Four months ago, a torrent of hot mud from deep beneath the surface of Indonesia's seismically charged Java island began surging from a natural gas exploration site following a drilling accident.

The ''mud volcano'' pours out some 165,000 cubic yards of mud every day -- enough to cover a football field about 75 feet deep. Often spewing out in geyser-like eruptions, the mud has left some 665 acres swamped or abandoned as unsafe, forcing more than 10,000 people from their homes.

Experts say the mud volcano is one of the largest ever recorded on land. Geologists fear the technology may not exist to stop the eruption, saying mud could flow for years or even centuries -- or stop on its own at any time.

Police seize drilling rig

The mud is believed to come from a reservoir 3½ miles below the surface that has been pressurized by shifts in the crust or by the accumulation of hydrocarbon gases.

The calamity has underscored the patchy safety record of mining companies exploiting the natural resources of this Southeast Asian nation made up of thousands of islands.

Police seized the drilling rig involved in the accident and are investigating whether to bring criminal charges against the principal well owner, PT Lapindo Brantas.

Lapindo, which is linked to the wealthy family of Indonesia's welfare minister, is paying for an ever expanding network of earthen dams to contain the mud, but many people fear the resulting slimy ponds will overflow during the approaching rainy season.

''The volume of mud that is coming out of the hole is not just large, it's enormous,'' Earl Hunt Jr., an engineer from Oklahoma, said while supervising dredging operations.

"The government urgently needs a believable, clear and realistic plan to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions," the report said, adding that the government "must establish and commit to short- and long-term national goals."

Developing the capacity to adapt is crucial and Kyoto goals should be supported rather than abandoned, Gélinas said.

"Something drastic has to happen if we want to get on the right track."

Gélinas, who is part of the Office of the Auditor General, devoted this year's annual report to measuring the country's progress in dealing with global climate change linked to emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.

The report found the former Liberal government announced $6.3 billion in climate change funding since it signed the international Kyoto Accord and agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in 1997. But it led Canada away rather than toward its targets.

For example, Canada had agreed to reduce emissions to six per cent below 1990 levels by sometime between 2008 and 2012. But Gélinas's report found that in 2004, emissions were 26.6 per cent above 1990 levels.

Must target oil and gas industries

The federal government has done too little too slowly to meet that goal, said the report, concluding that Ottawa has:

* Not adequately targeted the oil and gas industries - even though fossil fuel production and consumption accounts for 80 per cent of the country's emissions. As well, those emissions have been growing rapidly as Alberta increases production from its oil sands.
* Done little to help Canadians cope with the consequences of climate change, such as damage to northern infrastructure as permafrost melts or increased droughts in the Prairies
* Did not set clear goals for its climate-change-related programs.
* Did a poor job of measuring those goals.
* Did not sufficiently report whether those goals were effective or how money was being spent.

Harper's Tories must scale up efforts

The report said Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservatives should not continue to use the lack of progress on the country's Kyoto commitments as an excuse to abandon the international pact.

"The current government has announced that Canada cannot realistically meet its Kyoto target," the report said. "If so, then new targets should take its place."

The report urges Ottawa to instead scale up its efforts to curb emissions and adapt to climate change, by:

* Working on ways to help Canadians adapt to climate change.
* Integrating its energy and climate strategies, which Gélinas points out are closely linked.
* Providing strong leadership in combatting climate change.
* Ensuring it co-ordinates federal efforts and measures their success.

The government departments involved have accepted the recommendations. However, they have not committed to doing anything to implement those recommendations, the report notes.

Canada made some progress: report

But Gélinas's report was not entirely critical.

She said the government addressed some issues raised by Canadians who wrote them letters, though not always effectively.

For example, the government took on a 2002 suggestion to purchase 20 per cent of its electricity from green-power sources such as wind by 2006 - although it only met a third of its commitment.

Gélinas found some government departments such as Indian and Northern Affairs have made progress, crediting good management with their success.

And the large federal programs to make houses more efficient, increase the use of ethanol fuel and step up wind-power production have yielded some emission reductions.

"There is a foundation to build on," Gélinas said.

PhIP is one of a group of carcinogenic compounds called heterocyclic amines (HCAs) that are found in grilled meats. In 2005, the US government officially added HCAs to its list of cancer-causing agents, the doctors' group said.

"Grilled chicken can cause cancer, and consumers deserve to know that this supposedly healthy product is actually just as bad for them as high-fat fried chicken," PCRM president Neal Barnard said in a statement.

"Even a grilled chicken salad increases the risk of breast cancer, prostate cancer and other forms of this lethal disease," he said.

Aside from McDonald's and Burger King, the chains named in the lawsuit were Chick-fil-A, Chili's, Applebee's, Outback Steakhouse and TGI Friday's.

