China’s frenetic construction of coal-fired power plants has raised worries around the world about the effect on climate change. China now uses more coal than the United States, Europe and Japan combined, making it the world’s largest emitter of gases that are warming the planet.
But largely missing in the hand-wringing is this: China has emerged in the past two years as the world’s leading builder of so-called clean coal power plants, mastering the technology and driving down the cost.
While the United States is still debating whether to build a more efficient kind of coal-fired power plant that uses extremely hot steam, China has begun building them at a rate of one a month.
Construction has stalled in the United States on a new generation of low-pollution power plants that turn coal into a gas before burning it, although Energy Secretary Steven Chu said on Thursday that the Obama administration might revive one power plant of this type. But China has already approved equipment purchases for just such a power plant to be assembled soon in a muddy field here in Tianjin.
“The steps they’ve taken are probably as fast and as serious as anywhere in power-generation history,” said Hal Harvey, president of ClimateWorks, a group in San Francisco that helps finance projects to limit global warming.
Western countries continue to rely heavily on coal-fired power plants built decades ago with outdated, inefficient technology that burn a lot of coal and emit considerable amounts of carbon dioxide. China has begun requiring power companies to retire an older, more polluting power plant for each new one they build.
Cao Peixi, the president of the China Huaneng Group, the country’s biggest state-owned electric utility and the majority partner in the joint venture building the Tianjin plant, said that his company was committed to the project even though it would cost more than conventional plants.
“We shouldn’t look at this project from a purely financial perspective,” he said. “It represents the future.”
Without doubt, China’s coal-fired power sector still has many problems, and global warming gases from the country are expected to continue rising under any plausible scenario. China’s aim is to use the newest technologies to limit the rate of increase.
Only half the country’s coal-fired power plants have the emissions control equipment to remove sulfur compounds that cause acid rain, and even power plants with that technology do not always use it. China has not begun regulating some of the emissions that lead to heavy smog in big cities.
Even among China’s newly built power plants, not all are modern. About 60 percent of the plants are being built using newer technology that is more expensive but highly efficient. That leaves 40 percent of the new plants using less optimal technology.
With greater efficiency, a power plant burns less coal and emits less carbon dioxide for each unit of electricity it generates. Experts say the least efficient plants in China today convert 27 to 36 percent of the energy in coal into electricity. The most efficient plants achieve an efficiency as high as 44 percent, meaning they can cut global warming emissions by more than a third compared with the weakest plants.
In the United States, the most efficient plants achieve around 40 percent efficiency because they do not use the highest steam temperatures being adopted in China.
The average efficiency of American coal-fired plants is still higher than the average efficiency of Chinese power plants because China built so many inefficient plants over the past decade. But China is now rapidly closing the gap by using some of the world’s most advanced designs.
After relying until recently on older technology, “China has since become the major world market for advanced coal-fired power plants with high-specification emission control systems,” the International Energy Agency said in a report on April 20.
China’s improvements are starting to have an effect on climate models. In its latest annual report last November, the International Energy Agency cut its forecast of the annual increase in Chinese emissions of global warming gases, to 3 percent from 3.2 percent, in response to technological gains, particularly in the coal sector, even as the agency raised slightly its forecast for Chinese economic growth. The agency is now reviewing further its projections for Chinese emissions.
“It’s definitely changing the baseline, and that’s being taken into account,” said Jonathan Sinton, a China specialist at the energy agency.
But by continuing to rely heavily on coal, which supplies 80 percent of its electricity, China ensures that it will keep emitting a lot of carbon dioxide; even an efficient coal-fired power plant emits twice the carbon dioxide of a natural gas-fired plant.
Perhaps the biggest question now is how much further China can go beyond the recent steps. In particular, how fast will it move toward power plants that capture their emissions and store them underground or under the seafloor?
That technology could, in theory, create power plants that contribute virtually nothing to global warming. Many countries hope to develop such plants, though progress has been halting; Dr. Chu, the energy secretary, has promised steps to speed up the technology, called carbon sequestration, in the United States.
China has just built a small, experimental facility near Beijing to remove carbon dioxide from power station emissions to provide carbonation for beverages, and the government has a short list of possible locations for a large experiment to capture and store carbon dioxide. But so far, it has no plans to make this a national policy.
China is making other efforts to reduce its global warming emissions. It has doubled its total wind energy capacity in each of the past four years, and is poised to pass the United States as soon as this year as the world’s largest market for wind power equipment. China is building considerably more nuclear power plants than the rest of the world combined, and these do not emit carbon dioxide after they are built.
But coal remains the cheapest energy source in China by a wide margin. China has the world’s third-largest coal reserves, after the United States and Russia.
“No matter how much renewable or nuclear is in the mix, coal will remain the dominant power source,” said Ashok Bhargava, a China energy expert at the Asian Development Bank in Manila.
Another problem is that China has finally developed the ability to build high-technology power plants only at the end of a national binge of building lower-tech coal-fired plants. Construction is now slowing because of the economic slump.
By adopting “ultra-supercritical” technology, which uses extremely hot steam to achieve the highest efficiency, China has cut its cost dramatically through the economies of scale from building many identical power plants at the same time.
It now costs as much as a third less to build an ultra-supercritical power plant in China than to build a less efficient coal-fired plant in the United States.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Gates’s Plan to Shift Military Spending Faces Skepticism
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates visited southern Afghanistan late last week not only to assess the American war effort, but also to showcase the kind of conflict he thinks the military must prepare to fight in the years ahead.
