By Thomas Grove and Gabriela Baczynska

SLAVIANSK/DONETSK, Ukraine (Reuters) - Armed pro-Russian separatists seized more buildings in eastern Ukraine on Monday, expanding their control after the government failed to follow through on threatened military crackdown leaving Moscow's partisans essentially unopposed.

European foreign ministers agreed to widen sanctions against Moscow and the White House said Washington was seeking ways to impose more "costs" on Russia, for what Kiev and its Western friends call a Russian plot to dismember Ukraine.

Rebels in the town of Slaviansk, where the authorities failed to follow through with their announced "anti-terrorist" operation, called for Russian President Vladimir Putin's help.

Ukraine's interim president Oleksander Turchinov said on Monday the offensive against the rebels would still go ahead. But in a sign of discord behind the scenes in Kiev, he sacked the state security chief in charge of the operation.

In one of the first signs of a military deployment by Kiev's forces, a Ukrainian column of two tanks and more than 20 armored personnel carriers packed with paratroops was seen about 70 km (50 miles) northwest of Slaviansk on Monday evening, according to video journalist Maksim Dondyuk who filmed them.

In Donetsk, rebels holed up in the administrative headquarters of a province that is home to 10 percent of Ukraine's population said they planned to seize control of infrastructure and the levers of state power. They have declared an independent "People's Republic of Donetsk" and sought Putin's protection if they are attacked.

Rebels have also seized buildings in around 10 other towns and cities across other eastern provinces which form the heartland of Ukraine's heavy industry.

In a bid to undercut the rebels' demands, Turchinov held out the prospect of a countrywide referendum on the future shape of the Ukrainian state. Pro-Russian secessionists want separate referendums in their regions, which Kiev says is illegal.

The uprising in eastern Ukraine began eight days ago but has accelerated sharply in the past 48 hours, with separatists seizing ever more buildings, including arsenals filled with weapons. They have met little opposition.

Kiev says the separatists are organized by Moscow, seeking to repeat the seizure of the Crimea region, which Moscow occupied and annexed last month.

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Pro-Russian men throw stones during the mass storming of a police station in Horlivka, eastern Ukrai …

Russia says the armed men are all locals acting on their own, but Western officials say the uprising is too well-coordinated to be entirely spontaneous, and bears too many similarities to the Russian operation in Crimea.

"I don't think denials of Russian involvement have a shred of credibility," British Foreign Minister William Hague said, before a meeting with EU counterparts.

Hague later announced that the ministers had agreed to expand a list of Russians barred from travelling or doing business in the EU. Work would begin to come up with new names for the sanctions list, Hague said.

In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Barak Obama would speak to Putin by phone later on Monday. Washington is also planning to expand its sanctions list. Russia has so far shrugged off targeted sanctions.

Moscow says it has the right to intervene to protect Russian speakers in Ukraine, and has portrayed the people of the east as under threat from gangs of Ukrainian-speaking "fascists". NATO says Russia has tens of thousands of troops massed on the frontier, able to capture eastern Ukraine within days.

ULTIMATUM EXPIRES

Turchinov had threatened to launch a military crackdown by 9 a.m., but as the deadline expired there was no sign of any action in Slaviansk. A rebel leader, in an appeal issued through journalists, asked Putin to "help us as much as you can".

The Kremlin said the Russian president was listening.

"Unfortunately, there's a great many such appeals coming from the Eastern Ukrainian regions addressed directly to Putin to intervene in this or that form," spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "The president is watching the developments in Eastern Ukraine with great concern."

Also in Slaviansk, about 150 km (90 miles) from the Russian border, a small airfield which was occupied by Ukrainian air force planes on Sunday was empty on Monday and pro-separatist forces said they were now in control of it.

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The head of the local police station Herman Pristupa, brandishes firearms at the entrance to a polic …

Eastern Ukraine seems to be rapidly spinning out of the control of the central government. The governor of Donetsk, a multi-millionaire appointed by Kiev, has not been seen since April 11. A man calling himself Donetsk's new police chief has appeared wearing the orange and black separatist ribbon.

The Ukrainian defense ministry acknowledged that it has had difficulty mobilizing the armed forces in the east, where some units have been blockaded in by rebellious locals.

"On some occasions we have lost the information war and there have been blockades of our units. People don't understand why they are coming," said acting Defence Minister Mykhailo Koval. He said 26 members of a reconnaissance unit had been blockaded for the past day and a half in Slaviansk.