The California Restaurant Association, which represents the major chains in the richest US state, dismissed the doctors' lawsuit as groundless and politically motivated.

"The PCRM are anti-meat advocates who want to limit consumer choice and limit access to healthy dining options, which grilled chicken most definitely is," association spokeswoman Jordan Traverso told AFP.

"There's no evidence that the small amount of PhIP that comes out from cooked grilled chicken poses a health risk to humans," she said, stressing that undercooked chicken was far more dangerous.

But Mark Kennedy, staff attorney with the PCRM, said the restaurants had been serially flouting a 1986 California law that requires them to give a "clear and reasonable warning" about any carcinogens in their food.

He noted that the law, dubbed Proposition 65, carries a fine of 2,500 dollars per violation per day.

But Kennedy added: "We're not seeking to punish these restaurants. We just want them to obey the law.

"If at any time these restaurants were to come to us and say we'll post these warnings, we'd be happy to drop the lawsuit."

McDonald's has found itself on the legal frontlines of late.

This year, it has been sued for failing to advertise the presence in its French fries of dairy and gluten products, which can trigger a severe reaction in some allergy sufferers.

Last year, a federal judge allowed an action to proceed against McDonald's brought by plaintiffs who accuse the burger giant of making them obese.

In 2004, the House of Representatives passed the so-called "Cheeseburger Bill" to ban "frivolous" lawsuits by obesity sufferers against the fast-food industry. But the measure has not received a vote in the Senate.

In Thursday's stock market trade, shares in McDonald's fell 0.58 percent to 39.59 dollars. Burger King Holdings was unchanged at 15.90 dollars.

The virus first emerged in Tanzania in 1953 and, though no deaths have been recorded, it can cause a debilitating illness whose symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, muscle and joint pain and rash. No specific drug therapy or vaccine exists to treat it.

"Some risk exists that CHIKV might be introduced into previously nonendemic areas by travelers with viremia, leading to local transmission of the virus," the report said.

It singled out tropical or subtropical areas of the U.S. including the Gulf Coast, Hawaii and the Virgin Islands as particularly at risk.

"Suspected cases should be reported promptly to local and state public health officials and to CDC," it said, adding that in the week after the virus had been detected it was essential that patients be screened from contact with mosquitoes.

"Clinicians should be alert for additional cases among travelers and public health officials should be alert to evidence of local transmission ... through infection of local mosquitoes by a person with viremia," the CDC report said.

The Atlanta-based CDC said it had detected 12 cases since the start of 2005 from travelers returning to the United States from areas where the virus was present.

In one case a man from Minnesota returned from a three-month trip to Somalia and Kenya in May 2005 and hours after arrival began to suffer from headache, malaise and joint pains, mainly in his shoulder and knee.

CDC diagnosed CHIKV infection, treated him and he recovered within weeks.

In another case, a physician in Maryland diagnosed CHIKV fever in a woman who had visited Reunion in the Indian Ocean in October 2005 and stayed for several months during which there was an outbreak on the island.

In the two years to May 2006 around 300,000 suspected CHIKV fever cases were reported on Indian Ocean islands, mainly on Reunion, a French overseas department, but also in Mombasa, Kenya; Madagascar; Mauritius and the Comoros islands.

Most of the 340 imported CHIKV cases in Europe between January and May this year were in France, in part because Reunion is a popular destination for French tourists.

Around 180,000 suspected CHIKV fever cases were also detected in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Maharashtra since early this year, the report said.

Residents mounted a massive cleanup and the financial markets, schools and government offices in the capital, Manila, remained closed for a second workday since Typhoon Xangsane slammed ashore late Wednesday.

Most of the deaths occurred in Laguna province, south of Manila, said Romeo Panisales, a provincial social welfare officer.

At least 19 people were killed in landslides and flash floods in the town of Santa Rosa and another 15 in five other towns. Another 29 people were missing in the same province.

The coast guard reported a yacht with at least six crewmembers was missing in Manila Bay. A crewmember of another boat in Batangas province south of Manila also was reported missing.

Among dozens of missing were at least 30 people in General Trias town, about 40 kilometres south of Manila, where an irrigation dike collapsed as they were watching houses washed away by raging river waters, said Walter Martinez, a local village official.

Police officer Quintin Trinidad said only one body has been recovered.

The entire northern island of Luzon, including Manila, was without power on Thursday but electricity was restored to 36 percent of consumers by Friday morning, the state-run National Transmission Corp. reported.

The typhoon was briefly downgraded to a tropical storm as it moved toward the South China Sea heading to Vietnam, but gained strength again Friday, packing winds of 120 kilometres per hour and gusts of up to 150 kilometres per hour, the Philippine weather bureau reported.

Chinese state media said Friday the typhoon was likely to skirt China's Hainan Island but bring strong winds and heavy rain during the first few days of a weeklong national holiday.