Mr. Gates predicted more of these messy, unconventional wars, and he argued that this kind of conflict requires America to shift spending to items like mine-resistant vehicles, surveillance drones and medical-evacuation helicopters, at the expense of tanks, bombers and aircraft carriers.
But as Mr. Gates returned to Washington on Saturday for what will mostly likely be a lengthy, detailed and often hostile series of Congressional budget hearings this week, opponents of his risk assessment are attacking the spending plan as rendering America unprepared for traditional war.
They say the proposal goes too far in shifting money to unconventional warfare from the weapons needed to deter and defeat an enemy nation. And Mr. Gates’s focus on counterinsurgency training, they say, means that troops have not spent enough time honing their skills for conventional conflict.
Mr. Gates has slashed money for the Army’s future combat vehicle because its flat-bottom design made it vulnerable to roadside bombs. Here in Afghanistan, he examined a fleet of angular, heavily armored mine-resistant vehicles sent as part of the multibillion-dollar crash program he ordered to counter the insurgents’ weapon of choice.
Standing beside one armored troop carrier crippled by a huge homemade mine, Mr. Gates spoke with two soldiers who had emerged from the wreck unscathed. Others suffered a broken arm, a knee injury and a concussion.
“These vehicles keep us alive,” said Lt. Col. Michael Jernigan, commander of the Marines’ Combat Logistics Battalion 3.
Mr. Gates has proposed eliminating money for the new, high-tech presidential helicopter and capping purchases of a top-of-the-line jet-fighter — but here he also met with the crew operating 10 medical-evacuation helicopters ordered from the Nevada desert to be on standby in the deserts of southern Afghanistan. Mr. Gates had been angered by how long it took to move the wounded off a battlefield, so he increased the number of helicopters here, plus three more field hospitals.
Lt. Col. Christopher Barnett is commander of the Air Force medical-evacuation helicopter unit moved to Afghanistan from war games in Nevada, where it played on the enemy team.
“Now it’s about saving lives,” he told Mr. Gates.
And to highlight the defense secretary’s initiative to get faster tactical intelligence to American troops in combat, Mr. Gates toured a secret intelligence fusion center, where a series of oversize screens showed real-time video broadcast from surveillance drones in the skies over insurgent havens of Afghanistan.
“My job is to get you what you need to get the mission done successfully,” Mr. Gates told several hundred Marines who just landed here at Camp Leatherneck as the vanguard of more than 20,000 additional troops ordered to Afghanistan by President Obama.
The defense industry, which makes what Mr. Gates wants as well as what he does not, has chosen to mute its complaints on the proposed spending plan. But on Capitol Hill, champions of programs in jeopardy are preparing to do battle during hearings this week.
The proposed spending plan “is taking us down a path that leads to a weaker military that is poorly equipped,” said Senator James M. Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma.
“Are the forces being provided to our commanders in the field postured to counter the full spectrum of threats both in the near and far term?” he asked during a speech on the Senate floor. “Are we providing our troops the best and most capable equipment available? We are not today.”
Others, like Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, cite the threats posed by nations around the world that remain true adversaries — or at least are competitors to American interests.
In a speech to the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative policy center in Washington, Mr. Cornyn said that China was upgrading and expanding its navy to challenge American warships, that Russia was striving to intimidate its neighbors and re-establish a sphere of influence, and that North Korea and Iran continued to expand their missile arsenals while pursuing nuclear weapons.
“Despite so many security threats emerging or growing,” Mr. Cornyn said, “the administration envisions a military that will have less strength to meet them.”
Mr. Gates explained during troop visits in Afghanistan that half of his budget proposal remained committed to conventional warfare, while 40 percent paid for weapons that can be applied to both traditional and unconventional conflicts.
His attempt to rebalance military spending, Mr. Gates said, shifts only 10 percent of the budget to buying in the specialized tools of unconventional and counterinsurgency warfare.
Many of those most directly involved in today’s war say that the Gates budget proposal sets the priorities right, and that the complexities and rigors of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan have created the most capable American military in the nation’s history.
“When you get into what does that mean, to do counterinsurgency, you’ll find that there will be companies on the battlefield that are fighting the combined arms fight using artillery, other weapons systems, maneuver, intelligence and all of that,” said Brig. Gen. John Nicholson, the deputy commander of allied forces across southern Afghanistan.
“And they are synchronizing all of these systems and doing all of the things they would have to do in a conventional fight — but they are doing it at a lower level, with more junior officers in charge, than ever before,” he added. “Our squad leaders, platoon leaders, our company commanders are broadening their experience
Mr. Gates predicted more of these messy, unconventional wars, and he argued that this kind of conflict requires America to shift spending to items like mine-resistant vehicles, surveillance drones and medical-evacuation helicopters, at the expense of tanks, bombers and aircraft carriers.
But as Mr. Gates returned to Washington on Saturday for what will mostly likely be a lengthy, detailed and often hostile series of Congressional budget hearings this week, opponents of his risk assessment are attacking the spending plan as rendering America unprepared for traditional war.
They say the proposal goes too far in shifting money to unconventional warfare from the weapons needed to deter and defeat an enemy nation. And Mr. Gates’s focus on counterinsurgency training, they say, means that troops have not spent enough time honing their skills for conventional conflict.
