Former SEAL Killed at Gun Range; Suspect Arrested













A man is under arrest in connection with the killing of former Navy SEAL and "American Sniper" author Chris Kyle, the most deadly sniper in U.S. history, and another man at an Erath County, Texas, gun range, police said.


"We have lost more than we can replace. Chris was a patriot, a great father, and a true supporter of this country and its ideals. This is a tragedy for all of us. I send my deepest prayers and thoughts to his wife and two children," "American Sniper" co-author Scott McEwen said in a statement to ABC News.


ABC affiliate WFAA-TV in Dallas reported that Kyle and a neighbor of his were shot while helping a soldier who is recovering from post traumatic stress syndrome at a gun range in Glen Rose.


The suspect, identified as Eddie Routh, 25, was arrested in Lancaster, Texas, after a brief police chase, a Lancaster Police Department dispatcher told ABC News.


Routh was driving Kyle's truck at the time of his arrest and was held awaiting transfer to Texas Rangers, according to police.


Investigators told WFAA that Routh is a former Marine said to suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome.


Authorities identified the other man who was killed with Kyle as 35-year-old Chad Littlefield.






AP Photo/The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Paul Moseley







PHOTOS: Notable Deaths in 2013


Kyle, 38, served four tours in Iraq and was awarded two Silver Stars, five Bronze Stars with Valor, two Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals, and one Navy and Marine Corps Commendation.


From 1999 to 2009, Kyle recorded more than 150 sniper kills, the most in U.S. military history.


After leaving combat duty, Kyle became chief instructor training Naval Special Warfare Sniper and Counter-Sniper teams, and he authored the Naval Special Warfare Sniper Doctrine, the first Navy SEAL sniper manual. He left the Navy in 2009.


"American Sniper," which was published last year in 2012, became a New York Times best seller.


Kyle was also an advocate for his fellow service members suffering from PTSD, creating a foundation to help with their treatment.


Travis Cox, the director of FITCO Cares, the non-profit foundation Kyle established, said Kyle's wife Taya and their children "lost a dedicated father and husband" and the country has lost a "lifelong patriot and an American hero."


"Chris Kyle was a hero for his courageous efforts protecting our country as a U.S. Navy SEAL during four tours of combat. Moreover, he was a hero for his efforts stateside when he helped develop the FITCO Cares Foundation. What began as a plea for help from Chris looking for in-home fitness equipment for his brothers- and sisters-in-arms struggling with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) became an organization that will carry that torch proudly in his honor," Cox said in a statement.


The fatal shooting comes after week filled with gun-related incidents, as the national debate heats up on what to do about gun violence.


In the past week, a teen who participated in President Obama's inaugural festivities was shot to death in Chicago, a bus driver was fatally shot and a 5-year-old was taken hostage in Alabama, and a Texas prosecutor was gunned down outside a courthouse.



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Golf: Double eagle joy puts Gallacher in Dubai lead






DUBAI: Stephen Gallacher fired two eagles on the back nine in a remarkable bogey-free round of 10-under par 62 to take a three-shot lead into the final day of the $2.5 million Omega Dubai Desert Classic.

Gallacher, nephew of the former European Ryder Cup captain Bernard, rattled the pin with his second shot on the par-5 13th and then holed his bunker shot on the 18th from 30 yards.

That, along with six other birdies, helped him reach 21-under par 195 after three rounds.

The 195 total of the 38-year-old Scotsman was one better than the tournament record of 20-under par set by Tiger Woods during his first visit to the UAE in 2001.

The lowest winning total in the tournament is 22-under par by Thomas Bjorn that same year.

South Africa's Richard Sterne, leader after the first two days at 12-under par, added a solid third round of six-under par 66, but could only watch in astonishment as Gallacher sped past him.

Two shots behind Sterne's 198 was rising Danish star Thorbjorn Olesen (67), while Chile's Felipe Aguilar (66) and India's Jeev Milkha Singh (67) were tied for the fourth place at 14-under par 202.

World No8 Lee Westwood made a charge with a 66 that moved him to ninth place at 204, nine shots behind the leader, while No14 Sergio Garcia could only add a 71 to tie for 19th place at 206.

Defending champion Rafael Cabrera-Bello shot a third successive round of 69.

Gallacher, who shot a 63 on the opening day and has finished second and 10th the previous two years in the tournament, said: "I just think I've played this golf course a lot of times.

