Some residents oppose Wyo.-EPA frack study deal

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) -- People who have been living with tainted well water in central Wyoming voiced concern Friday that they were excluded from a deal that has the state taking over further study of groundwater pollution from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The Northern Arapaho Tribe raised concerns after the agreement was announced Thursday between the EPA, Wyoming and Encana Corp., owner of the Pavillion gas field. The Arapaho and the Eastern Shoshone Tribe both live on the Wind River Reservation, which surrounds the drilling area.

The EPA theorized in 2011 that the petroleum industry practice of hydraulic fracturing may have contaminated the groundwater near the town of Pavillion. The EPA now says it won't issue a final report or have outside experts review the research as originally planned.

Instead, Wyoming will take over the study in Encana's field of about 125 gas wells, with help from $1.5 million from Encana.

"We went to EPA for help after the state of Wyoming and Encana refused to address the public health impacts of unbridled development in the Pavillion area," said John Fenton, chairman of the group Pavillion Area Concerned Citizens. "Now Encana has bought their way back in and is working with the state on a strategy to cover up the mess they've created. Our government's priority is clearly to protect industry rather than Wyoming citizens, our health and our property values."

Gov. Matt Mead said Friday he has been talking with affected residents and understands their suspicion. But he said the EPA has recognized that Wyoming is best positioned to act.

"I think it's right that they are concerned, and I think it's even appropriate that they are skeptical," Mead said in a phone interview. "And I think it's up to the state in leading this investigation to do it in a way that addresses their concerns."

Mead met with the affected residents and said many of them have expressed gratitude for his interest in having state agencies resolve their problems.

Some people in the Pavillion area said their water began to reek of chemicals in 2005, around the same time that Encana began to employ hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to boost production of nearby gas wells. Fracking encourages the flow of oil and gas underground by splitting open rock with a high-pressure mix of water, fine sand and chemicals pumped into wells.

Fenton and others say Wyoming agencies didn't do enough to address their complaints, so they asked the EPA to investigate. The EPA announced in December 2011 its finding that fracking could have played a role in some pollution found in two wells it drilled to sample groundwater.

A statement Thursday from the Northern Arapaho Tribe expressed concern that the state and EPA worked out the agreement without reaching out to the tribe.

Darrell O'Neal, chairman of the Northern Arapaho Business Council, said it's probably a good thing that Pavillion issues are getting attention at the highest levels.

"The governor and his associates in D.C. need to do a better job involving residents of Fremont County and representatives of tribal government in the process," he said.

Ronald Oldman, co-chairman of the tribe's business council, said EPA staff in Washington had a legal duty to consult with the tribe, "and that didn't happen as part of their dialogue with the governor."

The tribe also expressed concern that Wyoming's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission will play a key role in future study despite a federal court injunction more than 40 years old that bars the commission from trying to exert any authority over minerals on tribal lands.

Other local residents say the EPA's decision to back away from further research, in favor of Wyoming taking the lead again, puts them back where they started before the federal agency got involved.

"The state of Wyoming is already on record, through action and inaction, as denying that Pavillion's groundwater contamination is a cause for concern," said a Pavillion-area farmer, Jeff Locker.

The Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which oversees oil and gas development in the state, will review the integrity of Pavillion gas wells and whether pollution could have seeped out of old drilling waste pits.

Last year, commission Supervisor Tom Doll told an audience he believed Pavillion-area residents were mostly motivated by greed. Doll resigned soon thereafter.

The new study also will re-examine previous samples from 14 domestic water wells within a quarter mile of the Encana wells. The state may also take new samples from those wells.

Mead said the state will hire outside experts to review the work and said Encana's funding won't taint the findings.

"Encana has committed money. They don't get to say they, 'Well, we will commit it if this is the result,'" Mead said.

Encana spokesman Doug Hock said one focus of the study going forward will be why the local well water tastes foul ? something company officials believed should have been the focus all along.

Hock pointed out that the EPA has acknowledged that its research has failed to establish how fracking might have caused contaminants to seep upward from the relatively shallow drilling zone to the aquifer that feeds local water wells.

