GST not an additional tax, says PM2010/03/18

KUALA LUMPUR: The proposed goods and services tax (GST) is not an additional tax but intended to replace the existing tax structure, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said today. However, he said no particular date has been set to implement the GST after the second reading of its bill at the Dewan Rakyat this week, was postponed.

"The GST is not an additional tax. It is intended to replace the existing tax and the effect is designed to be neutral," he said. "Unfortunately, there are some people spinning it as otherwise and causing a lot of concern among the people," he told reporters after launching the Audi Kuala Lumpur showroom and the Audi R8V10 sports car, here.Asked if the postponement of the GST bill's reading was a "u-turn" by the government on policy, Najib said: "It is not u-turn. What is important is to get the buy-in and support from the people."

He added that the effect and real intention of the GST was not fully understood and more time was needed to explain it to the people. Asked if the GST would still be implemented in 2011 as originally intended, he said no particular date had been decided.

"This is the phase of the communication strategy," he added.

Earlier this month, a tax official said the implementation of the GST, based on current estimates, would not lead to price increases as it would be offset by the abolishment of the sales and services tax (SST). The Chairman of the Tax Review Panel in the Ministry of Finance, Datuk Kamariah Hussain was reported saying that with GST, consumers would pay 4.0 per cent tax compared to the current service tax of 5.0 per cent and sales tax of 10 per cent. – Bernama

Israel suffers first rocket attack casualty since Gaza war

For 14 months after the Gaza war, the Israel border was relatively calm. Today's rocket attack will put pressure on Israel for a stepped-up military response at a time when the US is pushing for peace moves.

Tel Aviv, Israel A Palestinian rocket fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel Thursday claimed the first fatality in Israel since it launched the Gaza war last year to shut down Hamas rocket attacks.The attack killed a Thai guest worker in the agricultural village of Netiv Haasarah, which is just north of the border with the Gaza Strip. An unknown Gaza group, Ansar al-Sunna, claimed responsibility for the attack, Reuters reported."It doesn't matter what organization takes responsibility for the fire,'' said Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai. "Israel isn't interested in a military confrontation, but it won't allow its residents to be shot at.''

The fatality will put pressure on Israel for a stepped-up military response in Gaza. It comes at a time when the US is pushing Israel to make gestures to the Palestinian Authority on reining in building in Jerusalem in order to get peace negotiations restarted. It could also be the first test of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policy toward Hamas since he took office.Severe clashes in Jerusalem.

The attack comes two days after the worst Palestinian-Israeli clashes in Jerusalem in years. Hamas, which controls Gaza, called on Palestinians to initiate a new uprising and to take up arms against Israel in response to allegations of a plot to destroy Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem's Old City. Israel launched a punishing offensive on the Gaza Strip last year to silence rocket fire. The war left about 1,400 Palestinians and a dozen Israelis dead. Since the war, the border region has been relatively calm. Towns in southern Israel have begun to rebuild. Israel continues to enforce an economic blockade around the Gaza Strip and has warned that the organization is rearming itself with longer range and more powerful rockets.

The attack "damages the position of the Palestinians because Hamas will be seen more and more as an element of instability, and it will strengthen the voice of the right in Israel that whatever we do with the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] we will always have Hamas threatening us,'' said Meir Javedanfar, a Middle East expert based in Tel Aviv. "It takes focus and attention away from getting back to the peace process, which is what America and the European Union want.''

The attack was launched while the European Union's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, was paying a diplomatic visit to the Gaza Strip. In the upcoming days, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is also scheduled to visit Gaza.In recent months, there have been reports of hard-line militants, disillusioned with Hamas's efforts to keep Gaza quiet, who have set up independent outfits as a challenge to Hamas rule. Experts have also warned about Al Qaeda-affiliated groups, but they are still in their infancy.

Global warming? Scientists find methane source in Arctic seas.Researchers have located large emissions of the greenhouse gas methane from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. They now want to determine if the emissions are tied to global warming.