Mr. Gates has slashed money for the Army’s future combat vehicle because its flat-bottom design made it vulnerable to roadside bombs. Here in Afghanistan, he examined a fleet of angular, heavily armored mine-resistant vehicles sent as part of the multibillion-dollar crash program he ordered to counter the insurgents’ weapon of choice.
Standing beside one armored troop carrier crippled by a huge homemade mine, Mr. Gates spoke with two soldiers who had emerged from the wreck unscathed. Others suffered a broken arm, a knee injury and a concussion.
“These vehicles keep us alive,” said Lt. Col. Michael Jernigan, commander of the Marines’ Combat Logistics Battalion 3.
Mr. Gates has proposed eliminating money for the new, high-tech presidential helicopter and capping purchases of a top-of-the-line jet-fighter — but here he also met with the crew operating 10 medical-evacuation helicopters ordered from the Nevada desert to be on standby in the deserts of southern Afghanistan. Mr. Gates had been angered by how long it took to move the wounded off a battlefield, so he increased the number of helicopters here, plus three more field hospitals.
Lt. Col. Christopher Barnett is commander of the Air Force medical-evacuation helicopter unit moved to Afghanistan from war games in Nevada, where it played on the enemy team.
“Now it’s about saving lives,” he told Mr. Gates.
And to highlight the defense secretary’s initiative to get faster tactical intelligence to American troops in combat, Mr. Gates toured a secret intelligence fusion center, where a series of oversize screens showed real-time video broadcast from surveillance drones in the skies over insurgent havens of Afghanistan.
“My job is to get you what you need to get the mission done successfully,” Mr. Gates told several hundred Marines who just landed here at Camp Leatherneck as the vanguard of more than 20,000 additional troops ordered to Afghanistan by President Obama.
The defense industry, which makes what Mr. Gates wants as well as what he does not, has chosen to mute its complaints on the proposed spending plan. But on Capitol Hill, champions of programs in jeopardy are preparing to do battle during hearings this week.
The proposed spending plan “is taking us down a path that leads to a weaker military that is poorly equipped,” said Senator James M. Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma.
“Are the forces being provided to our commanders in the field postured to counter the full spectrum of threats both in the near and far term?” he asked during a speech on the Senate floor. “Are we providing our troops the best and most capable equipment available? We are not today.”
Others, like Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, cite the threats posed by nations around the world that remain true adversaries — or at least are competitors to American interests.
In a speech to the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative policy center in Washington, Mr. Cornyn said that China was upgrading and expanding its navy to challenge American warships, that Russia was striving to intimidate its neighbors and re-establish a sphere of influence, and that North Korea and Iran continued to expand their missile arsenals while pursuing nuclear weapons.
“Despite so many security threats emerging or growing,” Mr. Cornyn said, “the administration envisions a military that will have less strength to meet them.”
Mr. Gates explained during troop visits in Afghanistan that half of his budget proposal remained committed to conventional warfare, while 40 percent paid for weapons that can be applied to both traditional and unconventional conflicts.
His attempt to rebalance military spending, Mr. Gates said, shifts only 10 percent of the budget to buying in the specialized tools of unconventional and counterinsurgency warfare.
Many of those most directly involved in today’s war say that the Gates budget proposal sets the priorities right, and that the complexities and rigors of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan have created the most capable American military in the nation’s history.
“When you get into what does that mean, to do counterinsurgency, you’ll find that there will be companies on the battlefield that are fighting the combined arms fight using artillery, other weapons systems, maneuver, intelligence and all of that,” said Brig. Gen. John Nicholson, the deputy commander of allied forces across southern Afghanistan.
“And they are synchronizing all of these systems and doing all of the things they would have to do in a conventional fight — but they are doing it at a lower level, with more junior officers in charge, than ever before,” he added. “Our squad leaders, platoon leaders, our company commanders are broadening their experience
Child traffickers find it easy to operate in UK, say MPs
Child traffickers are targeting the UK because of the ease with which they can move victims through British ports and local authority care homes, the chairman of a parliamentary inquiry into human trafficking has warned.
Keith Vaz, head of the home affairs select committee, said he and colleagues were "very concerned" about low levels of funding for law enforcement agencies to fight trafficking, and he called on the government to hold an urgent review of the number of foreign children missing from local authority care.
Cautious estimates suggest five suspected victims of child trafficking go missing from care around ports and airports in the UK every week.
"Because we are failing to track down the victims of trafficking we are encouraging more to be sent," said Vaz, before the publication on Thursday of the committee's year-long inquiry into trafficking. "There is a duty of care to make sure young people are tracked down and safe, and to tackle the problem with the origin countries which we are not doing successfully."
Vaz also said there was "a growing connection" between local authority care facilities and trafficking, exemplified he said by the case exposed in the Guardian last week of 77 Chinese children missing from a single care home next to Heathrow airport since March 2006, only four of whom have been found. Two girls had been exploited as prostitutes in the Midlands, and others were suspected of having been forced to work in the drug trade and illegal labour.
The committee's report is likely to increase pressure on ministers to reform the national approach to tackling child trafficking, which Gordon Brown has described as "a truly appalling crime that deserves our urgent attention".
Downing Street said Brown had asked the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, and the children's secretary, Ed Balls, for an urgent update on the issue at the Heathrow home. He has told them to report back within six weeks. "It's not just the home near Heathrow airport, although that is the most obvious case," said Vaz. "The worry is that it is much more widespread.
"The best way to tackle this is for the government to ask local authorities how many children have gone missing. I'll be asking the secretary of state for communities and local government to list the authorities and the children."
