has extended its full faith and credit to an ever-growing swath of the private sector: first homeowners, then banks, now car companies. Soon, President-elect Barack Obama will put the government credit card to work with a massive fiscal boost for the economy. Necessary as these steps are, they raise a worry of their own: Can the United States pay the money back?
The notion seems absurd: Banana republics default, not the world's biggest, richest economy, right? The United States has unparalleled wealth, a stable legal tradition, responsible macroeconomic policies and a top-notch, triple-A credit rating. U.S. Treasury bonds are routinely called "risk-free," and the United States has the unique privilege of borrowing in the currency that other countries like to hold as foreign-exchange reserves.
Yes, default is unlikely. But it is no longer unthinkable. Thanks to the advent of credit derivatives -- financial contracts that allow investors to speculate on or protect against default -- we can now observe how likely global markets think it is that Uncle Sam will renege on America's mounting debts. Last week, markets pegged the probability of a U.S. default at 6 percent over the next 10 years, compared with just 1 percent a year ago. For technical reasons, this is not a precise reading of investors' views. Nonetheless, the trend is real, and it is grounded in some pretty fundamental concerns.
The most important is the coming surge in the federal debt. At the end of the last fiscal year, in September, the total public debt held by the American people (excluding debt issued to the Social Security Trust Fund or held by the Federal Reserve) stood at $5.8 trillion, or 41 percent of gross domestic product -- about what the debt-to-GDP ratio has averaged since 1956. But the Congressional Budget Office projects deficits of $1.9 trillion over the next two years. Add almost $800 billion of stimulus spending, and U.S. debt soars to 60 percent of GDP by 2010 -- the highest level since the early 1950s, when the nation was working off its World War II and Korean War debts.
The other major cause for concern is that the federal government has taken on massive "contingent liabilities" -- loans and guarantees that don't become actual costs until the borrower defaults and the federal guarantee has to be honored. For example, Washington has purchased $45 billion of preferred stock of Citigroup but has also agreed to backstop up to about $240 billion of its losses. Bianco Research, a Chicago financial research firm, puts the total of such contingent liabilities (as of Dec. 29) at more than $8 trillion. The U.S. government won't shell out anything close to that, of course; it may not pay out any money and might even turn a profit. But the worse the economy gets, the more likely it is that some of those contingent liabilities will become actual liabilities.
How unprecedented would default be? The United States has never failed to repay a debt in its history. But it has twice altered the repayment terms, notes a study by Carmen M. Reinhart of the University of Maryland and Kenneth S. Rogoff of Harvard University. In 1790, when the infant republic took over the states' colonial-era debts, it deferred some interest for 10 years. A more pertinent case occurred during the Great Depression. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt devalued the dollar by 41 percent against gold. This helped end the vicious cycle of bank failures, deflation and default that had worsened the economic downturn, but it created another dilemma. Since the Civil War, borrowers in the United States, including the government, had routinely issued bonds that allowed the holder to demand repayment in gold or its dollar equivalent, based on the price of gold when the bond was issued. Devaluation would have dramatically raised, in dollar terms, the burden of repayment. So in 1933, Congress repealed the gold clause, a decision the Supreme Court upheld in 1935.
Reinhart argues that these episodes show that there are many forms of default other than the outright failure to redeem a bond. She thinks it exceedingly unlikely that the United States would ever default on its Treasury debt but says that a default is more likely to happen on the "periphery": A state government or a federally backed entity might renege. Reinhart notes that Washington has issued a lot of guarantees recently, such as the Treasury Department's declaration that it "effectively" backs the debts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Future governments could balk at honoring those guarantees.
Now, one reason the United States should not have to default is that, in a pinch, it can print the money it needs to pay off its debt. In practice, it would not literally print dollar bills; rather, the Federal Reserve would purchase its bonds. Still, the effect is the same: The Fed, by "monetizing" government debt, would create vast new supplies of dollars to chase the same goods and services and thus also create inflation. This money-printing option is not available to countries that issue debt payable in foreign currencies or to countries that have adopted the euro, which is controlled by the independent European Central Bank.
All the same, a country may not always prefer inflation to default. Reinhart and Rogoff found numerous instances of countries defaulting on their domestic currency debts, such as Russia, which did so in 1998. "Why would a government refuse to pay its domestic public debt in full when it can simply inflate the problem away?" they ask. "Sometimes, the government may view repudiation as the lesser evil." Default would certainly seem preferable to the social and economic unrest that hyperinflation has visited on Zimbabwe today or on Latin America in the 1980s.