"I've come out on holiday here and I am quite familiar with the course. I came here over Christmas and a couple days earlier before the start of the season.

"You know your way around here, the lines, you know where to hit it and where not to hit it. It's obviously in great condition and kind of suits my eye as well.

"I'm excited and looking forward to tomorrow. I struggled last week in Doha and found out that my driver had a hairline crack. With the new one, I'm hitting more fairways and I've putted really good. On these courses, you have got to be hitting from the fairways."

While Gallacher, ranked 111th in the world, is looking for his first win since the 2004 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, his good friend Sterne is hoping end a title drought that started in early 2009.

"I'm quite happy. The weather was a bit dodgy in the beginning, but the weather kind of came around and it wasn't too bad," said 165th-ranked Sterne.

"The conditions are pretty good. As you can see, a couple of good scores. You know, shooting 66 and I'm three behind, which unfortunately can happen in this game."

"I've given myself a chance going into tomorrow, in the last group again which will be hopefully a lot of fun and put some good scores on there and put some pressure on Stephen."

- AFP/de



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Modi has national appeal: Naqvi

ALLAHABAD: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and party spokesperson Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi created ripples at the Sangam on Saturday when he called Narendra Modi a "towering symbol of nationalism having countrywide appeal". He, however, hastened to add that "there were a number of capable leaders and any decision about the party's prime ministerial candidate would be taken at an appropriate time".

Showering praise on Modi, the BJP leader said: "Modiji hamari party ke sabse kaabil aur mashhoor neta hain. Unka naam PM ke taur pe bahut munasif waqt pe liya gaya hai (Modi ji is our party's most capable and famous leader. His name for PM's post has been taken at a very appropriate time)." But he added that the "party is proud of the fact that it has a number of capable leaders who have the skill to face any type of challenge".

"Narendra Modi has emerged as a symbol of nationalism with a proven record of providing good governance and tackling terrorism and lawlessness," Naqvi said adding, "his popularity has been gradually growing outside the state and it would not be wrong to say that he has gained a countrywide appeal."

Taking a dig at Congress scion and Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi, Naqvi said, "Rahul said that politics cannot be practiced by 'riding the family swing and one has to delve into ground reality', but by using derogatory terms like saffron terrorism, Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde has branded the whole Bharatvarsh as 'terrorist'. This is perhaps not his personal view but that of the entire Congress party and Sonia Gandhi."

Sharing his experience with TOI, an elated Naqvi said, "For me both Prayag and Ganga are no strangers and Kumbh Mela is the biggest religious congregation. But this time after talking to a cross-section of people and meeting saints, I feel that a new course for the political destiny of the country would be charted out during the Kumbh Mela. Issues like corruption and price rise would usher in a new revolution in the political arena."

The Kumbh snan of Naqvi assumes significance in the light of the fact that AICC general secretary Janardan Dwivedi was here recently to oversee arrangements for the expected visit of Congress president and vice-president Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi respectively.

Congress secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Parvez Hashmi was also in the Kumbh Mela area on Saturday to make arrangements for the visit of the two Congress biggies, which may take place anytime between February 5 to 9 this year, said a party source.

Though former BJP state president Ramapati Ram Tripathi and Charkhari MLA Uma Bharati have taken a plunge in the Sangam, many senior leaders from the saffron party, including party ideologue Govindacharya, Kalraj Mishra and Rajiv Pratap Rudy, have visited the Kumbh Mela but it is not confirmed whether they took a dip or not, said senior party leader Yogesh Shukla.

Exuding confidence of forging new alliances and advancement of Lok Sabha poll dates coinciding with elections in some states by the end of 2013, Naqvi, who was accompanied by his wife Seema, also went to the camp of Peethadheeshwar of Juna Akhara Swami Avadheshanand Saraswati where he stayed for an hour. He also visited the camp of Shankaracharya of Jyotish Peeth (Badrinath) Swami Vasudevanand Saraswati where he spent half an hour.

On being asked about the specific details of the visit, he said: "The two saints are disenchanted with the state of affairs in the country and shocked at the use of statements like 'saffron terrorism'."

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Pictures We Love: Best of January

Photograph by Dieu Nalio Chery, AP

The magnitude 7 earthquake that struck near Port au Prince, Haiti, in January 2010 so devastated the country that recovery efforts are still ongoing.