Police sources believe the exploitation by traffickers of local authority care homes as collection points for victims has spread to areas around other airports, including Manchester and Stansted, in Essex.
The committee is expected to include a call for more police funding to find trafficked children and prosecute their traffickers. During evidence, senior officers from the Metropolitan police said a specialist anti-child trafficking operation faced having its budget halved to £400,000; a strategic threat assessment by the Home Office's child exploitation and online protection centre revealed that no trafficker in the exploitation of Chinese children has been successfully prosecuted; the same report called trafficking of Chinese children into the UK as "a significant and urgent issue".
"More effort is needed to reduce the attractiveness of the UK as a destination country, and more work is needed to safeguard those children who do make it to the UK and are exploited," said Vaz.
"We need a consistent approach across all local authority areas and police areas. There is a lack of co-ordination between all the agencies. It is something we heard in open evidence."
Immigration minister Phil Woolas said child trafficking was "a very difficult issue, as children can be coerced or misled".
"We're having real success targeting the routes used by the criminals who prey on these vulnerable youngsters – a joint operation has seen 12 traffickers arrested in the past 12 months alone," he said.
"We work with local authorities to ensure the best care for vulnerable children identified by UK Border Agency officers at ports. We have a welfare code of practice [for the agency] on keeping children safe from harm, and our latest bill will make the code law."
Keith Vaz, head of the home affairs select committee, said he and colleagues were "very concerned" about low levels of funding for law enforcement agencies to fight trafficking, and he called on the government to hold an urgent review of the number of foreign children missing from local authority care.
Cautious estimates suggest five suspected victims of child trafficking go missing from care around ports and airports in the UK every week.
"Because we are failing to track down the victims of trafficking we are encouraging more to be sent," said Vaz, before the publication on Thursday of the committee's year-long inquiry into trafficking. "There is a duty of care to make sure young people are tracked down and safe, and to tackle the problem with the origin countries which we are not doing successfully."
Vaz also said there was "a growing connection" between local authority care facilities and trafficking, exemplified he said by the case exposed in the Guardian last week of 77 Chinese children missing from a single care home next to Heathrow airport since March 2006, only four of whom have been found. Two girls had been exploited as prostitutes in the Midlands, and others were suspected of having been forced to work in the drug trade and illegal labour.
The committee's report is likely to increase pressure on ministers to reform the national approach to tackling child trafficking, which Gordon Brown has described as "a truly appalling crime that deserves our urgent attention".
Downing Street said Brown had asked the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, and the children's secretary, Ed Balls, for an urgent update on the issue at the Heathrow home. He has told them to report back within six weeks. "It's not just the home near Heathrow airport, although that is the most obvious case," said Vaz. "The worry is that it is much more widespread.
"The best way to tackle this is for the government to ask local authorities how many children have gone missing. I'll be asking the secretary of state for communities and local government to list the authorities and the children."
Police sources believe the exploitation by traffickers of local authority care homes as collection points for victims has spread to areas around other airports, including Manchester and Stansted, in Essex.
The committee is expected to include a call for more police funding to find trafficked children and prosecute their traffickers. During evidence, senior officers from the Metropolitan police said a specialist anti-child trafficking operation faced having its budget halved to £400,000; a strategic threat assessment by the Home Office's child exploitation and online protection centre revealed that no trafficker in the exploitation of Chinese children has been successfully prosecuted; the same report called trafficking of Chinese children into the UK as "a significant and urgent issue".
"More effort is needed to reduce the attractiveness of the UK as a destination country, and more work is needed to safeguard those children who do make it to the UK and are exploited," said Vaz.
"We need a consistent approach across all local authority areas and police areas. There is a lack of co-ordination between all the agencies. It is something we heard in open evidence."
Immigration minister Phil Woolas said child trafficking was "a very difficult issue, as children can be coerced or misled".
"We're having real success targeting the routes used by the criminals who prey on these vulnerable youngsters – a joint operation has seen 12 traffickers arrested in the past 12 months alone," he said.
"We work with local authorities to ensure the best care for vulnerable children identified by UK Border Agency officers at ports. We have a welfare code of practice [for the agency] on keeping children safe from harm, and our latest bill will make the code law."
Pakistani civilians flee Swat valley as major ground offensive draws closer
The Pakistani army ordered residents to flee the Swat Valley during a lull in fighting , triggering a further exodus of frightened people and raising expectations of a significant ground offensive against the Taliban.
Miles of traffic jams snaked out of the war-torn valley as tens of thousands of people fled using all available means, from donkey-drawn carts to rickshaws.
In the battlezone the army said it had killed another 200 militants, most of them in a strike on a training camp in Shangla district and 55 in Swat. The fight is being closely watched from the US.
General David Petraeus, head of the US central command, ,warned that the Taliban posed a threat "to the very existence of the Pakistani state".
Petraeus said al-Qaida's central leadership had moved to Pakistan but he denied that generous military aid was linked to a possible US deployment. "This is not about us putting combat boots on the ground," he told Fox News.
The exodus out of Swat added to a humanitarian crisis that is rapidly swelling beyond earlier fears. Officials in Mardan, on the lowland plains below Swat, said that 250,000 people had registered for help, more than double the total on Friday.
Including 550,000 people displaced by earlier fighting, officials said they feared as many as 1.3 million people could soon be homeless in North West Frontier province. The aid group World Vision said it had found "intolerable" conditions in some of the six hastily opened camps, pointing to high temperatures and a lack of toilets and electricity.