Of course, it would be ridiculous to put the United States in the same company as Russia, much less Zimbabwe. Nonetheless, even if Washington never defaults, it can still suffer if questions about its ability to repay its debts affect its creditworthiness and thus its cost of borrowing.
Consider Japan, which spent the 1990s running up enormous budget deficits in an effort to kick-start economic growth. It failed, and gross government debt rose from 71 percent of GDP in 1990 to 115 percent in 1998, when Moody's Investors Service stripped Japan of its triple-A credit rating. Moody's figured that Japan's probability of default, while still low, had nonetheless risen -- even though that debt was owed almost entirely in yen. Japan's rating continued to slide until 2002, at which point its gross debt had reached 154 percent of GDP. Having its credit rating slashed was a stunning comedown for the world's second-largest economy and largest creditor nation. Nonetheless, Japan's borrowing costs weren't much affected, in part because almost all its debt was held by Japanese investors, who were not much inclined to sell it. The U.S. government might not have the same good fortune: More than half of its publicly held debt is owned by foreigners. (Of course, many of those foreigners are central banks with no attractive alternatives to the dollar.)
One key lesson of Japan's experience: It's not just the level of debt that affects a country's creditworthiness but the performance of the underlying economy. The size of the economy determines the resources the government can call on to repay its debts.
Economic growth was critical to the decline in America's debt-to-GDP ratio from its two previous peaks. The cost of World War II drove U.S. debt to an unnerving 109 percent of GDP in 1946, but the peace dividend and the postwar economic boom steadily brought the ratio down. Between 1981 and 1993, that ratio rose again, from 26 percent of GDP to 49 percent. It subsequently declined, thanks to the peace dividend from the end of the Cold War, the Clinton-era tax increases and a long economic boom.
It could, and probably will, happen again. But it's going to look a lot worse before it looks better. In another paper, Reinhart and Rogoff found that banking crises worldwide are typically followed by skyrocketing debt: It went up by 86 percent on average, after inflation, over three years, largely because the recessions that usually follow financial meltdowns devastate tax revenues and spur governments to spend aggressively.
So what's the moral of the story? The Obama administration should not focus on debt reduction now, which could actually undermine the prospects for a recovery in the real economy. With households and businesses trying to spend less and save more, the federal government must spend more and save less -- that is, borrow more -- in order to prevent a self-feeding downward spiral in economic activity. Once the recession is over, getting our debt burdens down will hinge on Obama's and Congress's willingness to confront the looming cost of Social Security and Medicare benefits for the aging U.S. population.
The chances of default remain pretty remote. But remote does not mean impossible. The best way to keep those chances remote is for policymakers to vow to get the deficit down once the recession is over -- and mean it.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
China says 19-year-old woman dies from bird flu
From Newsvine.com
BEIJING — A Chinese woman has died from bird flu in a Beijing hospital after contracting the disease last month, the government said Tuesday.
The Ministry of Health said Huang Yanqing, 19, died Monday. The official Xinhua News Agency said Huang became ill after buying and cleaning nine ducks in December at a market in Hebei province, which borders Beijing.
The ministry said tests showed Huang had the H5N1 bird flu virus.
Xinhua quoted the Beijing Health Bureau as saying 116 people had been in close contact with Huang. One nurse fell ill with a fever but has since recovered, the report said.
The ministry said it reported the case to the World Health Organization. A spokeswoman for the organization in Beijing said Tuesday that it did not have any further details.
In northern Vietnam, meanwhile, an 8-year-old girl has tested positive for the disease — the first human case reported in the country in nearly a year, health officials said Tuesday.
The girl from Thanh Hoa province was admitted to a hospital on Dec. 27 with a high fever and other symptoms after eating a sick goose raised by the family, said Nguyen Ngoc Thanh, acting director of the provincial health department. Thanh Hoa is 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Hanoi. The girl is recovering.
Nguyen Huy Nga, director of the Preventive Medicine Department at the Ministry of Health, said the girl tested positive for the H5N1 virus.
Bird flu has killed 247 people since 2003, according to WHO, including 20 in China and 52 in Vietnam.
The H5N1 bird flu virus continues to devastate poultry stocks around the world, and officials worry the virus could mutate into a much-feared form that could spread easily among people. It remains hard for people to catch, with most human cases linked to contact with infected birds.
China, which raises more poultry than any other country, has vowed to aggressively fight the virus.
BEIJING — A Chinese woman has died from bird flu in a Beijing hospital after contracting the disease last month, the government said Tuesday.
The Ministry of Health said Huang Yanqing, 19, died Monday. The official Xinhua News Agency said Huang became ill after buying and cleaning nine ducks in December at a market in Hebei province, which borders Beijing.