Professional dancer Georges Exantus, one of the many casualties of that day, was trapped in his flattened apartment for three days, according to news reports. After friends dug him out, doctors amputated his right leg below the knee. With the help of a prosthetic leg, Exantus is able to dance again. (Read about his comeback.)

Why We Love It

"This is an intimate photo, taken in the subject's most personal space as he lies asleep and vulnerable, perhaps unaware of the photographer. The dancer's prosthetic leg lies in the foreground as an unavoidable reminder of the hardships he faced in the 2010 earthquake. This image makes me want to hear more of Georges' story."—Ben Fitch, associate photo editor

"This image uses aesthetics and the beauty of suggestion to tell a story. We are not given all the details in the image, but it is enough to make us question and wonder."—Janna Dotschkal, associate photo editor

Published February 1, 2013

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Obama Clings to Shotgun in WH Photo


ht flickr barack obama shoots clay targets jt 130202 wblog White House Photo Shows Obama Firing Shotgun

(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)


After a week of speculation over the authenticity of claims by President Obama that he regularly participated in skeet shooting at Camp David, the White House released a photograph today showing him firing a shotgun.


The photo shows Obama targeting clay pigeons at the presidential retreat last August, according to the White House. In an interview published Sunday the president said he shoots skeet “all the time” during stays at the compound. The comment was a response to a question of whether he had ever held a gun.


“Not the girls, but oftentimes guests of mine go up there. And I have a profound respect for the traditions of hunting that trace back in this country for generations. And I think those who dismiss that out of hand make a big mistake,” he said.


READ: Skeet-Shooter Obama Has ‘Respect’ for Hunters


But amid a White House-backed push for stronger gun-control in the U.S., some questioned whether the claim was an embellishment or even true. Politicians who regularly use firearms often advertise the fact to gun owners, but ABC News has not found a quote from Obama referencing his own use before the statement on Sunday.


“If he is a skeet shooter, why have we not heard of this?” asked Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. “Why have we not seen photos? Why has he not referenced it at any point in time as we have had this gun debate that is ongoing?”


PHOTOS: From 2009 to Now: Obama Since His First Inauguration


Appearing on CNN this week, the congresswoman challenged Obama to a skeet shooting contest.


The Associated Press reported in 2010 a second-hand reference to the activity. After a visit with the Texas Christian University rifle team, a student reportedly told the AP that Obama told him he practiced shooting with the Secret Service.


This the only known image of Obama holding a gun.


Asked Monday about the president’s interview, Press Secretary Jay Carney responded to reporters about how often the president participates in shooting.


“I would refer you simply to his comments,” he said. “I don’t know how often. He does go to Camp David with some regularity, but I’m not sure how often he’s done that.”"


On Wednesday, Carney addressed the issue again, telling press that when the president travels to “Camp David, he goes to spend time with his family and friends and relax, not to produce photographs.”


White House officials and some Obama supporters have compared skeet-doubters to “skeeters” or “birthers,” the label fixed to those who deny Obama was born on U.S. soil in his home state of Hawaii, and therefore is ineligible for the Oval Office.


“Attn skeet birthers. Make our day — let the photoshop conspiracies begin!” senior adviser David Plouffe wrote on Twitter this morning, referencing the popular photo-editing software.


In January, Obama signed several executive orders strengthening gun regulation and revealed proposals that, if enacted, would include bans on assault weapons and high capacity magazines. The move began in response to the December mass-shooting of 20 first graders and six adults at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.


INFOGRAPHIC: Guns in America: By The Numbers


A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll released found 53 percent of Americans viewed Obama’s gun control plan favorably, 41 percent unfavorably.


The photo’s release comes two days before Obama travels to Minneapolis for a speech continuing his push for tougher gun control, where he is expected to appear alongside local law enforcement officials.

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VA study finds more veterans committing suicide



The VA study indicates that more than two-thirds of the veterans who commit suicide are 50 or older, suggesting that the increase in veterans’ suicides is not primarily driven by those returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.


“There is a perception that we have a veterans’ suicide epidemic on our hands. I don’t think that is true,” said Robert Bossarte, an epidemiologist with the VA who did the study. “The rate is going up in the country, and veterans are a part of it.” The number of suicides overall in the United States increased by nearly 11 percent between 2007 and 2010, the study says.

As a result, the percentage of veterans who die by suicide has decreased slightly since 1999, even though the total number of veterans who kill themselves has gone up, the study says.

VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki said his agency would continue to strengthen suicide prevention efforts. “The mental health and well-being of our courageous men and women who have served the nation is the highest priority for VA, and even one suicide is one too many,” he said in a statement.

The study follows long-standing criticism that the agency has moved far too slowly even to figure out how many veterans kill themselves. “If the VA wants to get its arms around this problem, why does it have such a small number of people working on it?” asked retired Col. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, a former Army psychiatrist. “This is a start, but it is a faint start. It is not enough.”

Bossarte said much work remains to be done to understand the data, especially concerning the suicide risk among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. They constitute a minority of an overall veteran population that skews older, but recent studies have suggested that those who served in recent conflicts are 30 percent to 200 percent more likely to commit suicide than their ­non-veteran peers.

An earlier VA estimate of 18 veterans’ suicides a day, which was disclosed during a 2008 lawsuit, has long been cited by lawmakers and the department’s critics as evidence of the agency’s failings. A federal appeals court pointed to it as evidence of the VA’s “unchecked incompetence.” The VA countered that the number, based on old and incomplete data, was not reliable.

To calculate the veterans’ suicide rate, Bossarte and his sole assistant spent more than two years, starting in October 2010, cajoling state governments to turn over death certificates for the more than 400,000 Americans who have killed themselves since 1999. Forty-two states have provided data or agreed to do so; the study is based on information from 21 that has been assembled into a database.

Bossarte said that men in their 50s — a group that includes a large percentage of the veteran population— have been especially hard-hit by the national increase in suicide. The veterans’ suicide rate is about three times the overall national rate, but about the same percentage of male veterans in their 50s kill themselves as do non-veteran men of that age, according to the VA data.

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Death toll in mystery Mexico oil firm blast rises to 32






MEXICO CITY: The death toll in a mystery explosion at the headquarters of Mexico's state-owned oil giant Pemex rose to 32 on Friday as rescuers dug through mounds of rubble for survivors.

Hundreds of firefighters, police and soldiers toiled through the night after the blast ripped through an annex of the 54-floor tower, injuring 121 people and leaving concrete, computers and office furniture strewn on the ground.

Pemex director general Emilio Lozoya Austin said 20 women and 12 men died in the incident, while 52 more people remain hospitalised. He said the search for survivors would continue.

Lozoya Austin added Mexican and foreign experts were investigating the cause of the tragedy and that "we won't speculate, we won't get ahead of ourselves."

The blast will not interrupt production at Pemex, the world's fourth-largest crude producer with an output around 2.5 million barrels per day, he said.

Survivors described an earthquake-like rumble that shook the floor and shattered windows.

The blast heavily damaged the ground floor and mezzanine of the annex, and witnesses said a roof connecting the annex to the tower collapsed.

The area hit by the blast has four floors and houses 200 to 250 employees, Lozoya Austin said.

Mexican Red Cross national coordinator Isaac Oxenhaut said rescuers will scour the site "centimetre by centimetre until we are absolutely sure that no one is in there."

The area is "dangerous to work in," he said, adding that the search could be completed by the end of the day.

At least six ambulances were at the scene in case any people were found, while police partially reopened traffic on the heavily-travelled avenue in front of the complex.

"We were waiting all night to assist in a major emergency that did not materialise because, fortunately, it appears that almost everybody was taken out," a military nurse who refused to give her name told AFP.

Floodlights shined on the rubble and two cranes were brought to help rescuers in hard hats and surgical masks look for survivors.

One was found almost six hours after the blast, which took place around 3:40 pm, 2140 GMT.

A spokesman for the civil protection agency said Thursday that there was an apparent "accumulation of gas" in an electrical supply room, but the exact cause of the blast has yet to be confirmed.

President Enrique Pena Nieto visited the site and survivors at the hospital late Thursday.

Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong warned against speculation, saying Thursday that the goal of the probe was to "produce precise, trustworthy and convincing data to find out the origin and cause of the disaster."

The explosion sent shocked employees pouring out of the complex beneath a pillar of black smoke, some carrying wounded people out on office chairs in a city accustomed and equipped to handle earthquakes.

"We had two minutes to leave the building. I was headed to the pharmacy when the windows broke. It was a deafening noise," Astrid Garcia Trevino, who worked in the annex, told AFP. "The floor shook as if it was an earthquake."