"It needs to go back to looking at these specific water wells and what specifically is going on there. That's where the science has led us, and that's the proper approach," Hock said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/residents-oppose-wyo-epa-frack-173424068.html

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Feds: Nuclear waste may be leaking into soil from Hanford site

Mark Ralston / AFP - Getty Images file

Government officials said radioactive waste might be leaking into the soil from a nuclear site in Hanford, Washington state. Governor Jay Inslee said the situation should be treated with the "utmost seriousness."

By Shannon Dininny, The Associated Press

An underground tank holding some of the worst radioactive waste at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site might be leaking into the soil.

The U.S. Energy Department said workers at Washington state's Hanford Nuclear Reservation detected higher radioactivity levels under tank AY-102 during a routine inspection Thursday.

Spokeswoman Lori Gamache said the department has notified Washington officials and is investigating the leak further. An engineering analysis team will conduct additional sampling and video inspection to determine the source of the contamination, she said.

State and federal officials have long said leaking tanks at Hanford do not pose an immediate threat to the environment or public health.

The largest waterway in the Pacific Northwest ? the Columbia River ? is still at least 5 miles away and the closest communities are several miles downstream.

However, if this dangerous waste escapes the tank into the soil, it raises concerns about it traveling to the groundwater and someday potentially reaching the river.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said in a statement that the situation "must be treated with the utmost seriousness."

Inslee said additional testing is expected to take several days.

"Our state experts confirm that there is no immediate public health threat. Given the relatively early detection of this potential leak, the river is not at immediate risk of contamination should it be determined that a leak has occurred outside the tank," he said.

Tom Carpenter, executive director of the Seattle-based advocacy group Hanford Challenge, said, "this is really, really bad. They are going to pollute the ground and the groundwater with some of the nastiest stuff, and they don't have a solution for it."

AY-102 is one of Hanford's 28 tanks with two walls, which were installed years ago when single-shell tanks began leaking. Some of the worst liquid in those tanks was pumped into the sturdier double-shell tanks.

The tanks are now beyond their intended life span. The Energy Department announced last year that AY-102 was leaking between its two walls, but it said then that no waste had escaped.

Two radionuclides comprise much of the radioactivity in Hanford's tanks: cesium-137 and strontium-90. Both take hundreds of years to decay, and exposure to either would increase a person's risk of developing cancer.

At the height of World War II, the federal government created Hanford in the remote sagebrush of eastern Washington as part of a hush-hush project to build the atomic bomb. The site ultimately produced plutonium for the world's first atomic blast and for one of two atomic bombs dropped on Japan, and it continued production through the Cold War.

Today, it is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, with cleanup expected to last decades. The effort ? with a price tag of about $2 billion annually ? has cost taxpayers $40 billion to date and is estimated will cost $115 billion more.

The most challenging task so far has been the removal of highly radioactive waste from the 177 aging, underground tanks and construction of a plant to treat that waste.

The Energy Department recently notified Washington and Oregon that it may miss two upcoming deadlines to empty some tanks and to complete a key part of the plant to handle some of the worst waste.

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz visited the site Wednesday for the first time since being confirmed by the Senate in May. He said he intends to have a new plan by the end of the summer for resolving the technical problems with the waste treatment plant.

Related:

Head of company overseeing leaking nuclear tanks at Hanford to step down

Six tanks now said to be leaking at contaminated Hanford nuclear site

Tank at Hanford nuclear site leaking radioactive liquids, Washington governor says

? 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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A look at the immigration bill before the Senate

A look at the immigration overhaul bill now before the Senate, and details of a compromise border security amendment proposed Thursday by GOP Sens. John Hoeven of North Dakota and Bob Corker of Tennessee. The amendment has been agreed to by Democratic and Republican authors of the bill and is expected to be voted on within the next few days:

___

BORDER SECURITY

In the underlying bill:

?The bill sets goals of 100 percent surveillance of the border with Mexico and 90 percent of would-be crossers caught or turned back.

?Within six months of enactment of the bill, the Homeland Security Department must develop a border security plan to achieve those goals, including the use of drones, additional agents and other approaches; and develop a separate plan to identify where more fencing is needed.

?If the goals of a 90 percent effectiveness rate and continuous surveillance on the border are not met within five years, a Southern Border Security Commission would be established with border-state governors and others to determine how to achieve them.

