NATO helicopters raise pressure on Gaddafi (Reuters)

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – British and French attack helicopters struck inside Libya for the first time overnight on Saturday, hitting targets in the oil port of Brega as NATO forces stepped up their air war against Muammar Gaddafi.

Aircraft of the NATO-led alliance also hit targets in Tripoli, where at least six powerful explosions were heard. A Reuters correspondent in the Libyan capital said aircraft could be heard overhead at the time of the blasts, before sunset.

It was not immediately clear which targets were hit.

"As long as Gaddafi continues to abuse his people, we will continue and intensify our efforts to stop him from doing so," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said at a news conference in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi in eastern Libya.

Speaking in Benghazi shortly before Hague's arrival, the head of the rebel council Mustafa Abdel Jalil welcomed NATO's deployment of helicopters.

"We welcome any measures that would expedite the departure of Gaddafi and his regime," he told reporters in Benghazi, where Hague later arrived for talks with council members.

Hague visited the square next to Benghazi's court house where people greeted him by waving the victory sign and shouting: "Libya free!" and "Gaddafi go away!"

A NATO-led military alliance extended its mission to protect civilians in Libya for a further 90 days this week, and France said it was stepping up military pressure as well as working with those close to Gaddafi to try to persuade him to quit.

"This was the first operational mission flown by British Army Apaches at sea," British Defense Secretary Liam Fox said.

"The additional capabilities now being employed by NATO further reinforce the UK's enduring commitment and NATO's determination to ... ensure that the people of Libya are free to determine their own future."

Military analysts say attack helicopters will allow more precise strikes against pro-Gaddafi forces hiding in built-up areas than the high-flying jets used so far, while reducing the risk of civilian casualties.

But given the vulnerability of helicopters to ground fire, their deployment also increases the risk of Western forces suffering their first casualties of the campaign.

WESTERN MOUNTAINS TOWNS SHELLED

Critics of the war have warned of "mission creep" but NATO has said the use of helicopters would not presage the deployment of ground troops, which Western nations have ruled out.

Now in its fourth month, the Libyan conflict is deadlocked, with rebels unable to break out of their strongholds and advance toward Tripoli, where Gaddafi appears to be entrenched.

Rebels control the east of Libya around Benghazi and the Western Mountains stretching from the town of Zintan, 150 km (95 miles) south of Tripoli, toward the border with Tunisia.

In a speech at NATO's Libya command base in the Italian city of Naples, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden praised U.S. troops for taking part in military operations that he said had stopped a humanitarian disaster in the North African country.

He reiterated the official U.S. government stance that Gaddafi must step down.

Rebel fighters repelled an attack by Gaddafi's forces against one of their checkpoints on the eastern edges of the rebel-held city of Misrata on Saturday, a Reuters journalist there said. One rebel was killed and another was wounded in the clashes, medical workers said.

Gaddafi's forces also shelled Nalut and Zintan, rebel spokesmen said by phone from the rebel-held Western Mountains towns. At least 10 people were wounded in Nalut.

NATO's helicopter attacks struck military targets around the eastern town of Brega, location of an oil export terminal.

Rebel forces swept west through Brega early in the uprising before retreating from near Gaddafi's home town of Sirte in late March. Gaddafi's forces have since dug in around the oil town.

"The Apaches were tasked with precision strikes against a regime radar installation and a military checkpoint, both located around Brega," said Major-General Nick Pope, the Chief of the Defense Staff's Strategic Communications Officer.

"In the same area, Royal Air Force ground attack aircraft destroyed another military installation, whilst a separate RAF mission successfully attacked two ammunition bunkers at the large Waddan depot in central Libya."

In a fresh diplomatic setback for Gaddafi on Friday, China said it had made its first confirmed contact with Libyan rebels this week, following a spate of defections by high-profile figures including senior oil official and former prime minister Shokri Ghanem.

The rebels and NATO have made Gaddafi's departure a condition of any ceasefire, but he emphatically told visiting South African President Jacob Zuma this week he would not leave Libya.

The United Nations has said government-held parts of Libya are running out of food and the capital Tripoli this week saw the first big protest in months against Gaddafi's 41-year rule.

Gaddafi says the rebels are armed criminals and al Qaeda militants, and has called the NATO intervention an act of colonial aggression designed to grab Libya's plentiful oil.

(Additional reporting by Zohra Bensemra in Misrata, Abdelaziz Boumzar in Bir Ayyad, Libya, Gavin Jones in Italy, John Irish in Paris, Christina Fincher in London, Sherine El Madany in Benghazi, David Brunnstrom in Brussels and Joseph Nasr in Rabat; writing by Lin Noueihed and Joseph Nasr; editing by Andrew Roche)

Yahoo! News

Arctic melting faster, could raise sea 5 feet by 2100

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Arctic ice is melting faster than expected and could raise the average global sea level by as much as five feet this century, an authoritative new report suggests.

The study by the international Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, or AMAP, is one of the most comprehensive updates on climate change in the Arctic, and builds on a similar assessment in 2005.

The full report will be delivered to foreign ministers of the eight Arctic nations next week, but an executive summary including the key findings was obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday.

It says that Arctic temperatures in the past six years were the highest since measurements began in 1880, and that feedback mechanisms believed to accelerate warming in the climate system have now started kicking in.

One mechanism involves the ocean absorbing more heat when it's not covered by ice, which reflects the sun's energy. That effect has been anticipated by scientists "but clear evidence for it has only been observed in the Arctic in the past five years," AMAP said.

