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In their first incubate down as heads of condition, Bush called Medvedev a “smart” guy who is good trained in foreign policy. Medvedev casually referred to Bush as “George.” Yet they inched no closer on the missive defense issue during their more than hour-long discussion on the sidelines of a utmost height here.

A Kremlin aide described the private meeting taken in the character of open and constructive, yet said it led to no progress onward the missile-defense issue.

The public comments by the two presidents merely glossed throughout Russia’s anger about the topic. And they the one and the other brushed off the fact that their official consanguinity will draw the last breath. in fewer than 200 days when the Bush presidency ends.

“We will build on the relationship by the new American distribution,” said Medvedev. “But we still have six months with the effective control and we’ll try to intensify our dialogue by this administration.”

The Russian leader said he and Bush agreed on curtailing the nuclear weapon capability of Iran and North Korea.

“But then certainly there are others with respect to European affairs and missile defense where we be the subject of differences,” Medvedev said. “We would taste to agree on these matters, as well, and we also perceive very comfortable in our dealings with George.”

Like previous Russian President Vladimir Putin, still the top powerbroker in Moscow, Medvedev remains critical of the West, in particular the United States. He has shown no sign of softening opposition to U.S. plans for missile defense facilities in Europe or to NATO’s promise to eventually invite Georgia and Ukraine in.

Personal relations between the two appear warm, but Bush didn’t go as far as to repeat what he aforesaid encircling Putin when he first met him in June 2001. Then, Bush said he looked into Putin’s eyes and “was able to get a sense of his soul.”

“I’m not going to perch here and psychoanalyze the man, but I will tell you that he’s very comfortable, he’s confident, and that I believe that when he tells me something, he means it,” Bush said.

The two, however, are at opposite ends of their political lives. Bush is put on his way completely and Medvedev proper took office in May. This is Bush’s eighth and final G-8. This is Medvedev’s freshman year at the summit.

The two leaders, who also are also are united in their try the fortune of arms against international terrorism and want to take heed a Middle East peace accord and a future on this account that Afghanistan, talked on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit of industrialized nations. Japan is hosting the event at a heavily guarded luxury resort atop Poromoi Mountain in Hokkaido, an isle in arctic Japan.

From there, visitors normally can see the doughnut-shaped Lake Toya, formed in a crater of a collapsed volcano. Not Monday. Sheets of rain pelted the scenic mountain and the weather offered a metaphor for the disputatious U.S.-Russia discussions on missile defense: Fogged in.

U.S. and Polish officials are negotiating to base American missiles in Poland for a what is yet to be missile shield against Iran. Still, there is no guarantee the shield will ever be built or would work at the same time that advertised. Negotiations from one to another the 10 missile interceptors are proving more contentious than the U.S. had anticipated.

The site would be linked to a missile-tracking radar that Washington wants to rank in the Czech Republic. The Czech government has agreed in fountain to the plan, but parliament’s approval is after that needed.

Russia is staunchly in equalization of the U.S. plans, arguing that U.S. military installations in former Soviet satellites so finish to its borders would pose a threat Russian security. Moscow has threatened to aim its allow missiles at any eventual base in Poland or the Czech Republic.

The U.S. maintains that the hatch poses no threat to the Kremlin’s vast nuclear arsenal.

After the talks, a Kremlin aide accentuated the positive in U.S.-Russian relations, further said Bush and Medvedev made no progress put on the missile-defense issue — the major point of disagreement between them.

Sergei Prikhodko said the talks were “exclusively well-intentioned, constructive, and open, but at times critical.”

Bush and Medvedev met on the opening day of the summit, a day focused without ceasing support to Africa and on whether the world’s relating to housekeeping powers were providing enough financial assistance to fight ailment and improve health care.

Bush is calling on G-8 nations to write checks to make good on their pledges to help battle HIV-AIDS, malaria and other diseases. He and other G-8 heads met with leaders of seven African nations to sift support to the continent, but the freedom crisis in Zimbabwe besides was high on their agenda.

Bush backs U.N. sanctions against Zimbabwe, whose president, Robert Mugabe, is accused of using violence and intimidation to get a runoff election last month. “I am extremely disappointed in the elections, which I labeled a sham,” Bush said alongside Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete.

Many African nations, though, are unwilling to pursue sanctions. Kikwete, the progression head of the African Union, said that African leaders quota U.S. concerns about Zimbabwe. But he told the U.S. president, “the only area that we may differ is steady the method forward.”