The ministry said tests showed Huang had the H5N1 bird flu virus.
Xinhua quoted the Beijing Health Bureau as saying 116 people had been in close contact with Huang. One nurse fell ill with a fever but has since recovered, the report said.
The ministry said it reported the case to the World Health Organization. A spokeswoman for the organization in Beijing said Tuesday that it did not have any further details.
In northern Vietnam, meanwhile, an 8-year-old girl has tested positive for the disease — the first human case reported in the country in nearly a year, health officials said Tuesday.
The girl from Thanh Hoa province was admitted to a hospital on Dec. 27 with a high fever and other symptoms after eating a sick goose raised by the family, said Nguyen Ngoc Thanh, acting director of the provincial health department. Thanh Hoa is 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Hanoi. The girl is recovering.
Nguyen Huy Nga, director of the Preventive Medicine Department at the Ministry of Health, said the girl tested positive for the H5N1 virus.
Bird flu has killed 247 people since 2003, according to WHO, including 20 in China and 52 in Vietnam.
The H5N1 bird flu virus continues to devastate poultry stocks around the world, and officials worry the virus could mutate into a much-feared form that could spread easily among people. It remains hard for people to catch, with most human cases linked to contact with infected birds.
China, which raises more poultry than any other country, has vowed to aggressively fight the virus.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Diamonds Linked to Quick Cooling Eons Ago
From The New York Times
At least once in Earth’s history, global warming ended quickly, and scientists have long wondered why.
Now researchers are reporting that the abrupt cooling — which took place about 12,900 years ago, just as the planet was emerging from an ice age — may have been caused by one or more meteors that slammed into North America.
That could explain the extinction of mammoths, saber-tooth tigers and maybe even the first human inhabitants of the Americas, the scientists report in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.
The hypothesis has been regarded skeptically, but its advocates now report perhaps more convincing residue of impact: a thin layer of microscopic diamonds found in rocks across America and in Europe.
“We’re up over 30 sites, as far west as offshore California, as far east as Germany,” said Allen West, a retired geology consultant who is one of the scientists working on the research.
The meteors would have been smaller than the six-mile-wide meteor that struck the Yucatán peninsula 65 million years ago and led to the mass extinctions of the dinosaurs. The killing effects of the hypothesized bombardment 12,900 years ago would have been more subtle.
Climatologists believe that the direct cause of the 1,300-year cold spell, known as the Younger Dryas, was a sudden rush of fresh water from a giant lake in central Canada to the North Atlantic.
Usually a surface current of warm water flows northward in the Atlantic toward Greenland and Europe, then cools and sinks, returning south in the deep ocean. But the fresh water, which is less dense, blocked the sinking of the cold, salty water in the North Atlantic, disrupting the currents.
That sudden change in plumbing has long been known, but what caused it has never been satisfactorily explained.
The authors of the paper in Science say it was meteors.
At each site the scientists looked at, the diamond layer in the rocks correlates to the date of the hypothesized impact. Within the layer, the scientists report finding a multitude of diamond particles, all encased within carbon spheres. “We’ve yet to find a single diamond above it,” Dr. West said. “We’ve yet to find a single diamond below it.”
Perhaps more telling, the scientists reported last month at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, the carbon atoms inside some of the diamonds are lined up in a hexagonal crystal pattern instead of the usual cubic structure. The hexagonal diamonds, formed by extraordinary heat and pressure, have been found only at impact craters and within meteorites and cannot be formed in forest fires or volcanic eruptions, Dr. West said.
Last year the scientists presented other evidence of an impact, including elevated levels of the element iridium.
At least some skeptics are not convinced. “The whole thing still does not make sense, and there are lots of contradictions,” said Christian Koeberl, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Vienna in Austria.
His chief reservation is that there is no crater. “A body of this size does not just blow up without a trace in the atmosphere,” Dr. Koeberl said. “Physics won’t have it.”
Proponents have suggested that the meteor hit an ice sheet a couple of miles thick or that there was a series of smaller objects that exploded in the air. But Dr. Koeberl said something hitting an ice sheet would still generate a hole in the ground underneath, and he questioned whether smaller impacts or air explosions would produce the shock waves needed to make diamonds.
An impact should also have left remnants of melted rocks and shocked minerals, Dr. Koeberl said.
But if true, the hypothesis could explain the disappearance of ice age mammals like mammoths and argue against the alternative idea that the animals were hunted to extinction by humans.
It might also help explain the disappearance of the Clovis people, a culture named after a distinctive arrow point discovered in a mammoth skeleton in Clovis, N.M., who are believed to have arrived in the Americas more than 13,000 years ago.