"Negotiations are under way to free them to allow them to link up with our main force."

In the town of Horlivka about 100 pro-Russian separatists attacked the police headquarters on Monday. Video footage on Ukrainian television showed an ambulance treating people apparently injured in the attack.

Russia's foreign ministry called Turchinov's planned military operation a "criminal order" and said the West should bring its allies in Ukraine's government under control.

Turchinov's website said he told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon he would welcome U.N. peacekeepers in Ukraine. The proposal was rhetorical as no such deployment has been proposed or could ever take place over Russia's Security Council veto.

The Ukraine crisis has led to the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the Cold War. Washington said a Russian fighter aircraft had made 12 low altitude passes over a U.S. warship in the Black Sea over the weekend, which it called a "provocative and unprofessional Russian action".

Outside the Slaviansk city council offices stood a group of about 12 armed men in matching camouflage fatigues with black masks, one of whom was holding a Russian flag.

They said they were Cossacks - paramilitary fighters descended from Tsarist-era patrolmen - but did not say where from. One told Reuters: "The borders between Ukraine, Russia and Belarus are artificial and we are here to take them away."

In Donetsk, leaders of the self-declared "People's Republic" held a strategy meeting to plan their seizure of control of the rest of the region's state functions.

"Everything from city cleaning to the sewage system, the airport, railway stations, military... should be under your control," one leader, Vladimir Makovich, told about two dozen other senior separatists in a dark room on the top floor of the 11-storey government headquarters.

Over the past week, the rebels have turned the massive Soviet-era building into a bastion for urban warfare. Barricades crisscross the corridors and steel plates are welded to windows.

"We are ready for storming at any time. No matter what happens, this building will not be given up," said Alexander Zakharchenko, 38, commander of a paramilitary unit made up of members of a martial arts club.

Turchinov's announcement he was sending in the army was the first time the military has been activated in six months of internal disorder. The plan implies a lack of confidence in the 30,000-strong interior ministry troops, partly discredited by identification with ousted president Viktor Yanukovich.

Russian stocks and the ruble fell sharply on Monday, reflecting fears of further Russian military intervention in Ukraine and more western sanctions against Moscow.

Kiev is also facing economic disarray. The central bank nearly doubled its overnight interest rate to 14.50 percent from 7.50 percent. Ukraine's hryvnia currency has lost 38 percent of its value against the dollar this year.

Moscow has largely brushed off sanctions so far, which the United States and Europe have explicitly designed to target only a limited number of officials and avert wider economic harm.

(Additional reporting by Natalia Zinets and Richard Balmforth in Kiev; Writing by Peter Graff)

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Ukraine tensions rise, sanctions on Russia widened

Washington (AFP) - Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin confronted one another in telephone talks Monday as a standoff over Ukraine escalated after the CIA chief visited Kiev and a Russian war plane "buzzed" a US destroyer.

Washington said it was consulting European allies and hinted that more sanctions on Russia's economy could be coming, to punish what it sees as Moscow's sponsorship of pro-Russia violence in eastern Ukraine.

The Kremlin said that Putin used the latest in a string of tense phone calls with Obama to brand US charges of meddling in eastern Ukraine as "unfounded."

There were no immediate readouts of the call from the White House, which earlier was the first to say it would take place.

Unusually though, the White House did offer some details of CIA chief John Brennan's travel, confirming Russian media reports that the top US spy had flown into Kiev over the weekend.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had demanded an explanation over Brennan's visit.

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Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan taking questions from the audience after addressin …

Russia's Interfax news agency quoted an unidentified source as saying Brennan recommended Kiev use force against pro-Russian militants in eastern districts.

But White House spokesman Jay Carney blasted claims that Brennan's travel was anything but routine -- and said he was revealing it to rebut "false claims" laid by Russia.

"Senior-level visits of intelligence officials are a standard means of fostering mutually beneficial security cooperation, including US-Russian intelligence collaboration going back to the beginnings of the post-Cold War era," he said.

"To imply that US officials meeting with their counterparts (in Kiev) is anything other than in the same spirit is absurd."

- 'Provocative' -

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The USS Destroyer Donald Cook is seen at the Constanta shipyard in the Romanian Black Sea port of Co …

Carney also denied that a new Cold War was brewing between Russia and the United States, but an incident involving a Russian jet over the Black Sea and a US cruise missile destroyer did hark back to the tensions of that earlier era.

The Pentagon said the Su-24 fighter made several low-altitude, high-speed passes near the USS Donald Cook, cruising in international waters off Romania over the weekend.