Scientists studying global warming in the Arctic have discovered a previously unknown source of methane working its way into the atmosphere, a source that is releasing large amounts of the gas each year.Methane is, molecule for molecule, a far more potent global-warming gas than carbon dioxide. The newly discovered emissions are welling up from the continental shelf off Siberia's northern coast, They are estimated at nearly 8 million metric tons a year, making them roughly equal to the amount that, until now, scientists had attributed to emissions from all the world's oceans combined, the researchers calculate. Still, the emissions represent no more than about 1 percent of total global emissions.

Their study is set for publication in tomorrow's issue of the journal Science.It's not clear whether this previously unknown source of atmospheric methane became active recently or represents a long-term source whose existence only now has come to light, several scientists say. Scientists are keenly interested in filling in the blanks – how these emissions might change as the climate warms, writes Ed Brook, a geochemist at Oregon State University, in an e-mail exchange. "I don't think we are looking at a future catastrophe, but we may be looking at some acceleration of the increase in methane in the atmosphere because of enhanced release from systems like this," explains Dr. Brook, who was not part of the research team.

Is this a new source?Scientists have taken careful measurements of atmospheric methane for years. The newly discovered source, the Eastern Siberian Arctic Shelf, may already be accounted for in those measurements. Yet during the past few years, atmospheric methane levels have increased after a period where concentrations stalled, says Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist at the University of Victoria in Canada. Recent studies have suggested that the resumed increase is tied to methane sources in the northern hemisphere.

The discovery of emissions from Siberia's continental shelf "is such a northern-hemisphere source," says Dr. Weaver, who also did not take part in the study. "This is a really important piece of science," he adds. But he acknowledges that more work needs to be done to determine if the shelf represents a new source of methane. The international team, led by Natalia Shakhova, a scientist at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks and the Russian Academy of Sciences' Pacific Oceanological Institute, agrees. But Dr. Shakhova says some evidence suggests a role for global warming in the methane's release. Atmospheric concentrations of methane – which are already tiny – barely budge over the course of swings between ice ages and so-called interglacial periods, paleoclimate data suggest. Earth is in the midst of one of these periods today. But methane concentrations in the atmosphere over the Arctic are now roughly three times the typical levels found during interglacial periods, Shakhova says – higher than at any time in the past 400,000 years. Concentrations over the East Siberian Arctic Shelf are higher still."That makes us think that the current global change might contribute" to the levels she and her colleagues have measured, accelerating the processes that lead to the methane's release, she says.

The East Siberian Arctic ShelfThe East Siberian Arctic Shelf covers more than 800,000 square miles. It's the largest expanse of continental shelf – and the most shallow – on the planet.

The shelf was part of Siberia's tundra more than 15,000 years ago. Like today's tundra, it had a layer of permafrost below the surface, with related deposits of methane trapped underneath. When the glaciers melted at the end of the last ice age, the northern reaches of the ancient tundra submerged to become today's continental shelf.

This condition makes these deposits far more sensitive to warming than the methane beneath permafrost on land, researchers say. Even in summer, temperatures in the soil around the permafrost remain well below freezing. But on the shallow continental shelf, the bottom water is only a fraction of a degree below freezing. (It remains liquid because of its salinity.) Even a tiny bit of warming in bottom water can lead to thawing permafrost and the release of methane.

Some scientists remain cautions about interpreting the team' results. Todd Sowers, a paleoclimatologist at Penn State University notes that a range of factors can confound attempts to measure the movement of methane from the sea floor, through the water, and into the atmosphere.

Still, he says, "this is a very important topic. What you'd like to do is go back every 10 years to see if it's changing. That's when you can start saying: These are recent changes."Shakhova's team "has set up the baseline" for that kind of work "very nicely," he says.

US wants Osama bin Laden alive, US commander in Afghanistan says

Washington.The top commander in Afghanistan is still on the hunt for Osama bin Laden and would take him alive if possible. But Gen. Stanley McChrystal, speaking with reporters by videoconference at the Pentagon Wednesday, appeared to contradict what the Obama administration’s top lawyer said Tuesday.Attorney General Eric Holder told a congressional panel Tuesday that he thought the chances that Mr. bin Laden would be captured were “infinitesimal” because it is far more likely he would be killed by an airstrike or taken by his own people. But asked about capturing or killing the spiritual leader of Al Qaeda and the individual behind the attacks of 9/11 Wednesday, Mr. McChrystal said there was no doubt the military would try to capture bin Laden and had not given up on capturing him alive.“Wow. No, if Osama bin Laden comes inside Afghanistan, we would certainly go after trying to capture him alive and bring him to justice,” McChrystal said. “I think that is something that is understood by everyone.”

