agencies

President George W. Bush, after the stinging failure to get Harriet Miers on the U.S. Supreme Court due to a conservative rebellion, looked for a new nominee on Friday and aides expected him to announce his choice in a matter of days.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan ruled out an announcement on Friday. Other sources pointed to Monday for a possible announcement, and at any rate expected Bush to name someone before he departs Thursday on a Latin America trip.

As always, Bush's deliberations were being conducted with utmost secrecy on a choice that could shift the balance of power on the nine-member court.

Bush's pick for the lifetime appointment must be confirmed by a majority of the 100-member Senate, which is controlled by the president's Republican Party. Democrats in the minority demanded a mainstream candidate to replace the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor.

" He said he wants to be a uniter and not a divider. There are an awful lot of nominees he could send up, all Republicans, all of whom would get 95 to 100 votes in the 100-member Senate," Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told CNN.

It seemed doubtful that Bush would feel the need to conduct the same level of consultations with the Senate as he did for both Miers and U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts, since he already has received plenty of input from individual senators.

After the bitter conservative backlash against Miers, Bush's goal was to pick someone who could satisfy the Republican right while showing a mastery of constitutional legalities in a fair-minded way to avoid a Democratic revolt.

Legal experts closely monitoring the process said U.S. appeals court judge Samuel Alito, 55, might fit the bill of a conservative jurist with broad constitutional experience and a long paper trail much like that of Roberts.
" If you were looking for the person out there closely to John Roberts in terms of background and qualifications and likely reception by the public, you would probably turn to Alito," said former White House lawyer Brad Berenson.

But there were several other names in the mix.

Experts said they would not be surprised if Bush, after the Miers experiment, dropped his drive to name a woman to replace O'Connor.

A few Republican senators were viewed as potential nominees, but Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a former Texas Supreme Court justice, was the only one with appeals court experience.

" The president has a lot of good choices to make and I'm not one of them," Cornyn said on Thursday in trying to play down speculation about himself.

But Cornyn added, "if the president calls me, obviously I'll answer the phone ...."

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, who had urged Bush to consider Miers, made clear that if Bush picks someone previously blocked by Democrats he could expect a fight.

Conservative judges Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown were both blocked by Democrats during Bush's first term before being confirmed this year as appeals court judges. Both are now seen as possible Supreme Court contenders.

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said he would like to see Bush again nominate a woman to the Supreme Court. Before Bush picked Miers, Graham had urged consideration of Karen Williams of the 4th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals.

Experts saw her as a possibility along with appeals judge Diane Sykes if Bush decided to nominate a woman, which his wife, Laura, had twice suggested publicly he should do before he announced Miers.

Other names that circulated before the surprise Miers pick were seen as once again in play. Those include conservative federal appeals court judges Michael McConnell, Michael Luttig, Edith Jones, Alice Batchelder and Michigan Supreme Court Justice Maura Corrigan.

Back to to

agencies

Japan, whose former capital gave its name to the Kyoto Protocol, wants all nations -- including the United States and especially China -- to be bound by the next framework aimed at fighting global warming, Environment Minister Yuriko Koike said on Friday.

Officials from 150 countries meet in Montreal next month to discuss taking the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012, when its first phase ends, but disagreement is rife and hopes of progress slim.

Japan, which is struggling to meet its own goal of cutting greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, has long maintained that the country's impact on the Earth pales compared to that of China, the world's second-largest producer of greenhouse gases after the United States.

Discussions are expected to center on finding a way to bring in countries not bound by Kyoto such as the United States, which has rejected it, and booming economies such as China and India, which as developing nations have no obligation to cut emissions for the present.

" Climate change is not something that can be tackled only by Japan or only by Europe," Koike, environment minister since 2003 and a strong supporter of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, told Reuters in an interview.
" It's essential for the whole world to cut emissions."

China, whose emissions of sulphur dioxide were the highest in the world last year and which is separated from Japan only by a relatively narrow strip of water, is of particular concern as the world tries to hammer out a new deal.

" If China emits massive amounts of carbon dioxide as it develops economically, this will have an impact on the environment of the whole region," she said.

" This doesn't affect only global warming but also the atmosphere and water. So for the good of the region, this must be solved or ameliorated cooperatively."

BEYOND KYOTO
As one step toward increasing such cooperation, she said, Japan in July became one of six countries -- along with the United States, China, Australia, India and South Korea -- to form the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate.

Detractors say the pact is a distraction engineered by the United States ahead of the Montreal talks and threatens Kyoto.

Koike said there were no contradictions in Japan's participation, despite its having hosted the 1997 meeting that produced the Kyoto treaty.

" We feel that this is just another kind of partnership that helps promote dialogue and technology exchange, and this is one thing we'll emphasize in Montreal," she added.

But Japan, which pledged to cut emissions by 6 percent from 1990 levels, faces an uphill fight as its overall emissions have actually risen by 8 percent since then.

Koike said Japan would manage to meet its goals but faced a tough challenge, particularly regarding transport and ordinary households, whose emissions have risen a worrying 28.8 percent from 1990 levels.

" The more comfortable a household becomes, the more they emit carbon dioxide," she said. "We need to change people's way of thinking so that this is not the case."

One effective method may be "Warm Biz", the wintertime successor to a summer "Cool Biz" campaign that encouraged office workers to dress down inside, helping to reduce energy use by allowing thermostats to be set higher and causing people to abandon their neckties in droves.

The government is urging offices to set thermostats at 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) throughout the winter, about 4C lower than usual.

Koike said around 90 percent of people were aware of the "Cool Biz" campaign and over 40 percent of businesses took part, and is hoping for a similar impact this winter.

" I hope this will lead everyone to feel they are part of fighting global warming," she said.

Back to to

Metro | Nacional | Espectáculos | Deportes | CasaGuía |
AutoGuía | Gente | Conexiones | Subscriptions and Advertising |
Contact Us | Past Issues | El Tiempo | Site Map