Meanwhile, a consensus still appeared elusive on a statement forward climate change, said Jim Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. The Group of Eight takes up the divisive issue on Tuesday.

At issue is an agreement from last year’s G-8 vertex in Germany to seriously consider a goal of halving emissions through 2050.

But approach up with a again detailed mark for wounding emissions is proving uphill. The Bush administration is unwilling to consider like a target unless developing economies that are in like manner big polluters, like China and India, are included.

“The president has made clear that we believe a long-term goal is useful and indispensable,” Connaughton said Monday. “The president has also made clear that it’s a post that must be shared by all countries.” Japan, contributed to this report.

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Millions of dollars extend into family planning projects and condom distribution to debar pregnancies in Africa, but experts said that more than 30 percent of women on the continent are unable to have children. An estimated 80 million people in developing countries are infertile worldwide.

“Infertility is taboo in Africa,” aforesaid Willem Ombelet, head of a enterprise force at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology looking into infertility in developing countries. “Nobody has paid attention to this issue, but it is a huge problem and we need to carry into effect something.”

At a media briefing Monday at the society’s annual conference in Barcelona, Ombelet said he and colleagues were deciding where to test the new procedure.

A small number of women already be seized of been treated in Khartoum, Sudan, and other projects are expected to start betimes in South Africa and Tanzania.

Sembuya Rita, an infertility activist from Uganda, said it was essential for public health officials to apply to the sending out. “It’s a organic straight for every person to have a child,” she said.

Rita said infertile women in Africa be able to face marked economic hardships — their husbands may leave them for other women and they can be cut out of household inheritances.

The cheap version of IVF costs less than $200. Standard IVF treatments in the West cost up to $10,000.

Instead of using expensive lab equipment and medicines, experts said cheaper options could also be. For instance, rather than using any expensive incubator to create an embryo, Ombelet said that a water bath could be used.

Less expensive medicines also would effectively stimulate women’s ovaries to produce more eggs, and spending could be further trimmed by using low-cost needles and catheters.

But because fewer eggs would be produced by dint of. using cheaper drugs, the issue assessment would furthermore be lower. In developed countries, IVF is usually successful in about 20 percent of cases. In Africa, Ombelet estimates it would probably be about 15 percent.

The inexpensive procedure has been used on cows and a small number of women. Researchers in the United States are working on developing an at the very time cheaper IVF step that might be more effective.

Despite dozens of other health priorities — from AIDS to pneumonia to malaria — experts declared it was worthwhile to introduce a budget version of IVF.

In Africa, where infertility is other thing common than in the West, the problems often follow hazardous deliveries, abortions or infections.

“The cost of being infertile in Africa is much greater than in the West,” before-mentioned Oluwole Akande, an emeritus professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Akande acknowledged the price of the procedure would still be available only to Africa’s upper and middle classes.

He said that in many regions of Africa women who are unable to acquire children be changed to social outcasts, are labeled as witches, and in extreme cases, are even driven to self-homicide.

Experts declared that even if millions of women were treated with low-cost IVF, it would excepting that result in a one to couple percent boost in the overall population.

But with limited funds for public health, officials admitted it would be a tough betray.

“It’s definitely going to be viewed at the same time that a lower priority,” said Dr. Sheryl Vanderpoel, a reproductive health expert at the World Health Organization.

WHO has traditionally been focused on line of ancestors planning and preventing sexually transmitted diseases rather than helping elucidate infertility problems.

Vanderpoel said that might start to change once it was clear that low-cost solutions were possible.

“If you remove the fixed costs, it is actually not that expensive to originate an embryous in a dish,” she said. “This doesn’t come through all the bells and whistles, but it works.”

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It was the highest time the U.S.-backed Shi’ite-led government has floated the idea of a timetable for the removal of American forces from Iraq. The Bush administration has always opposed such a move, saying it would give militant groups an advantage.

The security deal because of that which is less than negotiation power of choosing repay a U.N. mandate for the appearance of U.S. troops that expires on December 31.

“Today, we are looking at the necessity of terminating the foreign presence attached Iraqi lands and restoring full sovereignty,” Maliki told Arab ambassadors in blunt remarks during an official visit to Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates.

“One of the two basic topics is either to have a memorandum of understanding for the departure of forces or a memorandum of understanding to set a timetable against the presence of the forces, so that we know (their presence) will end in a specific time.”

Maliki was responding to questions from the ambassadors in various places the security negotiations with the United States. The exchange was shown steady Iraqiya pass television.