The two statements appeared at odds with one another, but it is unclear to what extent fundamental differences existed between the two men. Mr. Holder was speaking about the likelihood of capturing bin Laden and how justice might be meted out for him. If bin Laden were captured, it would force the Obama administration to decide what legal rights he would have and where he would be tried – in military or civilian court.Holder indicated that there wasn’t a very good chance that coalition forces would have the opportunity to arrest bin Laden, who has not been heard from in months but remains the face of the Al Qaeda movement against the US. McChrystal was speaking as the military commander who would be responsible for killing or capturing bin Laden inside Afghanistan.He oversaw the operation in which Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the top Al Qaeda leader in Iraq, was killed in 2006. Bin Laden is thought to be hiding in Pakistan's mountainous region along its border with Afghanistan.

Most of Al Qaeda's day to day operations are thought to be overseen by Ayman al-Zawahri, an Egyptian doctor who is also thought to be hiding in that region.American officials have downplayed the significance of killing or capturing bin Laden ever since President Bush said he was wanted “dead or alive” in the early days after the attacks of 9/11. Removing him from the battlefield would not necessarily have any tangible effect on terrorist plots against the US and its interests, since Al Qaeda likely does not rely on bin Laden to conduct its operations. Still, American officials recognize capturing or killing bin Laden would deal an enormous strategic blow to the group's operations.In his conference with reporters, McChrystal said operations around Kandahar in southern Afghanistan had begun as combat operations in nearby Helmand province were winding down.He said the Kandahar operations may appear slower and more deliberate than the one in Helmand’s Marjah district. By this fall about 100,000 US forces will be deployed inside in Afghanistan.

Can a terror prison spark a boom?

Chicago It’s a familiar story: Faced with shuttered businesses, dying downtowns, and consolidated schools, rural communities across America grab the chance to host a new enterprise, maybe a meatpacking factory or a landfill. In Thomson, Ill., it’s a local prison revamped to house terror suspects from Guantánamo Bay and other federal prisoners.

Hopes are high that the proposed facility will turn Thomson’s fortunes around. “We need to be safe, we need to give people hope, we need to give people opportunities to keep their families here,” says Jerry “Duke” Hebeler, village president. “This is our shot to do all three.”The Obama administration is equally upbeat. Under federal management, the Thomson prison would create as many as 2,960 jobs and “local residents will be excellent candidates” for half of them, says a report by the president’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). It predicts that the county unemployment rate, 12.1 percent in December, could fall by as much as four percentage points.

But such predictions are almost always overstated, the hoped-for benefits mostly illusory, say researchers who have studied the economics of rural prisons. Studies over the past decade conclude that prisons have done little to change the economic realities of rural communities.“Most of the communities that I’ve talked to have been somewhat disappointed after they see what happens,” says Thomas Johnson, an agricultural economist at the University of Missouri in Columbia. “They don’t think it’s a mistake. But they don’t find the economic benefits that were suggested.”In some circumstances, research suggests, prisons have actually done harm.“The towns that get prisons, especially the most desperate communities, tend to be worse off,” says Gregory Hooks, a sociology professor at Washington State University and author of two studies of rural prisons. “That was a surprise.”Mr. Hooks and other researchers have used census data to compare rural counties with and without prisons. These studies show that prisons fail to increase total employment, raise incomes, or reduce poverty. It’s not clear why. One reason may be that local people get relatively few prison jobs because they lack the skills and qualifications needed to work as guards or administrative staff. Researchers also speculate that prisons may displace other economic activity.