Gloria Garcia said her brother Daniel, 35, had called from the building and said he was trying to get out. She hasn't heard from him since.

"We're afraid he might still be in there," she said.

Pemex had indicated before the blast was confirmed that the building was evacuated due to an electrical failure.

Pena Nieto took office in December promising to modernise Pemex in order to attract more private investment, but he insists that the company will never be privatised.

The company has experienced deadly accidents at its oil and gas facilities in the past. Last year, a huge explosion killed 30 people at a gas plant near the northern city of Reynosa, close to the US border.

The previous worst incident took place in December 2010, when an oil pipeline exploded after it was punctured by thieves in the central town of San Martin Texmelucan, leaving 29 dead and injuring more than 50.

In October 2007, 21 Pemex workers died during a gas leak on an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. Most drowned when they jumped into the sea in panic.

- AFP/jc



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Cabinet clears ordinance, makes anti-rape laws stricter

NEW DELHI: Rape that leads to death of the victim or leaving her in a vegetative state can now attract death penalty under an ordinance cleared by the Union Cabinet on Friday noght in a bid to fast-track stringent amendments to the criminal laws to check crime against women.

The ordinance, based on the recommendations of the Justice J S Verma Committee and going beyond, proposes to replace the word 'rape' with 'sexual assault' to expand the definition of all types sexual crimes against women.

It also proposes enhanced punishment for other crimes against women like stalking, voyeurism, acid attacks, indecent gestures like words and inappropriate touch and brings into its ambit 'marital rape'.

The Union Cabinet, at a specially-convened meeting just three weeks ahead of the Budget Session of Parliament, went beyond the Verma Committee's recommendation by providing for capital punishment in the cases where rape leads to death of the victim or leaves her in "persistent vegetative state".

In such cases, the minimum punishment will be 20 years in jail which can be extended to the natural life of the convict or death, sources said, adding discretion will be with the court.

Being brought against the backdrop of the gang rape and brutal assault of a 23-year-old girl in Delhi in December, the ordinance entails changes in the criminal law by amending Indian Penal Code (IPC), Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the Evidence Act.

The government will now recommend to President Pranab Mukherjee to promulgate the ordinance with immediate effect.

"We believe that this is a progressive piece of legislation and is consistent with felt sensitivities of the nation in the aftermath of outrageous gangrape in Delhi," law minister Ashwani Kumar said.

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Will Deep-sea Mining Yield an Underwater Gold Rush?


A mile beneath the ocean's waves waits a buried cache beyond any treasure hunter's wildest dreams: gold, copper, zinc, and other valuable minerals.

Scientists have known about the bounty for decades, but only recently has rising demand for such commodities sparked interest in actually surfacing it. The treasure doesn't lie in the holds of sunken ships, but in natural mineral deposits that a handful of companies are poised to begin mining sometime in the next one to five years.

The deposits aren't too hard to find—they're in seams spread along the sea floor, where natural hydrothermal vents eject rich concentrations of metals and minerals.

These underwater geysers spit out fluids with temperatures exceeding 600ºC. And when those fluids hit the icy seawater, minerals precipitate out, falling to the ocean floor.

The deposits can yield as much as ten times the desirable minerals as a seam that's mined on land.

While different vent systems contain varying concentrations of precious minerals, the deep sea contains enough mineable gold that there's nine pounds (four kilograms) of it for every person on Earth, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Ocean Service.

At today's gold prices, that's a volume worth more than $150 trillion dollars.

Can an Industry Be Born?

But a fledgling deep-sea mining industry faces a host of challenges before it can claim the precious minerals, from the need for new mining technology and serious capital to the concerns of conservationists, fishers, and coastal residents.

The roadblocks are coming into view in the coastal waters of Papua New Guinea, where the seafloor contains copper, zinc, and gold deposits worth hundreds of millions of dollars and where one company, Nautilus Minerals, hopes to launch the world's first deep-sea mining operation.

Last year, the Papua New Guinean government granted the Canadian firm a 20-year license to mine a site 19 miles (30 kilometers) off their coast, in the Bismarck Sea in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The company plans to mine the site, known as Solwara 1, by marrying existing technologies from the offshore oil and gas industry with new underwater robotic technologies to extract an estimated 1.3 million tons of minerals per year.

Samantha Smith, Nautilus's vice president for corporate social responsibility, says that ocean floor mining is safer, cleaner, and more environmentally friendly than its terrestrial counterpart.