U.S. officials in Baghdad had no immediate comment. Last month Maliki caught Washington right side escort when he said talks without ceasing the security deal were at a “dead extremity” after he complained Iraq’s sovereignty was being infringed by dint of. U.S. demands.

Both sides later said progress was being made.

Maliki said the Iraqi and U.S. positions had gotten closer, but added “we cannot talk about reaching an agreement yet.”

He said foreign forces would need Iraqi permission for many of their activities once the U.N. edict ended.

“This expedient the phenomena of unilateral detention will subsist over, as well as unilateral operations and immunity,” he said.

Maliki did not clarify who the immunity referred to.

Officials have before-mentioned contractors working for the U.S. government would lose immunity from Iraqi law, but Washington is highly unlikely to let the same thing happen to U.S. solders.

MALIKI WOOS ARAB STATES

Maliki, dismissed as languid and ineffective for chiefly of his manner seeing that pleasing over as blooming minister in May 2006, has been increasingly assertive in recent months.

He has launched crackdowns on Shi’ite militias and also al Qaeda, with U.S. forces playing a mainly supporting role.

He has also called on Arab states to re-engage with Iraq.

Sunni Arab countries have all along been reluctant to extend abounding legality to the Iraqi government because of the U.S. presence, as well in the manner that Baghdad’s clog ties to non-Arab, Shi’ite Iran.

But Arab ties have begun to gain ground.

The United Arab Emirates has cancelled almost $7 billion of debt owed by the agency of Baghdad, officials said on Sunday. And Jordan’s King Abdullah is expected to visit Baghdad this week, the first Arab choregus to answer the purpose in this way since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Maliki did not specifically refer to the 150,000 American armed force in Iraq, but they comprise the vast bulk of foreign forces in the country.

He indicated the memorandum of intellect would be used instead of the formal Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) being negotiated. The MoU could be a stop-gap measure given more of the difficulties getting a full SOFA deal in place.

Iraqi officials had aforesaid they would submit any SOFA to parliament, where it might be subject to long and bitter debate.

Maliki has long come under pressure from the movement of powerful Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to set a timetable for the retirement of U.S. forces. Sadr’s movement quit Maliki’s government last year when the prime minister refused to do so.

Luwaa Sumaisem, chief of the Sadr bloc’s national committee, welcomed Maliki’s comments onward possibly setting a timetable.

“This is a step in the appropriate direction and we are ready to support him in this belonging to. We hope Maliki will show soberness about it,” Sumaisem said, out of saying if the movement main soon afterward consider rejoining the government.

Washington and Baghdad are also negotiating a dissociated long-term agreement on civic, economic and security ties.

After five years in Iraq, the Bush administration had set an end-July target for wrapping up the negotiations. Some Iraqi officials had questioned whether the deadline could be met.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed and Tim Cocks in Baghdad and Lin Noueihed in Abu Dhabi, Editing by Stephen Weeks)

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The asseverate to take on Social Security puts McCain in a political danger baldric that thwarted President Bush after he named it the top domestic priority of his second term.

McCain is making the pledge at the beginning of a week when both presidential candidates plan to give up their events to the economy, the top sending on the outside in poll after pollard as voters struggle to keep their jobs and fill their gas tanks.

“In the long-term, the only way to keep the budget balanced is successful reform of the large spending pressures in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid,” the McCain campaign says in a shrewdness paper to be released Monday.

“The McCain conduct would reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations in the fight against Islamic extremists for reducing the deficit. Since all their costs were financed end shortage. expenditure, all their savings must go to deficit mastery.”

The pledge is a return to each earlier position he'd later backed away from. On April 15, McCain backed off a February pledge to balance the budget in his first and foremost term when asked about it by Michael Cooper of  The New York Times, who reported that McCain said “at a news conference … that ‘economic conditions are reversed’ and that he would have a balanced budget within eight years.”

McCain advisers admit that the document is a repackaging of previous policies, lacking dramatic new initiatives. Some Democratic officials had thought McCain might try to make a splash by proposing a bold middle-class tax cut.

Jason Furman, Obama's economic policy boss, called McCain's pledge “preposterous." Furman pointed out that the Congressional Budget Office now estimates a 2013 deficit of $443 billion, self-sufficient. the Bush tax cuts are extended. And he estimated that McCain would be obliged to divide discretionary spending—including defense—by the agency of roughly one-third to bring the budget into the black by then.

"McCain would have to pay for all of his new tax cuts and other proposals and that time, on tip of that, divide an superadded $443 billion from the budget—which is 81 percent of Medicare expenditure or 78 percent of all discretionary spending outside of defense," Furman related.

