Pope Francis delivers a speech during an audience for the participants of the Convention of the Diocese of Rome in St. Peter's square at the Vatican City, June 14, 2015. REUTERS/Giampiero Sposito

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The world could see the destruction of entire ecosystems this century without urgent action on climate change, Pope Francis says in a draft of his keenly awaited encyclical on the environment.

In the Italian version of the 192-page document, posted on Monday by the weekly magazine l'Espresso, the pope again backs scientists who say global warming is mostly man-made and that developed countries have a particular responsibility to stem a trend that will hurt the poor the most.

That position has been contested by conservatives, particularly in the United States, who have excoriated the first pontiff from Latin America for deploying scientific arguments.

The Vatican condemned the leak but did not deny the document's authenticity. It later informed veteran journalist Sandro Magister that his media credentials within the Holy See were being suspended indefinitely because the leak had caused "great turmoil".

A spokesman said the final version would remain under embargo until its scheduled release on Thursday.

Still, Italy's major newspapers published pages of excerpts in their Tuesday editions.

"If the current trend continues, this century could see unheard-of climate change and an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems, with grave consequences for all of us," Francis writes, according to the leaked version.

By making environmental protection a moral imperative, Francis' intervention could spur the world's 1.2 billion Catholics to lobby policymakers on ecology issues.

The pope has said he wants the document, called "Laudato Si (Be Praised), On the Care of Our Common Home", to be part of the debate at a major U.N. summit on climate change this year in Paris. He said on Sunday the document was addressed to all people, regardless of religion.

According to the leaked excerpts from the pope's six-chapter document, destined to become a signature document of his papacy, Francis speaks of "symptoms of a breaking point caused by the great speed of change and degradation".

It was not clear how advanced in the writing process the leaked document was nor how similar it would be to the final version. The leaked document bore the pope's signature in Latin.

"IMMENSE GARBAGE DUMP"

It confirmed what people familiar with the final version told Reuters last week about how the document addresses climate change and the man-made causes of global warming.

"The Earth, our home, increasingly seems to be transforming itself into an immense garbage dump," the pope writes.

He confronts climate change deniers head-on, saying there is a "very consistent scientific consensus that we are experiencing a worrying warming of the climactic system".

While acknowledging there are other factors, he says numerous studies have shown that global warming is caused by greenhouse gases emitted mainly because of human activities.

The encyclical urges rich nations to re-examine their "throw-away" lifestyle, an appeal Francis has made often since his election in 2013.

"Enormous consumption in some rich countries has repercussions in some of the poorest places on Earth," he says, according to the leaked draft.

The pope calls for a reduction in carbon emissions, an increase in policies that favor renewable energy and warns of the long-term effects of continuing to use fossil fuels as the main source of global energy.

He also rejects suggestions that population control would solve the environmental crisis, saying one of the main causes is "extreme consumerism".

(Editing by Louise Ireland)

Beijing (AFP) - A devastating earthquake that hit Nepal in April moved Mount Everest three centimetres (just over an inch) to the southwest, but did not change its height, according to Chinese research published on Tuesday.

The 7.8-magnitude quake reversed the gradual northeasterly course of the world's highest peak, which straddles Nepal and China, the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation found.

But its height -- usually given as 8,848 metres (29,029 feet) -- was unchanged by the disaster, according to the research, published in Chinese state media.

The report said Everest had moved 40 centimetres to the northeast over the past decade at a speed of four centimetres a year, and risen three centimetres over the same period.

Nepal rests on a major fault line between two tectonic plates -- one bearing India pushing northward into a plate carrying Europe and Asia at a rate of about two centimetres (three quarters of an inch) per year -- the process that created the Himalayas.

Roger Bilham, professor of geological science at the University of Colorado, agreed with the Chinese findings.

View gallery

Everest Base Camp shown on April 26, 2015, a day after an avalanche triggered by an earthquake cause …

But he said the focus should not be on Everest, calling the peak "a lump of uneroded rock that just happens to have survived a little bit higher than all the other rocks in the Himalaya".

"The Everest region was a mere bystander, and was pulled slightly by this movement by a few centimetres south and a little bit down," he told AFP in an email.

- Kathmandu shifts south -

More than 8,700 people were killed in the April 25 quake and a major aftershock on May 12, which also triggered landslides and destroyed half a million homes, leaving thousands without shelter.

View gallery

Local residents evacuate from a shop during an earthquake in central Kathmandu, Nepal, May 12, 2015. …

Scientists say the densely populated Kathmandu Valley, around 80 kilometres (50 miles) southeast of the epicentre, moved south by nearly two metres during the quake.

Nepal's government said it had not yet studied the impact on Everest but that quake-affected areas had moved south.

"We have been studying the core areas affected by the quake and there has been a general southward movement," said Madhu Sudan Adhikari, head of the survey department in Nepal's land ministry.

"Kathmandu has shifted south by over 1.5 metres and was uplifted by nearly a metre."

Everest's official height of 8,848 metres (29,029 feet) was determined by an Indian survey in 1954, but other measurements have varied by several metres.

China measures the peak four metres lower -- by excluding the snowcap -- while in 1999 an American team using GPS technology recorded a height of 8,850 metres, a figure used by the US National Geographic Society.

Everest was first measured in 1856, nearly 100 years before it was conquered by Sherpa Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary.

In 2010, Nepal and China reached a compromise under which Nepal measured the height of Everest's snowcap at 8,848 metres and China measured the rock peak at 8,844 metres.

The April quake triggered an avalanche that hit Everest base camp, killing 18 people and ending the brief spring climbing season.

Authorities in China -- where the less popular northern route up the mountain is located -- also cancelled all climbs for this year.

WABC – NY
Queens college student charged with planning attacks on behalf of ISIS

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. authorities have accused a New York City college student of plotting to set off a pressure cooker bomb in the city in support of the militant group Islamic State, according to court documents made public on Tuesday.

Munther Omar Saleh, 20, was arrested early on Saturday morning after he and another man got out of their car and ran toward a surveillance vehicle that had been tracking their movements, according to documents filed in federal court in Brooklyn.

A defense lawyer for Saleh could not be identified on Tuesday. The other man, who was also arrested, was not named in the court documents and could not immediately be identified.

U.S. authorities have charged a number of so-called “lone wolf” plotters in recent months who have apparently been inspired by Islamic State, and authorities have said they are pursuing similar cases in all 50 states.

A federal agent said in court papers that Saleh, a resident of the New York City borough of Queens, spent hours online researching how to build a pressure cooker bomb and reading accounts of the deadly 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

In numerous online postings, Saleh expressed support for the Islamic State and at one point posted on Twitter, in an apparent reference to the militant group Al Qaeda, "I fear AQ could be getting too moderate,” according to court papers.

He also praised various militant attacks, including the January massacre at the headquarters of the magazine Charlie Hebdo in France and murders carried out by Islamic State, authorities said.

A police officer observed Saleh on successive days in March on foot at the George Washington Bridge, which connects New Jersey and New York, seemingly looking around, the court papers said.

The behavior prompted officers to interview Saleh, who denied sympathizing with Islamic State and granted them permission to examine his computer, authorities said. Investigators found the computer contained Islamic State propaganda, according to court filings.

Saleh is studying at a college that specializes in aeronautics, the court papers said.

The complaint filed against Saleh mentions a third unnamed co-conspirator but does not say an arrest has been made.

A spokeswoman for the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney’s office, which is prosecuting the case, declined to comment.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Bernard Orr)