?Before anyone in the U.S. illegally can get a new provisional legal status, the border security and border fencing plans must be in place. Before they can get permanent residency, the plans must be substantially completed, and a new entry-exit system must also be implemented at U.S. seaports and airports to track people coming and going. A mandatory system for employers to check workers' legal status must also be in place.

?About 3,500 new customs agents would be hired.

?The National Guard would be deployed to the border to build fencing and checkpoints and perform other tasks.

?Funding would be provided to increase border-crossing prosecutions and to create more border patrol stations.

In the Corker-Hoeven amendment:

?The amendment adds 20,000 new Border Patrol agents, doubling the deployment along the U.S.-Mexico border.

?It calls for 700 miles of border fencing to be completed, including 350 miles of new fencing to supplement 350 already in place.

?Instead of calling on the Homeland Security Department to develop a border security plan, the amendment includes details on what the plan must contain. This includes a dozen additional surveillance drones and an array of other high-tech devices to monitor the border with Mexico, including cameras and observation towers, seismic imaging and thermal imaging, and an airborne radar system initially used by the military.

?No one could get a green card until all these steps are in place. Government officials including the secretaries of Homeland Security and Defense must certify to Congress that the security measures have been implemented.

___

PATH TO CITIZENSHIP

?The estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally could obtain "registered provisional immigrant status" six months after enactment of the bill as long as:

(1) The Homeland Security Department has developed border security and fencing plans.

(2) They arrived in the U.S. prior to Dec. 31, 2011, and maintained continuous physical presence since then.

(3) They do not have a felony conviction or three or more misdemeanors.

(4) They pay a $500 fine.

?People in provisional legal status could work and travel in the U.S. but would not be eligible for most federal benefits, including health care and welfare.

?The provisional legal status lasts six years and is renewable for another six years for $500.

?People deported for noncriminal reasons can apply to re-enter in provisional status if they have a spouse or child who is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, or if they had been brought to the U.S. as a child.

?After 10 years in provisional status, immigrants can seek a green card and lawful permanent resident status if they are current on their taxes and pay a $1,000 fine, have maintained continuous physical presence in the U.S., meet work requirements and learn English. Also the border triggers must have been met, and all people waiting to immigrate through the legal system as of the date of enactment of the legislation must have been dealt with.

?People brought to the country as youths would be able to get green cards in five years, and citizenship immediately thereafter.

___

HIGH-SKILLED WORKERS

?The cap on the H-1B visa program for high-skilled workers would be immediately raised from 65,000 a year to 110,000 a year, with 25,000 more set aside for people with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or math from a U.S. school. The cap could go as high as 180,000 a year depending on demand.

?New protections would crack down on companies that use H-1B visas to train workers in the U.S. only to ship them back overseas.

?Immigrants with certain extraordinary abilities, such as professors, researchers, multinational executives and athletes, would be exempted from existing green-card limits. So would graduates of U.S. universities with job offers and degrees in science, technology, engineering or math.

?A startup visa would be made available to foreign entrepreneurs seeking to come to the U.S. to start a company.

?A new merit visa, for a maximum of 250,000 people a year, would award points to prospective immigrants based on their education, employment, length of residence in the U.S. and other considerations. Those with the most points would earn the visas.

?The bill would eliminate the government's Diversity Visa Lottery Program, which randomly awards 55,000 visas to immigrants from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States, so that more visas can be awarded for employment and merit ties.

___

LOW-SKILLED WORKERS

?A new W visa would allow up to 200,000 low-skilled workers a year into the country for jobs in construction, long-term care, hospitality and other industries.

?A new agriculture worker visa program would be established to replace the existing program. Agriculture workers already here illegally, who've worked in the industry at least two years, could qualify in another five years for green cards if they stay in the industry.

___

FAMILY IMMIGRATION

?Under current law, U.S. citizens can sponsor spouses, children and siblings to come to the U.S., with limits on some categories. The bill would bar citizens from sponsoring their siblings and would allow them to sponsor married sons and daughters only if those children are under age 31.

?Legal permanent residents can currently sponsor spouses and children, but the numbers are limited. The bill eliminates that limit.