Moreover, unlike factories and other economic development, prisons generate little extra business. They are centralized institutions with their own distant suppliers. “Prisons have had nowhere the positive economic benefits people say they will have,” says Boyce Sherwin, a former director of community development in Malone, N.Y., a town with three prisons.Before the 1980s, most prisons were built in urban areas. But the 1980s and ’90s saw a prison boom in rural areas, in part because stricter sentencing guidelines spawned a growing population of prisoners. Rural towns welcomed and even competed for prisons. Some struggling areas, like Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, have become centers of the prison industry.No surge in Rush City When Minnesota opened a prison in Rush City in 2000, some officials predicted big economic benefits. But it generated fewer jobs for residents and less economic boost than many hoped. “I guess I’ve not seen where it’s made any difference in our city,” says Mayor Nancy Schroeder.In recent years, the opening of new prisons has ebbed. Budget woes have forced some states to close prisons. But new prisons are still under construction, such as a federal prison in Berlin, N.H.The White House says studies “confirm the essential point that prison openings tend to raise employment and prosperity in the local community.” Researchers object that their studies confirm no such thing. “There’s nothing in the literature I’ve seen to justify the optimistic predictions the CEA makes,” says Hooks. (Neither the White House nor the CEA responded to requests for comment.)

Decision may await federal budgetIllinois aims to sell the Thomson prison, built in 2001 and virtually empty. The White House’s fiscal 2011 budget plan includes $237 million to buy and renovate the prison. But Republicans oppose moving Guantánamo prisoners to the mainland and may try to block the purchase. President Obama has said he can’t close the facility as soon as he had promised.Experts on rural development say that prisons are just one example of a number of controversial enterprises, including landfills and power stations, that end up in desperate rural communities. These communities have alternatives, they say.

“The strategies that work build on assets in the community rather than pulling in something it doesn’t have,” says Deborah Tootle, community development professor at the University of Arkansas and president-elect of the National Association of Community Development Extension Professionals. A prison “is going to bring in a few jobs. [But] is it going to benefit the community over time? It’s really a question of scale and time.”

Dry air, dry wit, and the fluid origins of humor

By Ruth Walker / March 16, 2010

It’s that time of year when I find it’s a good idea to keep a bottle of hand lotion within easy reach. I love the winter light, and the sunshine that pours into the room where I work. But the low humidity of heated interior spaces can lead to a general feeling of being all dried out.A friend, a while back, asked me to consider the connections between humor and intelligence. Is the capacity to be funny a sign of intelligence? Well, of course. If poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, comics are its unofficial supreme court.

But as I anointed my knuckles for the thousandth time of the season the other day, another question came to thought: How does it happen that we denote funniness, that which makes us laugh, with a term that originally referred to moisture, indeed, to bodily fluids? Humor originally referred to the fluids or juices of a plant or animal. The word comes from a Latin term meaning “to get wet.” Ancient physiologists believed that a person’s temperament was determined by the interaction of four humors – fluids – in his or her body: blood, phlegm, choler (yellow bile), and melancholy (black bile). Modern physiologists, of course, have very different ideas and point out that “melancholy” was completely imaginary.If you think these ideas have died out completely, though, think again. They live on in our language when we speak of someone’s “sanguine temperament,” for instance – in which the blood was supposedly the predominant humor. The idea of “melancholy” may be the hardest of these dumb ideas to shake off completely. For one thing, melancholy is a rather attractive-sounding word.

But I digress. Once humor came to refer to the temperament, and not the fluid itself, it eventually shifted again. By the early 16th century, it referred not just to one’s temperament but to one’s mood. (Temperament is to mood as climate is to weather.) Over the next century and a half the meaning of humor shifted further, from a mood to a good mood to a mood to crack jokes. Humor used to mean “funniness” was first recorded in 1682, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. By 1705, humorous was being used in the modern sense of “funny.” Funny itself would appear 50 years later.H.M. Fowler’s Modern English Usage (which, some would quibble, is “modern” in the same sense that the Pont Neuf in Paris is “new”) has a nifty little table of the types of humor. It’s worth a look.

It distinguishes among humor, wit, satire, sarcasm, invective, irony, cynicism, and “sardonic.” The last one offends my sense of parallelism. I want this thing to be a string of nouns, so what’s an adjective doing in the lineup? What’s the related noun – sardonicism? Well, actually, yes. Who knew?I have more substantive doubts about “invective.” It just doesn’t seem like a type of humor, except in a Mort Sahl sense (“Is there any group I haven’t offended?”)For each type of humor, Fowler’s table lists “motive/aim,” “province,” “method/means,” and “audience.” Thus “wit,” for instance, has as its motive “throwing light.” Its province is “words & ideas.” Its method is “surprise.” And its audience is “the intelligent.”We may appreciate “dry wit,” but there’s an etymological reason for comics to be all wet. Meanwhile, please pass me the hand cream.