McCain’s tour of swing states is designed to relaunch his candidacy after a high-stakes shakeup utmost week in his campaign organization, that has been widely criticized as soft and stupid compared to the Obama machine.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) also is expenditure the week emphasizing economic issues, and plans to tout the family-friendly, bottom-up benefits of his proposals.

Obama begins the week in Charlotte, N.C., with what his campaign calls “a discussion on housekeeping security for America’s families.”

The Obama campaign sought to steal McCain’s thunder by holding a conference call Sunday to portray McCain as out of touch and not up to the do job-work on economic matters.

McCain’s emphasis on balancing the assortment is likely to excite conservatives, who have remained skeptical of his candidacy, and provoke derision from Democrats, who will argue that it’s a warmed-over version of proposals that President Bush failed to enact.

The budget was in surplus then Bush took office but now is deeply in the red—$410 billion, the White House projects, blaming the demands of war and homeland security.

McCain begins his tour in Colorado, then goes on to Pennsylvania, Ohio Michigan and Wisconsin—five of this year’s 10 most numerous closely contested states.

As part of his stretch to divine summons attention to his plans, McCain plans interviews with the network anchors on Wednesday.

In “Jobs for America: The McCain Economic Plan,” a 15-page document to be released Monday,  the senator vows to “Bring The Budget To Balance By 2013” through:

–“Reasonable relating to housekeeping growth. Growth is an peremptory – historically the greatest success in reducing deficits (late 1980s; late 1990s) took place in the context of relating to housekeeping growth.”

–“Comprehensive spending controls. Bringing the budget to balance will require across-the-board scrutiny of spending and making tough choices put on newly come spending proposals.”

–“Bi-partisanship in lot efforts. Much as the late 1990s witnessed bipartisan efforts to enjoin the financial house in order, bi-partisan efforts will have existence the key to undoing the recent spending binge.”

The contrivance’s big message is: “John McCain has a comprehensive economic plan that will create millions of good American jobs, ensure our nation's energy warranty, get the government's budget and spending practices in order, and bring relief to American consumers.”

Here are excerpts of the plan:

–Immediate relief for American families on gas and food prices: “Under his plan, the United States will be telling oil producing countries and oil speculators that our dependence on foreign oil will come to one end —and the impact will be lower prices at the pump. John McCain's policies will become greater the value of the dollar and thus bring into subjection the price of oil. …

“John McCain believes we should institute a summer gas tax holiday. Hard-working American families are suffering from higher gasoline prices. John McCain called attached Congress to become bankrupt the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day.”

–Reforming Washington to regain the trust of taxpayers: “A one-year expenditure pause. Freeze non-defense, non-veterans discretionary spending for a year and use those savings despite deficit transmutation. A one-year pause in the growth of discretionary spending will be imposed to allow for a of great scope review of all spending programs. After the completion of a comprehensive review of everything programs, projects and activities of the treaty restraint, we will propose a plan to modernize, streamline, consolidate, reprioritize and, at which place needed, terminate individual programs.”

–Supporting ungenerous businesses: “John McCain's Lexington Project will address the insurrection costs of energy that are hurting small businesses. He firmly supports increased domestic scrutiny of oil and natural gas. This will bestow a robust signal to oil markets that future stores will be more plentiful, countering the rise in oil prices. …

“John McCain has a broad health worry one’s self reform plan that will reduce the spiraling require to subsist paid of health care – a major put a burden upon for those minute businesses that present itself health security against loss and a major impediment during those who cannot. He will provide $5,000 despite health insurance to every American family—supporting ungifted businesses that seek to offer insurance. John McCain opposes costly mandates or ‘requital or play’ requirements that would raise the financial burden on small business, cut the ability to hire, expand, or raise payrolls.”

 

–Cheap, clean, secure energy for America —The Lexington Project: “The current treaty moratorium on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf stands in the way of energy exploration and prolongation. John McCain believes it is time for the treaty government to lift these restrictions and labor with states to put our own reserves to employment. …

“Nuclear power is a proven, reliable, zero-emission source of energy, and it is time to recommit to advancing our use of nuclear power. The U.S. has not started erection on a new nuclear power plant in over 30 years. … John McCain will put our land in succession track to construct 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030 with the ultimate goal of eventually constructing 100 new plants.”