___

EMPLOYMENT VERIFICATION

?Within four years, all employers must implement E-Verify, a program to electronically verify their workers' legal status. As part of that, noncitizens would be required to show photo ID that must match with a photo in the E-Verify system.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/look-immigration-bill-senate-203425111.html

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Facebook Now Allows Publishers To Highlight Their Pages And Authors' Profiles In Shared Links

This isn't exactly Facebook's mystery announcement (we'll still have to wait a little bit for that), but in the shadow of its press event today, Facebook also today made a small but interesting update to its Open Graph tags for media publishers that you'll likely see in your news feed soon. Publishers can now add two new tags to their HTML that will help Facebook add links to their own Facebook pages and links to the author's Facebook profile in content previews.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/mO1to_TVTyo/

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New Moore Foundation funding supports UCSB Ecology Synthesis Center embarking on a new era

Public release date: 20-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Shelly Leachman
shelly.leachman@ia.ucsb.edu
805-893-8726
University of California - Santa Barbara

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) Whether it's illuminating the causes of California's exceptional plant diversity, dispelling the myth that jellyfish blooms are increasing throughout the world's oceans, or identifying key pathways for introduction of non-native forest pests into the U.S., UC Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) is always at the expanding frontier of ecology research.

And those are only recent examples of the ambitious endeavors undertaken by NCEAS since its 1995 inception. In fact, the center itself was considered an innovative advancement at the time, and has since inspired similar synthesis centers worldwide.

All of which makes NCEAS's latest project perhaps its most intriguing yet: making over its successful model by broadening its reach to directly include the potential users of scientific information non-governmental organizations (NGOs), policymakers, and resource managers in the process itself.

New funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation will enable NCEAS to do just that. A $2.4 million, three-year grant will help cover the center's operating costs through 2015 and see the launch of new initiatives to ensure its viability, and relevance, far into the future.

"The Moore Foundation has worked with NCEAS over the years and has a deep appreciation of the work we do. This grant is the largest and most important we have received from them," said center director Frank Davis. "This will allow us to engage in exciting new initiatives while developing additional sources of support. More than 5,000 researchers have collaborated on NCEAS projects, and we still have an important role to play in tackling the environmental challenges that are too big for any one institution."

Created by the National Science Foundation (NSF), NCEAS was launched in response to pleas by ecological researchers who saw a need for meaningful synthesis of scientific data. The new center bucked the scientific tradition of solitary lab or fieldwork, instead assembling interdisciplinary teams to tackle problems at a broader scale. By sharing existing data for synthesis and analysis, teams of scientists created new pathways to discovery. And by providing the best informatic resources and a stimulating environment for immersion in collaborative synthesis, the center spawned an incubator of scientific research that has altered the way ecological science is conducted.

NCEAS is seizing new opportunities with the support from the new Moore Foundation grant. While promising to stay true to its core values synthesis chief among them the center is expanding its mission. Central to that expansion is a charge to embrace use-inspired science challenges for the benefit of nature and the well-being of people.

Enter NCEAS' latest initiative, a soon-to-launch partnership with The Nature Conservancy and the Wildlife Conservation Society called SNAP: Science for Nature and People. Meant to address environmental protections as a means of securing food, energy, and water for people across the planet, SNAP will tackle some of society's most challenging problems such as maintaining freshwater fisheries faced with hydroelectric development, protecting and restoring wetlands for coastal defense, and devising resilient and productive agricultural systems.

"The goal of Science for Nature and People is to address the overarching issue of how you conserve nature and, at same time, meet essential human needs," Davis said. "We'll be bringing scientists together with policymakers and practitioners, and other experts from academia, to engage in the process of discovery that results in solutions. We're trying to create a new model a global center of excellence to meet those needs and create real solutions for our conservation challenges."

NCEAS will soon be issuing an open call for proposals on behalf of SNAP, as well as recruiting postdoctoral candidates for SNAP Research Associates.

"This is an exciting place to be," Davis added of NCEAS. "The new direction we're moving is going to make it even more interesting."

###

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 20-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Shelly Leachman
shelly.leachman@ia.ucsb.edu
805-893-8726
University of California - Santa Barbara

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) Whether it's illuminating the causes of California's exceptional plant diversity, dispelling the myth that jellyfish blooms are increasing throughout the world's oceans, or identifying key pathways for introduction of non-native forest pests into the U.S., UC Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) is always at the expanding frontier of ecology research.

And those are only recent examples of the ambitious endeavors undertaken by NCEAS since its 1995 inception. In fact, the center itself was considered an innovative advancement at the time, and has since inspired similar synthesis centers worldwide.