The army said that between 12,000 and 15,000 security forces – regular army and paramilitary frontier corps – are stationed in Swat, pitted against between 4,000 and 5,000 Taliban guerrillas, the bulk of whom are concentrated in Mingora.
The the militants used the nine-hour pause in fighting to deepen their defences against an expected army ground offensive. In Kanju, a strategically important village beside the river Swat, fighters surrounded a police checkpoint near the army-controlled city airfield.
Further along, fighters sheltered under overhangs and thickets of trees to avoid being detected by helicopter gunships buzzing overhead. They warned residents to leave the area immediately.
Absent was the militants' leader, the charismatic preacher Maulana Fazlullah, who villagers speculated was hiding in the Tharan Valley, 10 miles to the west bordering Upper Dir district. Fazlullah continues, however, to make use of the FM radio broadcasts that helped him rise from obscurity two years ago, employing them to issue coded instructions to battlefield commanders and threats to perceived enemies.
The army launched a full-scale operation on Thursday, following the collapse of a fragile peace deal that saw militants fanning out of their Swat stronghold into neighbouring districts such as Buner and Dir. It was a fight "for the survival of the country", the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, said on Saturday. The offensive came as President Asif Ali Zardari visited the United States to reassure a nervous Obama administration that Pakistan was committed to fighting militancy.
The operation has also enjoyed an unusual level of support at home, even from conservative forces previously reluctant to criticise the Taliban.
A conference of religious clerics in Rawalpindi endorsed the military campaign as a "jihad against the enemies of Islam".
Turning points in public opinion included the release of a video showing a Taliban fighter flogging a teenage woman, and a declaration by Sufi Muhammad, a senior pro-Taliban cleric, that democracy was an "infidel" concept.
The provincial government had released the 78-year-old jihadi cleric from prison last year in the hope he would persuade the Taliban to lay down arms.
One of the few voices publicly opposing the campaign is the former cricketer Imran Khan, who leads a small party and has aligned himself with rightwing forces in recent years.
Allegations of Talibanistan in Frontier province were "nonsense", he told the Guardian.
"This whole thing is very sinister," he said, accusing the government of "setting up this idea that Islamabad was being threatened and the Taliban were coming with their way of life and cutting of throats".
Khan's stance has antagonised left-leaning Pakistanis. "He is very foolish," said Talat Masood, a retired general and analyst. "He is just trying to build up his image by criticising a military operation. But he is doing a great disservice to himself."
Miles of traffic jams snaked out of the war-torn valley as tens of thousands of people fled using all available means, from donkey-drawn carts to rickshaws.
In the battlezone the army said it had killed another 200 militants, most of them in a strike on a training camp in Shangla district and 55 in Swat. The fight is being closely watched from the US.
General David Petraeus, head of the US central command, ,warned that the Taliban posed a threat "to the very existence of the Pakistani state".
Petraeus said al-Qaida's central leadership had moved to Pakistan but he denied that generous military aid was linked to a possible US deployment. "This is not about us putting combat boots on the ground," he told Fox News.
The exodus out of Swat added to a humanitarian crisis that is rapidly swelling beyond earlier fears. Officials in Mardan, on the lowland plains below Swat, said that 250,000 people had registered for help, more than double the total on Friday.
Including 550,000 people displaced by earlier fighting, officials said they feared as many as 1.3 million people could soon be homeless in North West Frontier province. The aid group World Vision said it had found "intolerable" conditions in some of the six hastily opened camps, pointing to high temperatures and a lack of toilets and electricity.
The army said that between 12,000 and 15,000 security forces – regular army and paramilitary frontier corps – are stationed in Swat, pitted against between 4,000 and 5,000 Taliban guerrillas, the bulk of whom are concentrated in Mingora.
The the militants used the nine-hour pause in fighting to deepen their defences against an expected army ground offensive. In Kanju, a strategically important village beside the river Swat, fighters surrounded a police checkpoint near the army-controlled city airfield.
Further along, fighters sheltered under overhangs and thickets of trees to avoid being detected by helicopter gunships buzzing overhead. They warned residents to leave the area immediately.
Absent was the militants' leader, the charismatic preacher Maulana Fazlullah, who villagers speculated was hiding in the Tharan Valley, 10 miles to the west bordering Upper Dir district. Fazlullah continues, however, to make use of the FM radio broadcasts that helped him rise from obscurity two years ago, employing them to issue coded instructions to battlefield commanders and threats to perceived enemies.
The army launched a full-scale operation on Thursday, following the collapse of a fragile peace deal that saw militants fanning out of their Swat stronghold into neighbouring districts such as Buner and Dir. It was a fight "for the survival of the country", the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, said on Saturday. The offensive came as President Asif Ali Zardari visited the United States to reassure a nervous Obama administration that Pakistan was committed to fighting militancy.
The operation has also enjoyed an unusual level of support at home, even from conservative forces previously reluctant to criticise the Taliban.
A conference of religious clerics in Rawalpindi endorsed the military campaign as a "jihad against the enemies of Islam".
Turning points in public opinion included the release of a video showing a Taliban fighter flogging a teenage woman, and a declaration by Sufi Muhammad, a senior pro-Taliban cleric, that democracy was an "infidel" concept.
The provincial government had released the 78-year-old jihadi cleric from prison last year in the hope he would persuade the Taliban to lay down arms.