"The aircraft did not respond to multiple queries and warnings from Donald Cook," said Colonel Steven Warren, a Pentagon spokesman.

"This provocative and unprofessional Russian action is inconsistent with international protocols and previous agreements on a professional interaction between our militaries."

The vessel was sent to the Black Sea in a show of Washington's solidarity with its Eastern European NATO allies concerned about Russia's incursion into Crimea.

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Pro-Russia militiamen detain the head of the regional police after storming the regional police buil …

The plane was about 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) from the American ship but did not directly traverse its decks, a military official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The White House and the State Department signaled fresh sanctions could be coming for Russia over what Washington says are provocations in eastern Ukraine, including the seizure of administrative and police buildings by Moscow-backed armed groups.

"We feel very strongly that the pattern of activities bear striking similarities to the situation in Crimea ahead of the illegal Russian occupation and purported annexation of that part of Ukraine," said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

"All evidence points to the likelihood that these are individuals with strong ties to the Russian government who are causing these conflicts in eastern Ukraine."

In a new sign of US pressure on European allies, Obama spoke to French President Francois Hollande by telephone.

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US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew (L) and Ukrainian Finance Minister Oleksandr Shlapak (R) sign a loan …

Hollande spoke of France's "determination to put in place, with its European partners, a policy of firm, progressive sanctions," his office said.

In a call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday, Obama had warned that the EU and the United States should be prepared to meet further Russian escalations with tougher sanctions.

Washington and the EU have already imposed sanctions on key individuals in Crimea and officials around Putin and several Kremlin-linked firms.

Western nations have warned they could go after the Russian economy, including in the mining, finance and energy sectors, if Moscow does not change course.

But since such a move could also harm fragile European economies, they remain a political heavy lift for many of the continent's leaders.

The EU agreed to extend a list of asset freezes and visa bans on top Russian officials, but held off on tougher measures until after a meeting of key officials from the EU, United States, Ukraine and Russia in Geneva on Thursday.

Psaki defended the meeting, amid complaints in Washington that it was irrelevant to fast-escalating events.

"We feel there should always be an opportunity and an opening for diplomacy," she said.

As part of its steps to support Ukraine's tottering economy, Washington also formally signed a $1 billion loan guarantee for Kiev, passed by Congress earlier this month.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew signed the deal with Ukrainian Finance Minister Oleksandr Shlapak in Washington.

The choice on climate change is obvious, according to a new report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: We can spend money now on reducing fossil fuel usage, or we can see what how much climate change costs over the long run.

The United Nations, understandably, recommends the former. The IPCC report attempts to outline how the world's governments can mitigate the scenarios the group outlined earlier this month: increased drought, higher sea levels, reductions in food supplies, extinctions, damage to sea life. But how much does that mitigation cost?

Let's start with the key data.

Cost to GDP of climate change

We've created this table using information from the new climate report and other sources, to help give some insight into how the economics play out. The temperatures in the table below indicate the maximum warming by 2100.

The two key data points are in bold: how much it will cost to stay at the warming levels and the amount climate change will cost if we do. In other words, 2 degrees of warming means 0.24 to 2.14 percent lower GDP growth through 2100. Four degrees means 5 to 20 percent.

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There are several caveats and a lot of context that should be added. First, the context.

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Climate change is mostly linked to fossil fuel burning. When we're talking about climate change, we're talking mostly about burning coal and oil for energy. Since 2000, global production of carbon dioxide has increased 2.2 percent, according to one graph from the report (above), thanks to increases in CO2 production from fossil fuel burning. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere recently passed 400 ppm; as that level increases, temperatures will increase.

Climate change is underway; the debate is over how high temperatures get by the end of the century.Thanks to the increased amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, a certain amount of global warming is already happening, as the UN report (and common sense) indicates. The question is how bad it gets. A 1 degree increase over 20th century averages by the end of this century would mean far, far fewer negative effects than a 4 degree increase — currently envisioned as the worst-case scenario.

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Fighting climate change will reduce global productivity. The crux of the new report is the extent to which fighting climate change — reducing the use of coal, increasing efficiency for cars, etc. — will affect the economy. Global GDP is expected to expand year-over-year for the rest of the century. Investing in fighting climate change will reduce that amount somewhat.

Climate change will reduce global productivity. Of course, the negative effects of climate change will alsoreduce global productivity. And this is the biggest question mark from the IPCC: it isn't clear how much. But there is other information that provides a guide.