All of which makes NCEAS's latest project perhaps its most intriguing yet: making over its successful model by broadening its reach to directly include the potential users of scientific information non-governmental organizations (NGOs), policymakers, and resource managers in the process itself.

New funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation will enable NCEAS to do just that. A $2.4 million, three-year grant will help cover the center's operating costs through 2015 and see the launch of new initiatives to ensure its viability, and relevance, far into the future.

"The Moore Foundation has worked with NCEAS over the years and has a deep appreciation of the work we do. This grant is the largest and most important we have received from them," said center director Frank Davis. "This will allow us to engage in exciting new initiatives while developing additional sources of support. More than 5,000 researchers have collaborated on NCEAS projects, and we still have an important role to play in tackling the environmental challenges that are too big for any one institution."

Created by the National Science Foundation (NSF), NCEAS was launched in response to pleas by ecological researchers who saw a need for meaningful synthesis of scientific data. The new center bucked the scientific tradition of solitary lab or fieldwork, instead assembling interdisciplinary teams to tackle problems at a broader scale. By sharing existing data for synthesis and analysis, teams of scientists created new pathways to discovery. And by providing the best informatic resources and a stimulating environment for immersion in collaborative synthesis, the center spawned an incubator of scientific research that has altered the way ecological science is conducted.

NCEAS is seizing new opportunities with the support from the new Moore Foundation grant. While promising to stay true to its core values synthesis chief among them the center is expanding its mission. Central to that expansion is a charge to embrace use-inspired science challenges for the benefit of nature and the well-being of people.

Enter NCEAS' latest initiative, a soon-to-launch partnership with The Nature Conservancy and the Wildlife Conservation Society called SNAP: Science for Nature and People. Meant to address environmental protections as a means of securing food, energy, and water for people across the planet, SNAP will tackle some of society's most challenging problems such as maintaining freshwater fisheries faced with hydroelectric development, protecting and restoring wetlands for coastal defense, and devising resilient and productive agricultural systems.

"The goal of Science for Nature and People is to address the overarching issue of how you conserve nature and, at same time, meet essential human needs," Davis said. "We'll be bringing scientists together with policymakers and practitioners, and other experts from academia, to engage in the process of discovery that results in solutions. We're trying to create a new model a global center of excellence to meet those needs and create real solutions for our conservation challenges."

NCEAS will soon be issuing an open call for proposals on behalf of SNAP, as well as recruiting postdoctoral candidates for SNAP Research Associates.

"This is an exciting place to be," Davis added of NCEAS. "The new direction we're moving is going to make it even more interesting."

###

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/uoc--nmf062013.php

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Insurgency threat may dim Mozambique's shine for investors

By Marina Lopes and Pascal Fletcher

MAPUTO/JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - An economic take-off in Mozambique driven by bumper coal and gas discoveries two decades after the end of a civil war is facing disruption from disgruntled former guerrillas who feel they have not benefited from the post-conflict dividend.

A public threat by the ex-rebel Renamo opposition party to paralyze central rail and road links has put the Frelimo government on alert and alarmed diplomats and investors.

A slide back into the kind of all-out war that crippled the former Portuguese southern African colony between 1975 and 1992 looks unlikely.

Nevertheless, Mozambique's rebirth as an attractive tourism and investment destination could lose some of its momentum after armed attacks in the last two months blamed on Renamo.

The raids in central Sofala province killed at least 11 soldiers and police and three civilians and came after Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama returned with his civil war comrades to the Gorongosa jungle base where they operated in the 1980s.

"It does bring back all those fears of the war," said Joseph Hanlon, a senior lecturer at Britain's Open University and an expert on Mozambique.

Renamo, which signed a peace pact in 1992 with its former Marxist foe Frelimo, denied that it carried out a raid on an arms depot on Monday that killed seven soldiers. But on Wednesday it threatened to paralyze the main road through Sofala and the railway carrying coal exports to port.

There was no evidence by late Thursday that it had carried out the threat. Witness reports from Chimoio and Dondo on the Beira corridor railroad link indicated no immediate disruption.

"Everything here is absolutely tranquil. It is a normal day," Arnaldo Neves, Director of Production for Portuguese construction company Mota-Engil which is rehabilitating the railroad, told Reuters from Dondo railway terminal in Sofala.