The report also shatters some of the forecasts made in 2007 by the U.N.'s expert panel on climate change.

The cover of sea ice on the Arctic Ocean, for example, is shrinking faster than projected by the U.N. panel. The level of summer ice coverage has been at or near record lows every year since 2001, AMAP said, predicting that the Arctic Ocean will be nearly ice free in summer within 30-40 years.

Its assessment also said the U.N. panel was too conservative in estimating how much sea levels will rise ? one of the most closely watched aspects of global warming because of the potentially catastrophic impact on coastal cities and island nations.

The melting of Arctic glaciers and ice caps, including Greenland's massive ice sheet, are projected to help raise global sea levels by 35 to 63 inches (90-160 centimeters) by 2100, AMAP said, though it noted that the estimate was highly uncertain.

That's up from a 2007 projection of 7 to 23 inches (19-59 centimeters) by the U.N. panel, which didn't consider the dynamics of ice caps in the Arctic and Antarctica.

"The observed changes in sea ice on the Arctic Ocean, in the mass of the Greenland ice sheet and Arctic ice caps and glaciers over the past 10 years are dramatic and represent an obvious departure from the long-term patterns," AMAP said in the executive summary.

The organization's main function is to advise the nations surrounding the Arctic ? the U.S., Canada, Russia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Finland ? on threats to the Arctic environment.

The findings of its report ? Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic ? will be discussed by some of the scientists who helped compile it at a conference starting Wednesday in the Danish capital, Copenhagen.

In the past few years, scientists have steadily improved ways of measuring the loss of ice into the oceans.

In research reported in March in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, U.S. and European scientists used two independent methods to corroborate their findings: the on-the-ground measurement of ice thickness and movements using GPS stations and other tools, and the measurement of ice mass through gravity readings from satellites.

That team, led by Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, projected that the accelerating melt of the vast Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets would itself raise sea levels by about 6 inches (15 centimeters) by 2050. Adding in other factors ? expansion of the oceans from warming and runoff from other glaciers worldwide ? would raise sea levels a total of some 13 inches (32 centimeters) by 2050, they said.

They did not project sea levels to 2100 because of long-range uncertainties.

Currents, winds and other forces would make sea-level rise vary globally, but Bangladesh, Florida and other such low-lying areas and coastal cities worldwide would be hard hit.

The AMAP report said melting glaciers and ice sheets worldwide have become the biggest contributor to sea level rise. Greenland's ice sheet alone accounted for more than 40 percent of the 0.12 inches (3.1 millimeters) of sea-level rise observed annually between 2003 and 2008, AMAP said.

It said the yearly mass loss from Greenland's ice sheet, which covers an area the size of Mexico, increased from 50 gigatons in 1995-2000 to more than 200 gigatons in 2004-2008.

Scientists are still debating how much of the changes observed in the Arctic are due to natural variances and how much to warming caused by the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. AMAP projected that average fall and winter temperatures in the Arctic will climb by 5.4-10.8 F (3-6 C) by 2080, even if greenhouse gas emissions are lower than in the past decade.

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AP Special Correspondent Charles J. Hanley in New York contributed to this report.

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Geithner: 'Congress Will Raise the Debt Ceiling'

Reuters

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner testifies at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Capitol Hill Feb. 15.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner suggested Sunday that Republicans and Democrats alike have assured the president they will vote to raise the debt limit, even as some lawmakers threaten to leverage the looming vote to extract spending cuts. 

Geithner, speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," said "responsible" lawmakers understand how "catastrophic" it would be to balk on that vote. The United States government could hit its $14.3 trillion debt ceiling as early as next month. 

"Congress is going to have to raise the debt limit. They understand that," Geithner said. "The leadership understand that you can't play around with this." 

He said congressional leaders expressed that point in a meeting with President Obama last week. He said the administration wants to figure out a long-term deficit reduction plan while Congress takes up the debate over the debt limit, but that if the government hits that ceiling before a deal is reached, the ceiling will have to be raised regardless. 

"Congress will raise the debt ceiling," he said, in a separate interview on ABC's "This Week." 

Geithner said repeatedly that lawmakers who want to take the country to the "brink" will bear the responsibility for the risk that creates. 

He suggested that merely flirting with that edge would create a problem. But he said if Congress ultimately rejects an increase in the debt limit, it would trigger a crisis that makes that 2008 meltdown look tame. Geithner reiterated warnings that such a vote would force the government to halt benefits payments to seniors and veterans and would risk the government defaulting on its interest. 

Though Geithner said he's confident Congress will vote "yes" on the increase, a number of lawmakers continue to threaten to withhold their vote if they don't see progress on a deficit-reduction deal. 

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla,, said on "Fox News Sunday" that he needs to have "absolute certainty" a deficit reduction plan includes "critical changes." 

"Unless we do that, there's no way I'll support it," Coburn said on the debt ceiling increase. "We're going to have a debt crisis, either with this or soon thereafter, if we don't come together."

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the author of the Republicans' 2012 budget proposal, also said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that Congress won't "just simply raise the debt limit" without attached spending cuts. 

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., though, said Congress should not "monkey around with the full faith and credit of the United States." 

"Linking the two and saying you're only going to vote for the debt ceiling if something particular happens on deficit reduction I think is playing Russian roulette with, like, the fully loaded revolver," he said on "Fox News Sunday."

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