And now the caveats.

It is important to note that we are mixing sources in that first table. The range of costs to GDP comes from two charts produced in the IPCC report, one comparing how controlling CO2 emissions would cost the economy and the other showing how CO2 relates to temperature. [ SHOW CHARTS ] In both cases, we're dealing with ranges, not certainties.

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The economic costs from climate change itself comes from two sources. The range for a 2-degree increase is from the IPCC itself. But the 0.2 to 2 percent figure has come under fire for being too conservative. "The quoted figures of 0.2 to 2.0 percent of GDP (gross domestic product) are at best an under-estimate, and at worst completely meaningless," the British government complained, according to Reuters. That's because it's extremely difficult to predict precisely which of the negative effects will happen and to what scale. Will fisheries die out? Will drought ravage crops? Will flooding take thousands of lives? Probably some combination will happen, but it's hard to value. The costs for the 4-degree increase come from the 2006 Stern Reviewcompleted by the World Bank, which figured heavy costs to the economy at that temperature increase. In January 2013, the economist who conducted that review, Nicholas Stern, argued that reality was far, far worsethan his 2006 estimate. So that, too, may be an underestimate.

"Climate policy is not a free lunch," IPCC co-chairman Ottmar Edenhofer said at a press conference over the weekend, to point out that fighting climate change would be costly. But not fighting climate change is almost certainly going to be more costly, and with costs that are far harder to predict. Climate policy isn't a free lunch, but it would be nice if the world had enough food in 2100 to actually allow people to eat meals.

This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/04/the-main-climate-change-question-when-do-you-want-to-pay-for-it-and-how/360621/

Valparaiso (Chile) (AFP) - Chileans surveyed the smoking remains of homes charred in a fire in the historic port of Valparaiso, the city's worst-ever blaze that killed 15 people, mainly in poor neighbourhoods.

Pockets of the massive blaze remained active days after it erupted on Saturday, with the inferno so far having consumed 2,500 homes and left 11,000 homeless, according to Interior Minister Rodrigo Penailillo.

Although the fire has eased in intensity, the pockets could flare up again, the minister said.

But the weather forecast for Tuesday is for cooler, less windy and more humid weather which should help firefighters, he said.

The cause of the fire remained under investigation.

The city, an architectural gem located about 80 miles (120 kilometers) from the capital Santiago, is famed for its UNESCO-listed center with cobblestone streets and brightly painted wooden homes.

The fire broke out in woodland and, whipped up by winds, spread quickly.

Some of those who refused to leave their homes died when the flames swept through.

Hardest hit have been Valparaiso's poorer neighborhoods, perched precariously on the coastal city's tinder-dry hillsides, where dwellings built mostly of wood with tin roofs quickly became engulfed.

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A man walks as an out of control forest fire destroys homes in the city of Valparaiso, Chile, Sunday …

Health Minister Helia Molina declared a health alert starting Tuesday, which speeds up access to medicine and other basics. She said this was just a precautionary measure, and not because of any epidemic of disease.

Thick smoke settled over the city and ash from the fire rained down on its historic port, which so far has been spared the wrath of the blaze.

President Michelle Bachelet has declared the ravaged area a disaster zone, allowing the armed forces to assist in relief efforts and take control of security.

Army troops and volunteers from around the country climbed the hills to help people who lost everything in the fire. Aid shipments poured in.

Supervised by firefighters, youths with shovels took to removing debris from the fire.

"Up there in the hills is where the poorest people always are. They were left without anything," said Gabriela Gonzalez, a student in Valparaiso. "It is just wrong to stand by and do nothing."

At least 13 helicopters, six planes and 2,000 police and soldiers, in addition to battalions of firefighters, battled the blaze.

- 'We lost everything' -

Survivor Ericka Caceres said the first night she and her family spent in a shelter was rough for her family of seven, especially for her children, who had never been through an ordeal like this.

"We ended up with the clothes on our backs, in the street. We lost everything," she told AFP.

Other Chileans rallied to donate diapers, powdered milk, clothes, water and other essentials. Fundraising football games were held Monday.

Experts said it might take days to put the fire out completely, both in the main hot spots and on the periphery to keep it from starting up again.

Some residents -- including a few who later died -- had refused the order to evacuate for fear of losing their possessions to flames or looters, even though police and emergency crews guarded the streets.

"I will not let go of what little I have. This represents 15 years of effort, and until I can no longer see my house, I will not leave it. My wife and my four children are in a shelter," said Arturo Gomez.