"There are no mountains that need to be removed to get to the ore body," she says. "There's a potential to have a lot less waste ... No people need to be displaced. Shouldn't we as a society consider such an option?"

But mining a mile below the sea's surface, where pressure is 160 times greater than on land and where temperatures swing from below freezing to hundreds of degrees above boiling, is trickier and more expensive than mining on terra firma.

Nautilus says it will employ three remote-controlled construction tools that resemble giant underwater lawn mowers to cut the hard mineral ore from the seafloor and pump it a mile up to a surface vessel.

That vessel would be equipped with machinery that removes excess water and rock and returns it to the mining site via pipeline, an effort aimed at avoiding contaminating surface waters with residual mineral particles. The company would then ship the rock to a concentrator facility to remove the mineral from the ore.

An Unknown Impact

At least that's the plan.

But the ocean floor is still a mysterious place, seldom visited by humans, compounding the known difficulties of working at sea.

Scientists weren't even able to prove the existence of underwater hydrothermal vents until 1977.

That year, an expedition of geologists, geochemists, and geophysicists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Oregon State University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and the U.S. Geological Survey proved their existence in the Galapagos rift with cameras and a manned dive in the submersible Alvin.

The animal-rich landscape and huge temperature shifts came as a surprise.

"When the first people went down there, and saw these things, they had no idea," says Mike Coffin, a geophysicist and executive director of the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania in Australia. "The submersible had windows that could melt at temperatures lower than what was coming out of the vent."

And, in contrast to the desert-like landscape that the scientists expected, it turns out that hydrothermal vents are home to lots of life: snails the size of tennis balls, seven-foot-long (two-meter-long) tubeworms, purple octopi, and all-white crabs and skates.

It turns out that, far from the sun's life-giving light, the same minerals now eyed by the mining industry support lively communities.

Now some researchers fear that deep-sea mining could jeopardize those communities by altering their habitats before the systems have been fully explored and explained.

"We're still just grappling with this reality of commercialization of the deep sea," says Cindy Van Dover, director of Duke University's Marine Lab. "And scrambling to figure out what we need to know."

Van Dover was aboard the first manned biological exploration of the hydrothermal vents in 1982 and was the only woman to pilot the submersible Alvin. Despite the strides that have been made in understanding the deep sea, she says, it's still a young science.

When it comes to the impacts of mining on any deep-sea life, "there's a particular type of research that needs to be done," she says. "We haven't yet studied the ecosystem services and functions of the deep sea to understand what we'd lose.

"We don't yet know what we need to know," Van Dover says.

Conservationists also say they want to know more about the vent ecosystems and how they will be mined.

"The whole world is new to the concept of deep-sea mining," says Helen Rosenbaum, coordinator of the Deep Sea Mining Campaign, a small activist group in Australia that campaigns against mining the Solwara 1 site.

"This is going to be the world's first exploitation of these kinds of deep resources. The impacts are not known, and we need to apply precautionary principles," she says. "If we knew what the impacts were going to be, we could engage in a broad-based debate."

Rosenbaum says some communities in Papua New Guinea are raising concerns about the sustainability of local livelihoods in the face of mining and say they aren't receiving the information they need.

The Deep Sea Mining Campaign is especially concerned about the impacts of toxic heavy metals from the mining activities on local communities and fish. The group claims that the Environmental Impact Statement for the Solwara 1 mine hasn't effectively modeled the chemistry of the metals that would be stirred up by the mining process or the ocean currents that could transport them closer to land.

"The Solwara 1 project is scheduled to be a three-year project," Rosenbaum says. "The mining company thinks they'll be out of there before there are problems with heavy metal uptake. We might not see the effects for several years."

A report released in November 2012 by the Deep Sea Mining Campaign ties exploratory pre-mining activities and equipment testing by Nautilus to "cloudy water, dead tuna, and a lack of response of sharks to the age-old tradition of shark calling."

Shark calling is a religious ritual in which Papau New Guineans lure sharks from the deep and catch them by hand.

Another concern for Deep Sea Mining Campaign: Papua New Guinea's government has a 30 percent equity share in the minerals as part of a seabed lease agreement with Nautilus.

The company and government are currently involved in a lawsuit over these finances, but the Deep Sea Mining Campaign says government investment could compromise its regulatory efforts.