One of the few voices publicly opposing the campaign is the former cricketer Imran Khan, who leads a small party and has aligned himself with rightwing forces in recent years.
Allegations of Talibanistan in Frontier province were "nonsense", he told the Guardian.
"This whole thing is very sinister," he said, accusing the government of "setting up this idea that Islamabad was being threatened and the Taliban were coming with their way of life and cutting of throats".
Khan's stance has antagonised left-leaning Pakistanis. "He is very foolish," said Talat Masood, a retired general and analyst. "He is just trying to build up his image by criticising a military operation. But he is doing a great disservice to himself."
Conservative party faces spotlight as expenses crisis engulfs MPs
David Cameron today finds the Conservative party in the firing line over the highly charged issue of MPs' expenses and allowances, as embarrassing details about the claims of a series of shadow cabinet ministers are leaked.
As a former deputy speaker of the Commons warned that a general election may have to be held to resolve the expenses crisis, shadow ministers tonight defended claims which appear to show that Tory MPs have followed Labour in maximising their benefits.
The Daily Telegraph, which has faced criticism for focusing on Labour MPs in the three days since it started publishing leaked details about parliamentary expenses, today shifts its attention to the shadow cabinet. The paper claims that:
• One shadow minister had piping repaired that stretches under the tennis court at his country house. The Tories said the piping happened to pass under the court, but had nothing to do with it.
• A senior member of the shadow cabinet claimed for 25 light bulbs at his west London home.
• A shadow minister used the £24,006 additional costs allowance, used to subsidise MPs' second homes, to upgrade a property just before selling it.
• A Tory frontbencher claimed thousands of pounds for the upkeep of his garden.
Tory sources said last night that the party would be embarrassed by some of the disclosures, but no resignations were expected because the rules had not been broken. "We have a perception problem," one source said.
The focus on the Tories is likely to turn the expenses leaks into a wider crisis for the political classes. Downing Street is angry that the Telegraph has focused on Labour in the first three days of its series.
The wider impact was highlighted by Lord Naseby, a former Commons deputy speaker, who said that the leaks were so damaging that parliament may have to be dissolved. "It's dreadful. It is quite awful," the Tory peer told BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend. "I think frankly, if this runs and runs, then parliament should be dissolved, I think they have to start again. The Great British public has lost their confidence and I think that it is extremely serious. And if it is that serious then there is only one way of dealing with it, that is to dissolve parliament."
His remarks came as Hazel Blears, the communities secretary, faced a fight for her political life after apparently making contradictory declarations about a publicly subsidised flat to avoid a £18,000 tax bill. Gordon Brown, who gave Blears a dressing down after she accused the government last week of a "lamentable" failure to communicate, is planning to reshuffle his cabinet after what is expected to be a poor performance by Labour in the European elections next month. Senior Labour figures are now privately saying that Blears's position is vulnerable.
Blears appeared to have avoided paying capital gains tax when she sold a flat in Kennington, south London, in August 2004 for £200,000, making a profit of £45,000. To avoid paying tax of about £18,000 on the profit, she would have had to declare the flat to the Inland Revenue as her main residence. But in April 2004 she designated the Kennington flat as her second home to the Commons authorities. This allowed her to claim mortgage interest payments on it of £850 a month.
Blears insisted yesterday she had done nothing wrong. Standing outside her home in Salford, as she prepared to drive off with her husband on his motorbike, she said: "I have complied with the rules of the house, the rules of the Inland Revenue, and that's the situation as it is. But I understand how strongly the public feel about it and they hate all of this and that means we have got to get it sorted out as quickly as possible."
Her performance, seen in Labour circles as a low in the expenses saga, illustrated a wider problem of how politicians are struggling to defend themselves.
Blears changed the status of her home in 2004 when rules which meant that ministers had to declare their London homes as their main residence were changed. Until then rent and mortgage payments on these properties had to be paid from ministers' own pockets. Had Blears not declared her Kennington flat to the Inland Revenue as her main property she would have paid tax on a flat funded from her own pocket for three years from her appointment as a minister in 2001 until just four months before she sold it. MPs will make clear the need for change when they tomorrow agree to a tougher system to audit their expenses. Sir Stuart Bell, the veteran Labour member of the Commons Commission, said: "In all probability the commission will approve a special specific audit unit, hived off from the fees office, independent of the fees office, which will verify in future every claim that's made by any MP."
Under the new system, officials who approve MPs' claims will be overseen by senior officials who will be formally charged with advising on whether claims are valid. A separate audit office in the Commons will conduct statistical analysis to identify MPs who over-claim. Since 1 April this year the National Audit Office has been auditing MPs after they were placed on the same level as the rest of the public sector.
The internal and external auditing marks a major change. Until now MPs' expenses have only been examined individually, with no overall oversight. By conducting a statistical analysis, the auditors are meant to identify MPs who claim above average amounts.
As a former deputy speaker of the Commons warned that a general election may have to be held to resolve the expenses crisis, shadow ministers tonight defended claims which appear to show that Tory MPs have followed Labour in maximising their benefits.
The Daily Telegraph, which has faced criticism for focusing on Labour MPs in the three days since it started publishing leaked details about parliamentary expenses, today shifts its attention to the shadow cabinet. The paper claims that:
• One shadow minister had piping repaired that stretches under the tennis court at his country house. The Tories said the piping happened to pass under the court, but had nothing to do with it.
• A senior member of the shadow cabinet claimed for 25 light bulbs at his west London home.