New role for robot warriorsDrones are just part of a bid to automate combat. Can virtual ethics make machines decisionmakers?

By Gregory M. Lamb / Staff writer / February 17, 2010

Science fiction sometimes depicts robot soldiers as killing machines without conscience or remorse. But at least one robotics expert today says that someday machines may make the best and most humane decisions on the battlefield. Guided by virtual emotions, robots could not only make better decisions about their own actions but

also act as ethical advisers to human soldiers or even as observers who report back on the battlefield conduct of humans and whether they followed international law.

As militaries around the world invest billions in robotic weapons, no fundamental barriers lie ahead to building machines that "can outperform human soldiers in the battlefield from an ethical perspective," says Ronald Arkin, associate dean at the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. The result would be a reduction in casualties both for soldiers and civilians, he says.

Dr. Arkin has begun work on an ethical system for robots based on the concept of "guilt." As a robot makes decisions, such as whether to fire its weapons and what type of weapon to use, it would constantly assess the results and learn. If the robot established that its weapons caused unnecessary damage or casualties, it would scale back its use of weapons in a future encounter. If the robot repeatedly used excessive force, it would shut down its weapons altogether – though it could continue to perform its other duties such as reconnaissance."That's what guilt does in people, too, at least in principle," Arkin says. "Guilty people change their behavior in response to their actions."

Though "Terminator"-style warriors will likely remain fictional long into the future, thousands of military robots are already operating on land, sea, and in the air, many of them capable of firing lethal weapons. They include missile-firing Predator and Reaper aircraft used by the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan, remotely controlled by human soldiers. Naval ships from several nations employ Phalanx gun systems (sometimes called "R2D2s" on American ships, referring to the robot from "Star Wars"), capable of shooting down incoming planes or missiles without command or targeting from a human.South Korea has deployed armed robotic systems along its demilitarized zone with North Korea. The Israeli army patrols its borders with Gaza and Lebanon with roving unmanned ground vehicles.

Among systems being developed for the future by the US military are the Vulture, a pilotless helicopter that could stay aloft for up to 20 hours, and an unmanned ground combat vehicle.But Arkin's sunny forecast for the future of ethical robot warriors has met with deep skepticism among some in his field.

3-D glasses get a makeoverNew home entertainment technology aims to transform a 3-D viewer’s experience.

By Chris Gaylord Staff Writer for The Christian Science Monitor / January 21, 2010 It seems every year is heralded as “the year 3-D home entertainment will take off.” Yet the moment never really arrives. Last year saw huge strides for 3-D movies in theaters. Each of the seven top-grossing 3-D movies of all time came out in 2009. Atop the list sits “Avatar,” which raked in more than $1.6 billion worldwide and became history’s second biggest box-office hit in only a few weeks. And animation powerhouse Pixar, hungry for similar successes, stuck to its pledge to only make 3-D movies from now on.This is great news for theatergoers, but there are very few ways to bring the extra dimension home with you.

Some ads, shows, or DVDs take advantage of the cheap, red-and-blue paper glasses that have been around for decades. But the effect pales in comparison to the thick-rimmed polarized lenses used in most theaters. Blu-ray wants modern TVs to go a step beyond that. Last month, the group behind the high-definition discs finalized plans to let Blu-rays play movies in three dimensions. The setup requires a new Blu-ray player (older ones may not work), special TVs capable of flashing twice as many frames per second as normal, and “active shutter” glasses. The headgear, which for now looks like angular superhero goggles, rapidly cover and uncover alternating eyes in sync with the TV flickering between left and right images.