Mozambican state railways spokesman Alves Cumbe said operations were continuing as normal on Thursday.

The Sena line to Beira port is used mainly by Brazil's Vale and London-listed Rio Tinto, which are among companies that have been developing Mozambique's coal deposits and offshore gas fields.

Vale, which is investing $4 billion in its Moatize coal mines near Tete and is the main user of the Sena line, declined to comment.

President Armando Guebuza's government said it was taking the Renamo threat seriously but insisted it would keep the country's strategic transport corridors open. Officials declined to detail specific measures taken to counter Renamo actions.

Renamo had claimed an earlier attack that killed four policemen in Sofala in April.

COMPLAINTS OF EXCLUSION

Renamo, originally founded with the help of white-ruled Rhodesia's intelligence services and then backed by apartheid South Africa, accuses Frelimo of maintaining a stranglehold over politics and the economy and stacking the election commission to ensure victory in a presidential vote next year.

"Renamo and its followers think that the political system is not inclusive enough," said Ozias Tungwarara, head of the Africa Governance, Monitoring and Advocacy Project at the Open Society pro-democracy network founded by financier George Soros.

Resentment at Frelimo's dominance of politics and elections since the end of the war has also been accompanied by opposition allegations that the party's leaders are hogging the spoils of the coal and gas bonanza.

"There is a feeling that an elite is getting rich and becoming wealthy, and that others are not," Hanlon said.

He saw Renamo's old military chiefs leading a campaign for Frelimo to cede to its former war foes a greater share of the national wealth, whether in state jobs or business patronage.

Hanlon said Dhlakama and his fighters - which some estimates put at around 1,000-strong - could certainly create a security problem for the government army from their Gorongosa jungle base by raiding and sabotaging nearby road and rail corridors.

"That central area is quite heavily forested. It's good guerrilla country. It's easy to attack traffic," he said.

But he believed neither Renamo nor Frelimo had the military capacity to go back to fighting an all-out conflict of the kind that left Mozambique in ruins two decades ago.

Hanlon saw "zero popular support" for war from a Mozambican population of 23 million which had come to appreciate an existence of peace but still remained among the poorest in the world, scraping by on an average wage of only $400 a year.

CALL FOR "GIVE AND TAKE"

But there are fears that even sporadic attacks could badly undermine recent economic gains.

"It might start as a small fire now ... but a small group of determined, disgruntled people with some military training could still cause havoc and suffering," Tungwarara said, pointing to other debilitating insurgencies in Somalia and Mali.

Held up as a post-conflict success story, Mozambique has emerged as one of the brightest stars in the "Africa Rising" narrative, enjoying growth rates of more than 7 percent.

Attacks and disruption to key coal exports and transport corridors could badly choke the enthusiasm of investors, Tungwarara added.

Hanlon said that if Renamo's "generals without soldiers" failed to make good on their threats to paralyze the country's logistics then the group's credibility was likely to suffer.

But both believed Guebuza's government should try to defuse tensions by opening up economic and political opportunities for Renamo, for example by addressing its demands for a more independent and representative electoral authority.

"The danger is that we will see increased polarization as we move towards the 2014 elections," said Tungwarara. "There is time to step back, but it requires genuine give and take".

(Writing by Pascal Fletcher; editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/insurgency-threat-may-dim-mozambiques-shine-investors-171026178.html

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Sprint boosts Clearwire buyout offer to $5 per share, $14 billion valuation

We're deep into a bona fide bidding war here -- Sprint and Dish are both battling for an approximately 50-percent stake in Clearwire, and as of today, that former contestant's bid makes it the new front runner. To catch you up, last month Dish offered $4.40 per share for Clearwire, following Sprint's offer of $3.40 per share made way back in December. Now, the carrier has increased its bid to a whopping 5 bucks per share, which values Clearwire at just about $14 billion. (As you can probably imagine, CLWR's trading price has jumped today to match that new target.) This comes just days after Sprint filed a lawsuit to prevent the other two parties from moving forward. Whether or not CLWR's spectrum and other assets make it worth that sum is a different story, but Sprint clearly sees some solid value there.

Filed under: Wireless, Mobile, Sprint

Comments

Source: Sprint (BusinessWire)

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/xaq1HIl6oqo/

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