In Manila and neighbouring provinces, residents began the day by cleaning up toppled trees, broken branches, fallen signposts and power pylons.

The capital and two other provinces declared a state of calamity to enable them to draw emergency funds.

Xangsane, the Laotian word for elephant, is the 10th typhoon this season, and the strongest to hit Manila in 11 years.

The globe-spanning boreal forest is the last great forest ecosystem -- larger even than the Amazon. The boreal is also the largest terrestrial storehouse of carbon, making it one of the world's best defences against global climate change.

"The boreal is like a giant carbon bank account. The forests and peatlands store an estimated 67 billion tonnes of carbon in Canada alone -- almost eight times the amount of carbon produced worldwide in the year 2000," Anielski told IPS.

Storing carbon and absorbing carbon dioxide are just one of 16 ecological services the boreal provides.

"We couldn't calculate values for them all -- such as providing food and habitat for bees that perform valuable services like pollination," said the researcher, who presented his findings at Canada's 10th National Forest Congress Sept. 25-27.

Other services like waste recycling and soil formation also went uncounted.

"This 250-billion-dollar estimate is a very conservative number," Anielski noted.

Most of the world's original wild forests have been logged or developed, and today, only about 20 percent remains, mainly in the boreal and Amazon region. Canada's portion of the boreal represents more than 1.3 billion acres -- over 25 percent of the remaining intact forest on the planet.

"If these ecosystem services were counted in Canada, they would amount to roughly nine percent of GDP [Gross Domestic Product]," he said.

That represents more than the GDP contribution of Canada's huge mining sector, at four percent, or its booming energy industry, at 5.6 percent.

Most of the Canadian boreal is in public hands, but just eight percent is officially protected. There is growing pressure to expand industrial logging, hydropower, mining and oil and gas development in the boreal.

"It is high time for everybody to realise that Canada is not an endless sea of virgin forest anymore. Almost half of the forest is either logged or fragmented," said Peter Lee, executive director of Global Forest Watch Canada, an environmental group in Edmonton, Alberta.

Global Forest Watch and the World Resources Institute in Washington are part of an international effort to map and document the extent of the world's remaining forest using satellite data. Satellite pictures also clearly reveal forest cover loss through fires and logging.

New satellite pictures show massive clear-cutting of the boreal forest in the province of Ontario. Despite a government commitment to sustainable forestry, photos from space show big holes in the forest cover exceeding 260 hectares in size, where nothing is left but rocks and broken tree branches.

Ontario allows clear-cutting up to 750 hectares while Russia, home to the majority of the boreal, allows only 50 hectares.

Concern over the Canadian boreal has grown such that a large coalition of environmental groups and industry, including some forestry companies, has joined the Canadian Boreal Framework, which calls for protection of at least 50 percent of the forest.

"Canada is one of the only countries in the world that still has an opportunity to get it right, to protect our boreal forest and ensure a sustainable, conservation-based economy," said Tzeporah Berman of ForestEthics, an environmental group active in Canada, the United States and Chile.

While efforts gain momentum to preserve existing Canadian forests, the U.S. could offset nearly 20 percent of its current emissions of CO2 by turning marginal farmland into forests.

An estimated 115 million acres of land in the lower United States that is poor for agriculture but good for growing trees could store enough carbon to reduce the country's current emissions of 7.075 billion metric tonnes by nearly 20 percent, according to the report "Agricultural and Forestlands: U.S. Carbon Policy Strategies" released recently by the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change.

"There is lots of land out there and we are tapping so very little of our ability to sequester carbon," says report co-author Ken Richards of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University.

"It would cost about 50 dollars per metric tonne of carbon stored," Richards told IPS.

Most of the 50 dollars per tonne of carbon cost is compensation for landowners.

"Farmers support the idea but only if they can count on receiving money for this over the long term such as decades," he said.

Many U.S. government conservation programmes either fail to get funding at all or are funded for short periods of time. There have been at least nine programmes that could have stored carbon on farms in the past few years but they never received the necessary funding, he said.

This re-foresting of the United States would bring many other benefits, such as erosion control, water quality protection and improved wildlife habitat.

"Over longer time horizons, agricultural and forestlands can produce biomass-based substitutes for fossil fuels, thereby further reducing emissions," the Pew report notes.

It would also be good for farmers in the U.S., where agricultural overproduction has kept crop prices low for many years.

"The challenge is how to make this (reforestation) happen quickly and effectively," said Richards.

There were no immediate reports of major damage in Venezuela, Agence France-Presse reported, citing Gustavo Malava, director of the country's seismological institute. Tremors were felt across most of eastern Venezuela, AFP said.

In Port of Spain buildings swayed and some schools were evacuated, Sky News reported.