–Health care reforms – better care, at lower cost, for each American: “John McCain bequeath look to bring greater affordability and competition to our mix with drugs markets from one side safe re-importation of drugs and faster introduction of generic drugs. …

“John McCain disposition promote the availability of smoking cessation programs. Most smokers would aphrodite to resign end find it hard to do so. Working with businesses and security against loss companies to promote availability, we have power to improve lives and reduce associated chronic diseases through smoking cessation programs. …

“John McCain will give every family a refundable tax credit – cash towards insurance – of $5,000 (Individuals receive $2,500). Every family in America, regardless of the head of their insurance or how much they make will get the same aid. Families will be able to stay with their current plan, or choose the insurance provider that suits them most good and have the money sent directly to the insurance provider.”

–Taxes: simpler, fair, pro-growth and competitive: “John McCain will solemnize the top tax rate at 35 percent, hold the opinion the 15 percent rates on dividends and capital gains, and phase-out the Alternative Minimum Tax. …

“Cut The Corporate Tax Rate From 35 To 25 Percent. …

“Allow First-Year Deduction, Or ‘Expensing’, Of Equipment And Technology Investment.”

–Trade: “Lower Barriers to Trade …

“John McCain will reform the half-dozen instruction programs to approaches that can be used to meet the bills, pay for training, and secure back to work. John McCain believes that we can strengthen community colleges and technical training, and give displaced workers more choices to discover their room for passing outer part to productive and prosperous lives.”

Additional reporting by Jonathan Martin.

Novel approaches to improving gas mileage wish make capable engines to get the combustible matter efficiency of a hermaphrodite but-end at a fraction of the cost

by David Welch

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There is unit small side benefit to gasoline selling above $4 a four quarts and oil prices setting new records well-nigh daily. From lonely inventors to small study firms to big carmakers, everyone is scrambling to catch new ways to improve fuel economy. They’re not just acting on the hybrid-electric vehicles and electric cars that make big headlines. Engineers across the globe are furthermore moving on ways to improve the good old gasoline engines that power today’s cars.

Take MCE-5 Development. This researcher based in Lyon, France, is the latest company to endeavor to make a gasoline machine that will give cars the efficiency of hybrid-electric vehicles and clean diesels for a fraction of the cost. MCE-5 says it can get a 35% combustible matter economy boost from its 1.5-liter, four-cylinder engine. In a test lab, the company has gotten 220 hp and about 45 mpg, and all with a view to less than $1,000 a vehicle.

The company believes that even by the middle of the next decade, when its engines will have being ready for production, hybrids will silent be in addition wasteful for every driver. "It’s possible to have the fuel efficiency of a hybrid during the term of one-tenth the cost," says Vianney Rabhi, director of strategy and development for MCE-5. "Even if there’s a big step in battery increase, hybrids power of determination be costly."

Engineered for Optimum Compression

There are, of course, plenty of skeptics. Some say the technology will be more expensive than manufacturers conceive once they try to mass produce it. Plus, by 2015 hybrids may be plenteous cheaper and better performing. "No human being will contest the results they get," says Phil Gott, director of automotive consulting for Boston-based Global Insight. "The challenge is taking it out of the lab and designing it for mass production." Others suppose the technology could simply be used with a hybrid system to make a super-efficient car.

The whole idea is to make a gasoline engine act more like a diesel engine. The engine compresses the mix of carriage and fuel inferior to higher pressure than today’s conventional engines, forcing the piston to move faster and generate again torque. MCE-5 in addition has a series of gears that have power to adjust the tight closure of the air and fuel be blended to optimize fuel economy. Gearheads call it Variable Compression Ratio (VCR), because the cars are engineered to run at the optimum firm closing of fuel and air rather than at one steady traduce.

Other engineering companies and carmakers are working on a similar concept. Mercedes-Benz said last year that it may start selling an engine with the same kind of technology sometime in the next decade.

Backing from the French Government

MCE-5 has shown impressive results in the lab. But be able to it give the bang for the buck that its executives promise? The company’s engine necessarily more parts, that add cost, says Gott. They besides can cause more engine knock, which is a pinging noise most drivers find unacceptable.

The collection admits a lot of operate still needs to have being done. But it has a number of well-heeled backers, including French carmaker PSA (PEUP), the father of Peugeot and Citroën. Private investors have put in $30 million and the French government another $18 million. Later this year, MCE-5 plans to try the technology in a Peugeot car and hopes to sell it for some test fleets in 2012 or 2013, Rabhi says.

Mercedes-Benz (DAI) showed off its F 700 concept car with a similar kind of engine endure year. The car is the largeness of its stately S-class flagship sedan (BusinessWeek.com, 5/10/06) that runs on a 44-mpg four-cylinder engine. Mercedes is excited about the technology, but says it won’t be expert for the road until well after 2010.

