WASHINGTON (AP) — Biofuels made from the leftovers of harvested corn plants are worse than gasoline for global warming in the short term, a study shows, challenging the Obama administration's conclusions that they are a much cleaner oil alternative and will help combat climate change.

A $500,000 study paid for by the federal government and released Sunday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change concludes that biofuels made with corn residue release 7 percent more greenhouse gases in the early years compared with conventional gasoline.

While biofuels are better in the long run, the study says they won't meet a standard set in a 2007 energy law to qualify as renewable fuel.

The conclusions deal a blow to what are known as cellulosic biofuels, which have received more than a billion dollars in federal support but have struggled to meet volume targets mandated by law. About half of the initial market in cellulosics is expected to be derived from corn residue.

The biofuel industry and administration officials immediately criticized the research as flawed. They said it was too simplistic in its analysis of carbon loss from soil, which can vary over a single field, and vastly overestimated how much residue farmers actually would remove once the market gets underway.

"The core analysis depicts an extreme scenario that no responsible farmer or business would ever employ because it would ruin both the land and the long-term supply of feedstock. It makes no agronomic or business sense," said Jan Koninckx, global business director for biorefineries at DuPont.

Later this year the company is scheduled to finish a $200 million-plus facility in Nevada, Iowa, that will produce 30 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol using corn residue from nearby farms. An assessment paid for by DuPont said that the ethanol it will produce there could be more than 100 percent better than gasoline in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

The research is among the first to attempt to quantify, over 12 Corn Belt states, how much carbon is lost to the atmosphere when the stalks, leaves and cobs that make up residue are removed and used to make biofuel, instead of left to naturally replenish the soil with carbon. The study found that regardless of how much corn residue is taken off the field, the process contributes to global warming.

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FILE - This Jan. 9, 2009, file photo shows equipment inside a pilot plant in Scotland, S.D., that tu …

"I knew this research would be contentious," said Adam Liska, the lead author and an assistant professor of biological systems engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "I'm amazed it has not come out more solidly until now."

The Environmental Protection Agency's own analysis, which assumed about half of corn residue would be removed from fields, found that fuel made from corn residue, also known as stover, would meet the standard in the energy law. That standard requires cellulosic biofuels to release 60 percent less carbon pollution than gasoline.

Cellulosic biofuels that don't meet that threshold could be almost impossible to make and sell. Producers wouldn't earn the $1 per gallon subsidy they need to make these expensive fuels and still make a profit. Refiners would shun the fuels because they wouldn't meet their legal obligation to use minimum amounts of next-generation biofuels.

EPA spokeswoman Liz Purchia said in a statement that the study "does not provide useful information relevant to the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions from corn stover ethanol."

But an AP investigation last year found that the EPA's analysis of corn-based ethanol failed to predict the environmental consequences accurately.

The departments of Agriculture and Energy have initiated programs with farmers to make sure residue is harvested sustainably. For instance, farmers will not receive any federal assistance for conservation programs if too much corn residue is removed.

A peer-reviewed study performed at the Energy Department's Argonne National Laboratory in 2012 found that biofuels made with corn residue were 95 percent better than gasoline in greenhouse gas emissions. That study assumed some of the residue harvested would replace power produced from coal, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but it's unclear whether future biorefineries would do that.

Liska agrees that using some of the residue to make electricity, or planting cover crops, would reduce carbon emissions. But he did not include those in his computer simulation.

Still, corn residue is likely to be a big source early on for cellulosic biofuels, which have struggled to reach commercial scale. Last year, for the fifth time, the EPA proposed reducing the amount required by law. It set a target of 17 million gallons for 2014. The law envisioned 1.75 billion gallons being produced this year.

"The study says it will be very hard to make a biofuel that has a better greenhouse gas impact than gasoline using corn residue," which puts it in the same boat as corn-based ethanol, said David Tilman, a professor at the University of Minnesota who has done research on biofuels' emissions from the farm to the tailpipe.

Tilman said it was the best study on the issue he has seen so far.

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Study: Corn-waste biofuels not better than gas

Fuel made from corn-plant residue won't meet renewable fuel standards set by a 2007 energy law, the study concludes.
EPA disagrees

Kiev (AFP) - Russia on Monday accused Ukraine of flouting an international accord meant to diffuse the crisis over its separatist east, as US Vice President Joe Biden was to about to arrive in Kiev in a show of support for its pro-Western leaders.

"The Geneva accord is not only not being fulfilled, but steps are being taken, primarily by those who seized power in Kiev, that are grossly breaching the agreements reached," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a Moscow press conference.

He was retaliating to charges from Washington that Moscow is dragging its feet on implementation of the accord hammered out last Thursday in Geneva between Russia, Ukraine, the United States and the European Union.

The pact has been badly undermined by a deadly weekend shootout in Ukraine's restive east on Sunday, and an obstinate refusal to stand down by pro-Kremlin militants who have seized control of nearly a dozen towns in the region.