Mining for Dollars

Nautilus' Smith insists that the company has taken a careful and transparent approach. "The biggest challenge the company faces," she says, "is funding."

Fluctuations in commodity pricing, the high cost of working underwater, and financial disagreements with the Papua New Guinean government have been setbacks for Nautilus.

Last November, the company announced that it had suspended construction of its mining equipment in order to preserve its financial position. Smith says that Nautilus is still committed to finding a solution for its work in Papua New Guinea, and that the company could still extract minerals as early as 2014.

Other companies around the world are also exploring the possibility of mining throughout the South Pacific.

The International Seabed Authority, which regulates use of the seafloor in international waters in accordance with the United National Convention on the Law of the Sea, has granted 12 exploratory permits to various governments—including India, France, Japan, Russia, China, Korea, and Germany—in roughly the last decade.

And as long as the promise of riches await, more firms and governments will be looking to join the fray.

"It's economics that drive things," says the University of Tasmania's Coffin. "Tech boundaries are being pushed, and science just comes along behind it and tries to understand what the consequences are. Ideally, it should be the other way around."


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Ala. Hostage Suspect Had Court Date Scheduled













The retired Alabama trucker who shot a school bus driver and is now holding a kindergarten student in an underground bunker was scheduled to be in court Wednesday to answer for allegedly shooting at his neighbors in a dispute over a damaged speed bump.


Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, has been holed up in a 6 by 8 foot bunker 4 feet underground with a 5-year-old autistic boy named Ethan since Tuesday, when he boarded a school bus and asked for two 6 to 8 year old boys. School bus driver Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, was shot several times by Dykes, and died trying to protect the children.


Police said that they do not think that Dykes had any connection to Ethan, and that SWAT teams and police are negotiating with Dykes.


"I could tell you that negotiators continue to communicate with the suspect and that there's no reason to believe the child has been harmed," Sheriff Wally Olson said late Thursday.


Dykes' neighbor Claudia Davis told The Associated Press that he had yelled at her and fired his gun at her, her son James Davis, Jr. and her baby grandson after he claimed their truck caused damage to a speed bump in the dirt road near his property. No one was hurt, but Davis, Jr. told the AP that he believes the shooting and kidnapping are connected to the scheduled court hearing.


"I believe he thought I was going to be in court and he was going to get more charges than the menacing, which he deserved, and he had a bunch of stuff to hide and that's why he did it," he said.








Alabama Hostage Standoff: Boy, 5, Held Captive in Bunker Watch Video









Alabama 5-year-old Hostage: Negotiations Continue Watch Video









Alabama Child Hostage Situation: School Bus Driver Killed Watch Video





This was not Dykes' only run-in with people in the neighborhood, where he had come to be known as a menacing figure. Neighbor Ronda Wilbur told the AP that Dykes beat her 120-pound dog with a lead pipe when it entered the side of the dirt rode his trailer sits on. Wilbur said her dog died a week later.


Early last year, two pit bulls belonging to neighbors Mike and Patricia Smith escaped and got into his yard. Patricia Smith said that Dykes threatened to shoot her children when they went to retrieve them.


Neighbor Ronda Wilbur said that Dykes would be seen on his property at all hours of the day.


"It could be 2 o'clock in the morning, it could be midnight. He was out there either digging or moving dirt," she said.


As the underground standoff moved into its fourth day, tensions grow in this small community near Midland City, Ala., which is now enveloped by SWAT teams and police.


"That's an innocent kid. Let him go back to his parents, he's crying for his parents and his grandparents and he does not know what's going on," Midland City Mayor Virgil Skipper told ABC News. "Let this kid go."


Neighbor Jimmy Davis said that he has seen the bunker where Dykes has been known to hunker down for up to eight days.


"He's got steps made out of cinder blocks going down to it, Davis said. "It's lined with those red bricks all in it."


Police say he may have enough supplies to last him weeks.


Former FBI profiler and ABC News consultant Brad Garrett said there's a distinct reason why authorities are keeping details about Dykes under wraps.


"One of reasons they are keeping negations closed and not releasing his picture, is to try to insulate the situation, so they don't have a situation where they don't have to deal with his anger and rage," he said.


Meanwhile, children are trying to understand why this happened to their friend


"He always comes up to my house to play," 10-year-old Trisha Beaty told ABC News. "I miss him. I miss him a lot."



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