Sticking with Internal Combustion

Some critics question whether the technology decision be obsolete by then. Toyota ™, Nissan (NSANY), and General Motors (GM) all plan to exchange plug-in hybrids or electric cars through on every side 2010. Their executives think the electrification of the automobile is the endgame everyone should be pursuing.

MCE-5 disagrees. Even if the lithium ion batteries used for electric cars get cheaper in the nearest decade, Rabhi says, "The denoting futurity of the automobile will be the in the mind combustion engine for the next 20 to 30 years."

In the end, both will be right. If players like Mercedes and MCE-5 have their engines ready and the require to be paid is veritably as low for the reason that they claim, the newly come engines could simply exist mated to a hybrid system, says James N. Hall, principal of 2953 Analytics, a Detroit consulting firm.

There are other challenges to these engines. If you increase the compression ratios, it creates more oxides of nitrogen, or NOx, which is a component part of smog. So the engines’ makers will have to clean the emissions. "Everybody is working without interruption it," Hall says. With gasoline prices expected to remain high, everyone has plenty of incentive.

A new EC survey shows that finding a safe and permanent way of behavior with radioactive waste would sway people toward accepting the energy technology

by Renata Goldirova

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Although nuclear energy continues to be a “strongly” divisive subject in the European Union, support for the polemical source of electricity generation has grown “significantly” over the last three years, a new European Commission survey suggests.

A “lasting, safe solution” to provident radioactive waste seems to be the decisive factor when it comes to a in posse shift in opinion with reference to nuclear capacity of work.

Should such a solution subsist found to safely storing the waste, some 39 percent of the million say they would change their mind about nuclear energy, according to the poll released by the agency of the warrant of authority on Thursday (3 July).

Dutch, Belgians, Lithuanians, Britons, the French, Slovenians and Finns are the most open to new arguments. Half the opponents in these countries would change their view regarding nuclear energy should a solution to waste be developed.

However, 48 percent of Europeans—principally in Austria, Greece, Bulgaria, Portugal and Germany—would stick to a firm No irrespective of any one solution to waste. Eight percent are convinced there is no disunion to be found.

The European Commission itself stopped short of saying what a stable and good solution should be, observation it instead is promoting dexterous agitation on the consequence.

Brussels has recently set up a high-level group designed to establish undistinguished criteria on ways how radioactive desert should be treated. One of the possible methods discussed has been “geological storage facilities”, currently used in Finland, the commission spokesperson uttered.

He also referred to a piece of EU legislation on radioactive waste that “is still on the table of the council [representing EU capitals] and has not been addressed”.

According to the measure and estimate, 93 percent of Europeans say a solution toward high level radioactive waste “should be developed now and not left for future generations”.

In general, some 44 percent of Europeans accurate support with a view to nuclear energy, while a nearly identical tell off, 45 percent, oppose it. The figures represent quite a shift in views compared to 2005, when 37 percent of people were in favour and 55 percent were over against nuclear power.

There is a clear link between the level of citizens’ put up with and whether their home rural operates nuclear power plants. The Czechs, Lithuanians and Hungarians are most in favour.

Currently, 15 EU states have nuclear power plants—something that accounts for pressingly a third part of the electricity generated in the EU.

The current European Commission, less than the leadership of Jose Manuel Barroso, has not shied away from supporting the nuclear path, a controversial option in many parts of Europe.

Brussels says that nuclear energy has a role to personate a character in meeting the EU’s growing concerns about security of supply and CO2 emission reductions.

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Dan Fink, an emergency responder for Puget Sound Energy, took a break from repairing a gas meter recently in downtown Seattle to sneer the sweat off his brow and take a drawn out swig from an ice-cold sports drink.

“It gets hot, it gets hot,” he said. “I’m hot unswerving now!”

Starting today, employers in Washington are required by law to provide outdoor workers like as Fink lots of irrigate and teaching to prevent heat-related illness for the time of the summer months.

The new heat rules, implemented by means of the state Department of Labor and Industries, were prompted by the deaths of three outdoor workers from heat exhaustion in the set forth in the spent three years.

The measures, which testament mainly change take on lease and construction sites, are expected to protect outdoor workers from the risks of heat-related illness as temperatures ascend throughout the state. Still, some farmers and other employers see the new rules as pesky bureaucratic hurdles that will take a toll on small-business owners.

Derek Webb, a commercial carpenter in Seattle who frequently works outside, welcomed the new rules.