The same glasses will work with ESPN’s upcoming 3-D sports network, which will broadcast 85 live events in 2010 starting with the first World Cup match on June 11. The battery-powered lenses cost $25 to $100 each, plus the cost of updating your TV and devices. This sizable price tag has many skeptical about whether the 3-D scheme will succeed. “I’m thinking the glasses thing could be a huge barrier to entry (particularly if they don’t make them look a lot less dorky),” writes Rob Enderle, principle analyst of the California-based Enderle Group, in a research note. “I’m wondering if the home market won’t wait until we figure out a way to do this without glasses.”

Such a future may be close at hand. At a Tokyo technology expo in October, Japanese device giant Pioneer unveiled a way to watch 3-D images without special glasses. Rather than forcing a third dimension out of a flat screen, Pioneer built a small circular stage. While it only works from certain angles, the 6-in. screen plays with light in a way that makes the image appear to be floating in front of the device. Built-in sensors also react to touch and sound. (Sony demonstrated a similar, cylindrical device at the same tech show.)Pioneer sells its experimental device in Japan for about $542. But the company warns that owners will need to program their own fun, since no one is designing commercial movies or games for the device.Still, Blu-ray, ESPN, and Pioneer have given 3-D-at-home fans a lot to look forward to in 2010 – or at least in the years to come.

Can the iPad tablet be as successful as the Apple iPhone?The iPhone and iPod Touch are the fastest-adopted gadgets in consumer-tech history. Apple hopes that with the iPad tablet, lightning will strike twice.

By Chris Gaylord Staff Writer for The Christian Science Monitor / February 25, 2010

In about a month, Apple will release its much-anticipated iPad tablet. This new device falls somewhere in between a smart phone and a laptop – small enough to tote around town without exhausting your shoulders, but big enough to feel like you’re reading a magazine instead of staring at a playing card. But Apple has won over skeptics many times before. While slow to catch on, its iPod revolutionized the music industry, almost single-handedly replacing albums with digital tracks. And according to the investment firm Morgan Stanley, the iPhone and iPod Touch are the fastest-adopted gadgets in consumer tech history (see chart). Maybe Apple’s signature polish can enchant shoppers once again.Find out much more about the Apple tablet at our special iPad coverage page here. And follow us on Twitter and Facebook for more sci-tech news.

Chile quake 2010: Tsunami warning system worked as intendedThe Pacific basin's warning network detected the Chile quake's tsunami accurately, and computer models are improving, tsunami experts say.

By Peter N. Spotts Staff writer / March 1, 2010

The Chile quake that struck Saturday and triggered a tsunami that traveled throughout the Pacific basin provided the first basin-wide test of the region's tsunami-warning network in decades.

By several accounts, the region-wide warning effort was a success, though in retrospect evacuations in many places far from the Chilean coast appear to have been excessive given the size of the surge that ultimately arrived.

Initial estimates by state emergency officials in Hawaii reportedly put the size of arriving waves at between six and 10 feet. The waves that did arrive were less than three feet tall.

Gauging damage, accuracy

The major warning centers in Hawaii and Alaska issue basin-wide warnings, which include estimated time of arrival for the first of what usually are a series of waves. And they offer a projection of the tsunamis' heights as they approach a coast but remain in open water.

It's up to national, state, and local governments, however, to estimate the effects tsunamis can have at specific sites as they come ashore, then issue evacuation orders.

The warning centers in Hawaii and Alaska "did what their mandate called for" and "did a very good job," says Tad Murty, an adjunct professor specializing in tsunamis at the University of Ottawa in Ontario. The warning center estimated that tsunamis would begin to affect the Hawaiian Islands 15 hours after the magnitude 8.8 quake struck. The forecast was off by 5 minutes, he says.

Tracking difficult

Tsunamis can be tough to track to anyone bobbing on the ocean's surface. They may represent an increase of eight to 20 inches in the average sea-level height as they pass. That brief change can get lost on a surface already rolling with ranks of large, storm-generated swells stretching as far as the eye can see, or wind-driven waves in a storm.

The answer: pressure-sensitive buoys as deep as 20,000 feet on the ocean floor. Since an earthquake such as Saturday's displaces water from the sea-floor up, these buoys sense the changes in bottom pressure tsunamis trigger as they propagate from their source.

As tsunamis sweep past chains of undersea volcanoes or similar natural sea-floor barriers, they either can intensify or weaken, depending on the conditions they encounter.