• A shadow minister used the £24,006 additional costs allowance, used to subsidise MPs' second homes, to upgrade a property just before selling it.
• A Tory frontbencher claimed thousands of pounds for the upkeep of his garden.
Tory sources said last night that the party would be embarrassed by some of the disclosures, but no resignations were expected because the rules had not been broken. "We have a perception problem," one source said.
The focus on the Tories is likely to turn the expenses leaks into a wider crisis for the political classes. Downing Street is angry that the Telegraph has focused on Labour in the first three days of its series.
The wider impact was highlighted by Lord Naseby, a former Commons deputy speaker, who said that the leaks were so damaging that parliament may have to be dissolved. "It's dreadful. It is quite awful," the Tory peer told BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend. "I think frankly, if this runs and runs, then parliament should be dissolved, I think they have to start again. The Great British public has lost their confidence and I think that it is extremely serious. And if it is that serious then there is only one way of dealing with it, that is to dissolve parliament."
His remarks came as Hazel Blears, the communities secretary, faced a fight for her political life after apparently making contradictory declarations about a publicly subsidised flat to avoid a £18,000 tax bill. Gordon Brown, who gave Blears a dressing down after she accused the government last week of a "lamentable" failure to communicate, is planning to reshuffle his cabinet after what is expected to be a poor performance by Labour in the European elections next month. Senior Labour figures are now privately saying that Blears's position is vulnerable.
Blears appeared to have avoided paying capital gains tax when she sold a flat in Kennington, south London, in August 2004 for £200,000, making a profit of £45,000. To avoid paying tax of about £18,000 on the profit, she would have had to declare the flat to the Inland Revenue as her main residence. But in April 2004 she designated the Kennington flat as her second home to the Commons authorities. This allowed her to claim mortgage interest payments on it of £850 a month.
Blears insisted yesterday she had done nothing wrong. Standing outside her home in Salford, as she prepared to drive off with her husband on his motorbike, she said: "I have complied with the rules of the house, the rules of the Inland Revenue, and that's the situation as it is. But I understand how strongly the public feel about it and they hate all of this and that means we have got to get it sorted out as quickly as possible."
Her performance, seen in Labour circles as a low in the expenses saga, illustrated a wider problem of how politicians are struggling to defend themselves.
Blears changed the status of her home in 2004 when rules which meant that ministers had to declare their London homes as their main residence were changed. Until then rent and mortgage payments on these properties had to be paid from ministers' own pockets. Had Blears not declared her Kennington flat to the Inland Revenue as her main property she would have paid tax on a flat funded from her own pocket for three years from her appointment as a minister in 2001 until just four months before she sold it. MPs will make clear the need for change when they tomorrow agree to a tougher system to audit their expenses. Sir Stuart Bell, the veteran Labour member of the Commons Commission, said: "In all probability the commission will approve a special specific audit unit, hived off from the fees office, independent of the fees office, which will verify in future every claim that's made by any MP."
Under the new system, officials who approve MPs' claims will be overseen by senior officials who will be formally charged with advising on whether claims are valid. A separate audit office in the Commons will conduct statistical analysis to identify MPs who over-claim. Since 1 April this year the National Audit Office has been auditing MPs after they were placed on the same level as the rest of the public sector.
The internal and external auditing marks a major change. Until now MPs' expenses have only been examined individually, with no overall oversight. By conducting a statistical analysis, the auditors are meant to identify MPs who claim above average amounts.
Burma's Suu Kyi 'in poor health'
Burma's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is suffering from low blood pressure and dehydration and is barely eating, her party spokesman says.
Nyan Win said they were extremely worried about the 63-year-old Nobel Laureate's health.
A medical assistant has placed Ms Suu Kyi on an intravenous drip. Her own doctor was reportedly detained after visiting her earlier this week.
Ms Suu Kyi She has been under almost permanent house arrest since 1990.
It followed the victory of her National League for Democracy (NLD) in a general election in 1990. The junta has refused to allow the party to assume power.
Ms Suu Kyi's latest period of detention is due to expire at the end of May but the authorities have not yet said if it will be extended.
Break-in
"We are very concerned about her health and security conditions," Nyan Win of the NLD told the BBC.
He said Ms Suu Kyi had suffered a loss of appetite and had gone three to four days without eating.
As a result, her blood pressure had dropped and she was showing symptoms of dehydration
Nyan Win said the party was closely monitoring the situation, and would decide next week whether to press for greater medical treatment for Ms Suu Kyi.
Nyan Win said it was not clear why physician Tin Myo Win had been arrested last Thursday.
He speculated that it could be linked to the arrest on Tuesday of a man carrying a US passport who swam across a lake to the property.
About 20 police are reported to have entered Ms Suu Kyi's house on Thursday morning.
It followed reports that an American, identified as John William Yeattaw, had managed to breach tight security to swim across Inya Lake and enter Ms Suu Kyi's house secretly on Sunday.
He was arrested after swimming back across the lake late on Tuesday.
Such an incident would be the first time someone has broken into Ms Suu Kyi's compound
Nyan Win said they were extremely worried about the 63-year-old Nobel Laureate's health.
A medical assistant has placed Ms Suu Kyi on an intravenous drip. Her own doctor was reportedly detained after visiting her earlier this week.
Ms Suu Kyi She has been under almost permanent house arrest since 1990.
It followed the victory of her National League for Democracy (NLD) in a general election in 1990. The junta has refused to allow the party to assume power.