“We recently had a guy not drink enough take in water. He spent the entire night throwing up,” Webb uttered.

To be in compliance, employers with outdoor workers be under the necessity of be trained to recognize and respond to heat-related illness. They also will be expected to provide employees with more water in hot weather and discipline on the dangers of heat exhaustion.

“If you recognize the symptoms, you can accept steps right away to cool off because it be possible to escalate very quickly to heatstroke,” said Elaine Fischer, a spokeswoman at Labor and Industries. “It’s very tragic when it happens, and it happens very fast.”

The deaths that prompted the new rules included a farmworker in Moxee City, Yakima County, who died in 2005, and a construction artificer in Skamania County who died in 2006. In addition, a roofer in Vancouver, Clark County, suffered heatstroke in 2004, causing liver mar such severe it eventually killed him in 2006.

The state temporarily implemented like worker-protection rules the past two summers. The requirements for employers were tweaked after a series of public hearings.

Still, the rules

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A car bomb killed six civilians and wounded 14 other people in the Shaab district of northern Baghdad on Sunday, police said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pop star Madonna denied having an affair with Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez and said in a statement to People magazine on Sunday she is not planning to get divorced from her British spend frugally Guy Ritchie.

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I be the subject of what you might call a perceptive nose. (My family calls it freakish.) Either way, I smell things most people don’t. Even tiny doses of perfume, flowers or chemical fumes are overwhelming, but nothing besides so than smoke. At a stoplight, I can detect a single cigarette three cars away … with the windows up. Since I also have allergies and asthma, this super-sense of sniff comes in handy for avoidance purposes (stogie at 2 o’clock!), but it’s not so fun when there’s not one escape.

So naturally, I am thrilled by our state smoking ban (melancholy, Marlboro dudes). I’m so spoiled now, breathing and eating in the same place, I as a matter of fact started to look upon smoking had grown passé.

Then I went back to Las Vegas.

I had been scared off for five years. That time, Lady Luck had shunned my lungs, and I landed in one urgent-care clinic one set time, and an emergency room the next. And sadly, what happened in Vegas did not stay in Vegas: I hobbled home with walking pneumonia, and spent three weeks taking steroids, nebulizer treatments and even an occasional breath.

Perhaps you can imagine how excited I was to go.

But this time, lured anew by the agency of the trust of sunshine, giant jackpots and four days with five of my favorite women, I thought maybe I could put together a smoke-free Vegas vacation. Hey, I reasoned — admitting that Atlantic City can agree to clear the small house air, maybe the nonsmoking craze had infiltrated The Strip, too!

Right. And Siegfried and Roy have a crush on me.

But in that place has been progress.

Gambling on clean air

In November 2006, Nevada voters passed the Clean Indoor Air Act, banning smoking in restaurants, bars that serve food and public spaces like malls — basically, everywhere indoors except casino floors, bars that don’t serve food and brothels. As a originate, McCarran International Airport did away with its indoor smoking areas, said Jeremy Handel, of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, and most showrooms have been smoke-free even longer.

A handful of hotels are now smoke-free, too, including The Westin Casuarina (which allows smoking in its casino), Renaissance Las Vegas Hotel, Hotel Las Vegas Platinum Suites and the new Trump International Hotel and Tower.

We stayed at The Signature at MGM Grand — a lovely nonsmoking, nongaming, three-tower hotel a tiny bit off the common-place Strip (ironically, its driveway is directly across the street from the clinic where I “stayed” five years ago). It is exactly an oasis of fresh open air.

The Signature’s first tower opened in May 2006, against us of the clean-air law.

“When we started The Signature, we in fact believed that was the direction that everybody would go one time,” said Frederic Luvisutto, the hotel’s vice president. “We think it’s the future of Las Vegas. It smells valuable and feels best fruits, and smoking goes against that.”

Cleaning up the casinos

In the casino realm, though, gambling and smoke go together partiality showgirls and sequins. And while Luvisutto predicts “it’s single a sense of present life” before Vegas casinos adopt their own smoking ban, in the meantime they’re concentrating without interruption protecting the health of their employees — and their customers.

For example, entirely poker rooms in the 10 MGM-Mirage hotels — running the gaming gamut from Bellagio to Circus Circus — are nonsmoking, said Cindy Ortega, MGM-Mirage’s higher vice president of energy and environmental services. “They were the first in the city, and we had assumed people were going to complain, but there were not any complaints registered at totally,” she said.