Douglas J. Kennett, a University of Oregon archaeologist who is the lead author of the Science paper, said no Clovis points or bones of the extinct animals had been found above the diamond layer. “It seems those two things synchronously end,” he said.
Dr. Kennett said there also appeared to be a gap of several centuries between the disappearance of the Clovis and the resettlement by other people.
Gary Huss, a scientist at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, who was one of the early reviewers of the paper in Science, said though the scientists had not proved their case, they had offered enough evidence that the idea warranted a closer look by others.
“They have a hypothesis that explains several things that hard to explain any other way,” Dr. Huss said. “Diamonds are less convincing by themselves, but they strengthen their case considerably.”
At least once in Earth’s history, global warming ended quickly, and scientists have long wondered why.
Now researchers are reporting that the abrupt cooling — which took place about 12,900 years ago, just as the planet was emerging from an ice age — may have been caused by one or more meteors that slammed into North America.
That could explain the extinction of mammoths, saber-tooth tigers and maybe even the first human inhabitants of the Americas, the scientists report in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.
The hypothesis has been regarded skeptically, but its advocates now report perhaps more convincing residue of impact: a thin layer of microscopic diamonds found in rocks across America and in Europe.
“We’re up over 30 sites, as far west as offshore California, as far east as Germany,” said Allen West, a retired geology consultant who is one of the scientists working on the research.
The meteors would have been smaller than the six-mile-wide meteor that struck the Yucatán peninsula 65 million years ago and led to the mass extinctions of the dinosaurs. The killing effects of the hypothesized bombardment 12,900 years ago would have been more subtle.
Climatologists believe that the direct cause of the 1,300-year cold spell, known as the Younger Dryas, was a sudden rush of fresh water from a giant lake in central Canada to the North Atlantic.
Usually a surface current of warm water flows northward in the Atlantic toward Greenland and Europe, then cools and sinks, returning south in the deep ocean. But the fresh water, which is less dense, blocked the sinking of the cold, salty water in the North Atlantic, disrupting the currents.
That sudden change in plumbing has long been known, but what caused it has never been satisfactorily explained.
The authors of the paper in Science say it was meteors.
At each site the scientists looked at, the diamond layer in the rocks correlates to the date of the hypothesized impact. Within the layer, the scientists report finding a multitude of diamond particles, all encased within carbon spheres. “We’ve yet to find a single diamond above it,” Dr. West said. “We’ve yet to find a single diamond below it.”
Perhaps more telling, the scientists reported last month at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, the carbon atoms inside some of the diamonds are lined up in a hexagonal crystal pattern instead of the usual cubic structure. The hexagonal diamonds, formed by extraordinary heat and pressure, have been found only at impact craters and within meteorites and cannot be formed in forest fires or volcanic eruptions, Dr. West said.
Last year the scientists presented other evidence of an impact, including elevated levels of the element iridium.
At least some skeptics are not convinced. “The whole thing still does not make sense, and there are lots of contradictions,” said Christian Koeberl, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Vienna in Austria.
His chief reservation is that there is no crater. “A body of this size does not just blow up without a trace in the atmosphere,” Dr. Koeberl said. “Physics won’t have it.”
Proponents have suggested that the meteor hit an ice sheet a couple of miles thick or that there was a series of smaller objects that exploded in the air. But Dr. Koeberl said something hitting an ice sheet would still generate a hole in the ground underneath, and he questioned whether smaller impacts or air explosions would produce the shock waves needed to make diamonds.
An impact should also have left remnants of melted rocks and shocked minerals, Dr. Koeberl said.
But if true, the hypothesis could explain the disappearance of ice age mammals like mammoths and argue against the alternative idea that the animals were hunted to extinction by humans.
It might also help explain the disappearance of the Clovis people, a culture named after a distinctive arrow point discovered in a mammoth skeleton in Clovis, N.M., who are believed to have arrived in the Americas more than 13,000 years ago.
Douglas J. Kennett, a University of Oregon archaeologist who is the lead author of the Science paper, said no Clovis points or bones of the extinct animals had been found above the diamond layer. “It seems those two things synchronously end,” he said.
Dr. Kennett said there also appeared to be a gap of several centuries between the disappearance of the Clovis and the resettlement by other people.
Gary Huss, a scientist at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, who was one of the early reviewers of the paper in Science, said though the scientists had not proved their case, they had offered enough evidence that the idea warranted a closer look by others.
“They have a hypothesis that explains several things that hard to explain any other way,” Dr. Huss said. “Diamonds are less convincing by themselves, but they strengthen their case considerably.”
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