Ms Suu Kyi's latest period of detention is due to expire at the end of May but the authorities have not yet said if it will be extended.
Break-in
"We are very concerned about her health and security conditions," Nyan Win of the NLD told the BBC.
He said Ms Suu Kyi had suffered a loss of appetite and had gone three to four days without eating.
As a result, her blood pressure had dropped and she was showing symptoms of dehydration
Nyan Win said the party was closely monitoring the situation, and would decide next week whether to press for greater medical treatment for Ms Suu Kyi.
Nyan Win said it was not clear why physician Tin Myo Win had been arrested last Thursday.
He speculated that it could be linked to the arrest on Tuesday of a man carrying a US passport who swam across a lake to the property.
About 20 police are reported to have entered Ms Suu Kyi's house on Thursday morning.
It followed reports that an American, identified as John William Yeattaw, had managed to breach tight security to swim across Inya Lake and enter Ms Suu Kyi's house secretly on Sunday.
He was arrested after swimming back across the lake late on Tuesday.
Such an incident would be the first time someone has broken into Ms Suu Kyi's compound
US to review Afghan air strikes
A top US military commander has announced a review into the American use of air strikes in Afghanistan.
Gen David Petraeus, head of US Central Command, said "tactical actions" should not undermine strategic goals.
His comments came after Afghan President Hamid Karzai said US air strikes that kill civilians were damaging the fight against terrorism.
Washington again expressed regret over recent civilian deaths, but refused to rule out such strikes in the future.
On Sunday, hundreds of university students in the Afghan capital, Kabul, protested against air strikes last week targeting Taleban fighters in the western Farah province.
Afghan sources said nearly 150 had been killed, but that figure has been disputed by the US.
Gen Petraeus, who is responsible for US operations in the region, told Fox News television that he had named a brigadier general "with extensive experience in conventional and special operations" to go to Afghanistan and look at the issue "more broadly".
He said the unnamed military officer would serve to ensure that "our tactical actions don't undermine our strategic goals and objectives".
"That's essentially the conversation that President Karzai and I had yesterday on this particular topic," he added.
Gen Petraeus also said the Taleban bore "enormous blame" for firing on US troops from the protection of civilian houses.
'Fed up'
Speaking after talks with the German chancellor in Berlin, Mr Karzai said civilian deaths had to be avoided.
"Civilian casualties, of course, is a very serious matter for the Afghan people, (it) also is a serious matter for our allies," Mr Karzai said at the news conference.
"It's something that the Afghan people want to be addressed effectively and sooner."
In the protest in Kabul, students held up banners including one that called America "the biggest terrorist in the world".
Students in Kabul called for those responsible to be put on trial
The protesters also called for those responsible for the deaths to be put on trial.
"Our people are fed up with Taleban beheadings and suicide bombings. On the other hand, the massacre of civilians by the American forces is a crime that our people will never forget," a statement quoted by AFP news agency said.
President Obama's National Security Adviser, Gen James Jones, said the US would "redouble" efforts to limit civilian deaths, but added that it could not hamper its forces in Afghanistan by banning air strikes.
"We can't fight with one hand tied behind our back," General he told ABC television.
Last week, Mr Karzai urged the US to stop the use of such strikes
The air strike in Farah province overshadowed a summit on Wednesday between the President Barack Obama, Mr Karzai, and his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari.
Gen David Petraeus, head of US Central Command, said "tactical actions" should not undermine strategic goals.
His comments came after Afghan President Hamid Karzai said US air strikes that kill civilians were damaging the fight against terrorism.
Washington again expressed regret over recent civilian deaths, but refused to rule out such strikes in the future.
On Sunday, hundreds of university students in the Afghan capital, Kabul, protested against air strikes last week targeting Taleban fighters in the western Farah province.
Afghan sources said nearly 150 had been killed, but that figure has been disputed by the US.
Gen Petraeus, who is responsible for US operations in the region, told Fox News television that he had named a brigadier general "with extensive experience in conventional and special operations" to go to Afghanistan and look at the issue "more broadly".
He said the unnamed military officer would serve to ensure that "our tactical actions don't undermine our strategic goals and objectives".
"That's essentially the conversation that President Karzai and I had yesterday on this particular topic," he added.
Gen Petraeus also said the Taleban bore "enormous blame" for firing on US troops from the protection of civilian houses.
'Fed up'
Speaking after talks with the German chancellor in Berlin, Mr Karzai said civilian deaths had to be avoided.
"Civilian casualties, of course, is a very serious matter for the Afghan people, (it) also is a serious matter for our allies," Mr Karzai said at the news conference.
"It's something that the Afghan people want to be addressed effectively and sooner."
In the protest in Kabul, students held up banners including one that called America "the biggest terrorist in the world".
Students in Kabul called for those responsible to be put on trial
The protesters also called for those responsible for the deaths to be put on trial.
"Our people are fed up with Taleban beheadings and suicide bombings. On the other hand, the massacre of civilians by the American forces is a crime that our people will never forget," a statement quoted by AFP news agency said.
President Obama's National Security Adviser, Gen James Jones, said the US would "redouble" efforts to limit civilian deaths, but added that it could not hamper its forces in Afghanistan by banning air strikes.
"We can't fight with one hand tied behind our back," General he told ABC television.
Last week, Mr Karzai urged the US to stop the use of such strikes
The air strike in Farah province overshadowed a summit on Wednesday between the President Barack Obama, Mr Karzai, and his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari.
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