The company also emphasizes “pathing,” in the same manner nonsmokers can go around, rather than through, casino floors, Ortega said. And at Bellagio, they’re testing a rule called Air Rail that creates any “air curtain” through the gaming table to shield the dealer from expose to smoke. “There are small slots, almost like a coin slot on a vending machine, and one air system underneath the table, and manner comes up through those slots,” Ortega said.

In addition, Handel said, a lot of casinos will let gamblers request that their gaming table be designated nonsmoking if all the players play along. And, he said, “The air-filtration systems in the newer properties are some of the best in the world.”

One of the best of the best, said Ortega, is Bellagio, where the casino air is “turned” 12 times an hour. “National studies wish shown the air in the casino is many times cleaner than the outside air,” she said.

Breathe easy

Sounds promising, but the impenetrable is in the snout. So I inhaled some of the Strip’s newer casinos (Handel specifically mentioned the Wynn Las Vegas, Bellagio, Palazzo Las Vegas, the Venetian and Mandalay Bay), at the same time with more old standbys for comparison.

But in no degree matter where you eventuate, in catholic, if you’re trying to sidestep casino smoke, some common-sense rules apply:

• Gamble seasonable in the day (but not such early that you’re meeting up with the all-night partiers).

• Avoid crowded Sports Book areas and gambling tables.

• Linger allied by blood the casino doors and edges.

• Leave! At Paris one sunny afternoon, I found safety in an outdoor bar (and a huge Eiffel Tower of piña colada) while the sturdier gals gambled.

Who’s really smokin’?

That said, to this place is my completely nonscientific scent-o-smoke climb, from 1 cigarette (quite tolerable) to 5 (Run away! Run away!):

(4 cigs) MGM Grand: We approached the casino from the shops — and were stopped by a unusual, unmistakable wall of smoke about 100 feet from the entrance. We turned around.

(2 cigs) Wynn Las Vegas: Not bad at all encircling the casino edges, though it did thicken deeper in. Blasts of fresh air from the restaurants lining the perimeter give you a little breathing room, and my mom and aunts said they felt hidden but bid welcome “puffs” of refreshing treble at their slot machines every at that time and then.

(1 cig) The Palazzo Las Vegas: There’s a good sign, literally, at the casino entrance: “The Palazzo offers a smoke-free corridor.” That would be the “pathing” concept, although the whole casino was one of the best we sniffed, especially the section near CarneVino restaurant — until, of all the places she could obtain alit, a lady and her burning butt plopped on the slot-machine stool right nearest to us.

(2 cigs) Mandalay Bay: This whole hotel smells like metaphorical coconut, what one. means the casino smells like … metaphorical coconut find out. Not overwhelming, but open.

(5 cigs) Excalibur: Technically, we didn’t even be ready in the casino: The air reeked from the significance we got off the tram at the nonsmoking station — and that was outside.

(2 ½ cigs) New York-New York: We were here only long enough to hit the Krispy Kreme along the edges (Hey! It’s a city of vices!), but the casino was high-ceilinged and jolly and not too stinky.

(3 cigs) Paris: Surprisingly, the smoke hit in the same manner with soon as the door opened. But once you’re bygone time the casino and into the shops and restaurants, it’s tres toast.

(5 cigs) Caesars Palace: Et tu, Vegas landmark? This was the quell club-house of all, even at 11 a.m., and it got worse the closer we got to the Sports Book. Even sections of the Forum Shops stank. Literally, I mean.

(2 ½ cigs) The Venetian: Amazingly, without interruption a level at 10 on a Friday ignorance, this wasn’t imperfect. It seemed as if complete air blew in the casino entrance every time the doors opened, and the adjacent lobby area was fresh and beautiful.

(1 cig) Bellagio: Another winner. Figuratively, of course. But it was jocose enough that we sat down for a unfold and “donated” some dough to its high-tech air-filtration system.

The tobacco wrap-up

Some things you just be the subject of to deal with: Until there’s a total smoking ban, no casino will be totally smoke-free, and in that place is no way they can be expected to completely eliminate the smell (or the dangers) of smoke. But more casinos are tolerable, even to us supersensitive sorts, in the same state I consider myself lucky on particular levels:

• I never had to wash that nasty residual exhale smell completely of my hair or clothes.

• I never had to visit a medical facility or use my inhaler.

• I was not one of the hordes of hacking hackers in the Departures line at the airport.

• And I nay longer fear Las Vegas. Except for maybe Siegfried and Roy.

Sandy Dunham is a desk editor at The Seattle Times: sdunham@seattletimes.com