The accord calls for all "illegal armed groups" in Ukraine to surrender their weapons and halt the occupation of public buildings and other sites.

Washington has warned Moscow -- which it believes is pulling the strings in Ukraine's insurgency -- that time is running out for the accord to be put into practice.

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A pro-Russia activist hangs a flag of the so-called "People's Republic of Donetsk" on …

But Moscow in turn has cautioned that it will not tolerate further US sanctions if the deal falls apart, while stressing that it has tens of thousands of troops massed on Ukraine's doorstep.

It says Ukraine's leaders -- whom it sees as illegitimate -- are using force against the separatist "protesters". It also wants to see anti-Russian demonstrators in Kiev cease their occupation of the capital's main square in line with the Geneva agreement.

A bullish Lavrov said that efforts to cut Moscow off from the international community through sanctions would prove fruitless.

"Attempts to isolate Russia have absolutely no future because isolating Russia from the rest of the world is impossible," he said.

The crisis is the worst buffeting of East-West relations since the Cold War.

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Map of eastern Ukraine locating the town of Slavyansk, scene of a deadly gun battle Sunday (AFP Phot …

Biden was expected to reassure Ukrainian leaders of America's continued support during his two-day visit to Kiev.

The White House said he would "consult on the latest developments in east Ukraine" during his trip.

On Monday Biden was due to speak with US embassy officials in the Ukrainian capital. On Tuesday he was to meet with the country's interim president, Oleksandr Turchynov, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and lawmakers.

The United States and its NATO allies have bolstered military deployments in eastern Europe. Washington and Brussels have also pledged billions to shore up Ukraine's battered economy.

- 'Virtual war' -

Several people dead after shooting attack on Ukrai …Play Video

In Ukraine's east, the situation appeared calm Monday, with insurgents still firmly entrenched in public buildings they have occupied for over a week.

"There was no shooting overnight," Yevgen Gorbik, a rebel wearing camouflage and a military cap and standing at a barricade in the flashpoint town of Slavyansk, told AFP.

"We will only shoot if attacked," he added.

Gorbik summed up the bellicose posturing and political jockeying by saying: "Currently, we have a virtual president in Ukraine, a virtual army, and a virtual war."

On Sunday, though, the bullets were real in a shootout at a roadblock near the rebel-held town of Slavyansk that killed at least two of the separatist militants.

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Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, pictured in Moscow, on April 21, 2014 (AFP Photo/Vasily …

Pro-Moscow insurgents in Slavyansk and the Kremlin blamed the attack on Pravy Sektor ("Right Sector"), an ultra-nationalist group at the vanguard of Kiev street protests that forced the February ouster of pro-Moscow former president Viktor Yanukovych.

But Ukrainian officials and Pravy Sektor dismissed the allegation as Russian "propaganda". They ridiculed the purported discovery of a business card belonging to the leader of Pravy Sektor in one of the attackers' cars, which Russian media had claimed was proof of the group's involvement.

The self-styled leader of Slavyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, said a total of three rebels and two attackers had died in the attack, though AFP saw the bodies of only two militants.

Ponomaryov announced a midnight-to-dawn curfew in the town and appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to deploy troops to the region as "peacekeepers" -- or at least send weapons to help fight the "fascists".

Russia's foreign ministry issued a statement after the gunfight expressing its "outrage" at the violence.

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A woman takes a picture of her son standing by an armed man in military fatigues guarding a barricad …

- OSCE to triple monitors -

A spokesman in Kiev for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is monitoring implementation of the Geneva agreement, told AFP there was "no confirmation" of the separatists leaving occupied buildings.

Spokesman Michael Bociurkiw said the OSCE planned this week to triple the number of monitors in the country. Currently there are 100, with more than half of them in the east, where they were facing difficulties in travelling through rebel roadblocks.

Putin last week belatedly admitted the Russian military played a role in Crimea, but continues to deny that his army is operating in east Ukraine.

Nevertheless, he asserts he has a "right" to send in forces to his eastern neighbour, which shares historical and linguistic ties with Russia.

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Biden heads to Ukraine to support Kiev's leaders

The vice president begins a two-day visit to the country as Washington and Moscow trade warnings.
A 'virtual war' plays out

CHIBOK, Nigeria (AP) — Some 234 girls are missing from the northeast Nigerian school attacked last week by Islamic extremists, significantly more than the 85 reported by education officials, parents told the state governor Monday.

The higher figure came out a week after the kidnappings when the Borno state governor insisted a military escort take him to the town. Parents told the governor that officials would not listen to them when they drew up their list of names of missing children and the total reached 234.

The discrepancy in the figures could not immediately be resolved.

Security officials had warned Gov. Kashim Shettima that it was too dangerous for him to drive to Chibok, 130 kilometers (80 miles) from Maiduguri, the Borno state capital and birthplace of the Boko Haram terrorist network blamed for the abductions.