The blaze sparked the second mass evacuation in Valparaiso in as many weeks after the city was at the center of a tsunami alert following a magnitude 8.2 earthquake on April 1.

Valparaiso's golden era was from the mid-19th century to the early 20th as a stopover point for ships steaming down South America and to round its southern tip into the Atlantic Ocean.

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A massive blaze kills at least 12 people and ravages a large part of Valparaiso, forcing evacuations.
Stunning images, video

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke for the first time in more than two weeks but showed little sign of agreement Monday, with the U.S. leader urging pro-Russian forces to de-escalate the situation in eastern Ukraine and Putin denying that Moscow was interfering in the region.

The White House said Russia initiated the phone call, which came as pro-Russian forces deepened their insurgency in Ukraine's east, seizing more than a dozen government buildings.

"The president expressed grave concern about Russian government support for the actions of armed, pro-Russian separatists who threaten to undermine and destabilize the government of Ukraine," the White House said in a description of Obama's call with Putin. "The president emphasized that all irregular forces in the country need to lay down their arms, and he urged President Putin to use his influence with these armed, pro-Russian groups to convince them to depart the buildings they have seized."

In its own description of the call, the Kremlin said Putin told Obama reports of Russian interference in the region were "based on unreliable information." The Russian leader also urged Obama to discourage the Ukrainian government from using force against those protesters.

Both sides did suggest that plans would go forward for talks on Thursday in Geneva between the U.S., Russia, Ukraine and Europe. But the White House said Obama told Putin that while a diplomatic solution remained his preferred option, "it cannot succeed in an environment of Russian military intimidation on Ukraine's borders, armed provocation within Ukraine, and escalatory rhetoric by Kremlin officials."

U.S. officials say there is compelling evidence that Russia is fomenting the unrest in eastern Ukraine, but have suggested Obama has not yet concluded that Putin's actions warrant broader sanctions on key Russian economic sectors.

"We are actively evaluating what is happening in eastern Ukraine, what actions Russia has taken, what transgressions they've engaged in," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "And we are working with our partners and assessing for ourselves what response we may choose."

Administration officials confirmed Monday that CIA chief John Brennan visited the Ukrainian capital of Kiev over the weekend, breaking with the administration's typical practice of not disclosing the director's travel. Ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych accused Brennan of being behind Ukraine's decision to send troops into the east to try to quash an increasingly brazen pro-Russian insurgency.

While U.S. officials denied those accusations, confirmation of Brennan's visit could provide fodder for Russian officials to create a pretext for further incursions into eastern Ukraine.

Obama and Putin last spoke on March 28. Since then, pro-Russian forces have undertaken a rampage of storming and occupying local government offices, police stations and a small airport in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian government has proved powerless to rein in the separatists, who are demanding more autonomy from the central government in Kiev and closer ties to Russia.

The White House has blamed the unrest on Russia, saying there are undeniable similarities between the situation in eastern Ukraine and the Kremlin's maneuvers in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Russia annexed from Ukraine last month.

"The evidence is compelling that Russia is supporting these efforts and involved in these efforts," Carney said. "You saw this coordinated effort in a number of cities across eastern Ukraine all at once that sure didn't look organic to observers from the outside."

Despite those assertions, it was unclear whether the U.S. planned to respond with deeper economic penalties. Obama has repeatedly warned that Russian advances into eastern Ukraine would mark a serious escalation of the crisis that would warrant a stronger international response, including the prospect of sanctions on Russia's energy sector and other key industries.

But the administration has avoided saying whether Russia's actions in the east thus far have crossed that line. U.S. officials are also still trying to rally support for sector sanctions from Europe, which has a far deeper economic relationship with Russia and would therefore be more likely to be negatively affected by the penalties.

As part of that effort, Obama spoke Monday with French President Francois Hollande. The French leader said in a statement that he and Obama discussed the importance of avoiding provocations in Ukraine and establishing a policy of strong and calibrated sanctions along with other European partners.

A high-ranking European Union official said foreign ministers did decide Monday to sanction more Russians with asset freezes and visa bans, though they appeared to stop short of the broader penalties on Russia's economy.

___

Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Nedra Pickler in Washington and Greg Keller in Paris contributed to this report.

Obama, Putin in another phone confrontation

Vladimir Putin calls U.S. charges of Moscow meddling in Ukraine "unfounded," the Kremlin says. Little sign of progress