Borno state education commission Musa Inuwo Kubo and the principal of the Chibok Government Girls Secondary School had initially said that 129 science students were at the school to write a physics exam when the abductors struck, after midnight on April 14. Twenty-eight pupils escaped from their captors between Tuesday and Friday. Then another 16 were found to be day scholars who had returned to their homes in Chibok before the attack. That left 85 missing students, according to school officials.

This latest confusion comes after the military had reported last week that all but eight of those abducted had been rescued — but then retracted the claim the following day.

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Security men stand guard in front of a bus conveying All progressives Congress opposition governors …

Security sources have said they are in "hot pursuit" of the abductors, but so far they have not rescued any of the girls and young women, aged between 16 and 18.

Parents and other town residents have joined the search for the students in the Sambisa Forest which borders Chibok town and is a known hideout for the militants.

The kidnappings are believed to have been carried out by Nigeria's Islamic extremist rebels, known as Boko Haram. Boko Haram — the nickname means "Western education is sinful" — is violently campaigning to establish an Islamic Shariah state in Nigeria, whose 170 million people are about half Muslim and half Christian. Boko Haram has been abducting some girls and young women in attacks on schools, villages and towns but last week's mass kidnapping is unprecedented. The extremists use the young women as porters, cooks and sex slaves, according to Nigerian officials.

Boko Haram was on a rampage last week, staging four attacks in three days that began with a massive explosion during rush hour at a busy bus station Monday morning in Abuja, the capital in the center of the country, which killed at least 75 people and wounded 141.

Nigeria's military and government had claimed to have the militants on the run and contained in a remote northeast corner on the border with Cameroon.

But extremist attacks have increased in frequency and become ever deadlier this year with more than 1,500 people killed so far, compared to an estimated 3,600 between 2010 and 2013.

Members of the Syrian parliament attend a session to set a date for voting for the presidential election,in Damascus April 21, 2014, in this handout photograph released by Syria's national news agency SANA. REUTERS/SANA/Handout via Reuters

By Alexander Dziadosz

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria announced a presidential election for June 3 on Monday, preparing the ground for Bashar al-Assad to defy widespread opposition and extend his grip on power, days after he said the civil war was turning in his favor.

Western and Gulf Arab countries that back Assad's opponents have called plans for an election a "parody of democracy" and said it would wreck efforts to negotiate a peace settlement.

United Nations-backed talks in Geneva collapsed in February with both sides far from agreement - not least over the question of whether Assad should go.

Monzer Akbik of the Western-backed National Coalition opposition group, told Reuters the election was a sign Assad was unwilling to seek a political solution to the conflict.

"This is a state of separation from reality, a state of denial. He didn't have any legitimacy before this theatrical election and he will not after," Akbik said.

"We do not know what actor he is putting up as an opponent but we are not taking this seriously."

Infighting has fragmented the anti-Assad forces, and several major opposition figures did not attend the Geneva talks.

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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (C) chats with people during his visit to Ein al-Tinah village, nor …

The European Union reiterated its stance against holding an election now, saying such a vote: "conducted in the midst of conflict, only in regime-controlled areas and with millions of Syrians displaced from their homes would be a parody of democracy, have no credibility whatsoever, and undermine efforts to reach a political solution."

The three-year-old rebellion against Assad has killed more than 150,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes and caused the government to lose control over swathes of territory.

PREPARATIONS FOR ASSAD

On Monday, 11 government and loyalist fighters were killed near Talbisah, an Alawite town north of the central city of Homs, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-Assad group based in Britain, said.

Alawites are followers of an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. Assad is Alawite and the bulk of his opponents are Sunni Muslims, who form the majority of Syria's population.

On Sunday, dozens of people were killed in air strikes in the northern city of Aleppo, the Observatory said, including 14 people in the Baeedeen neighborhood killed by "barrel bombs" - highly destructive improvised explosives dropped by helicopter, a tactic that Western countries have condemned as a war crime.

Gun battles, shelling and air strikes continue daily and the weekly death toll from the conflict regularly exceeds 1,000. The Observatory put Sunday's death toll at 273.

In Damascus, which has been spared the worst of the fighting, two people were killed by mortars fired by "terrorists", state news agency SANA said.

Although Assad has not explicitly said he will run for office again, preparations for his candidacy have already begun in state-controlled parts of the capital.

Announcing the election on state television, parliamentary speaker Mohamed Jihad al-Laham said requests for nomination would be accepted until May 1. Syrians outside the country would be able to vote at Syrian embassies on May 28, he said.

Parliament set residency rules for presidential candidates in March, a move that would bar many of Assad's foes who live in exile.

Assad said last week that the conflict had reached a "turning point" due to military gains against the rebels.

(Additional reporting by Dasha Afanasieva in Istanbul and Adrian Croft in Brussels; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)