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The rate at which some of the world's glaciers are melting has more than doubled, data from the United Nations Environment Programme has shown.

Average glacial shrinkage has risen from 30 centimetres per year between 1980 and 1999, to 1.5 metres in 2006.

Some of the biggest losses have occurred in the Alps and Pyrenees mountain ranges in Europe.

Experts have called for "immediate action" to reverse the trend, which is seen as a key climate change indicator.

Estimates for 2006 indicate shrinkage of 1.4 metres of 'water equivalent' compared to half a metre in 2005.

Achim Steiner, Under-Secretary General of the UN and executive director of its environment programme (UNEP), said: "Millions if not billions of people depend directly or indirectly on these natural water storage facilities for drinking water, agriculture, industry and power generation during key parts of the year.

"There are many canaries emerging in the climate change coal mine. The glaciers are perhaps among those making the most noise and it is absolutely essential that everyone sits up and takes notice.

Litmus test

He said that action was already being taken and pointed out that the elements of a green economy were emerging from the more the money invested in renewable energies.

Mr Steiner went on: "The litmus test will come in late 2009 at the climate convention meeting in Copenhagen.

"Here governments must agree on a decisive new emissions reduction and adaptation-focused regime. Otherwise, and like the glaciers, our room for manoeuvre and the opportunity to act may simply melt away."

Dr Ian Willis, of the Scott Polar Research Institute, said: "It is not too late to stop the shrinkage of these ice sheets but we need to take action immediately."

The findings were compiled by the World Glacier Monitoring Service which is supported by UNEP. Thickening and thinning is calculated in terms of 'water equivalent'.

Glaciers across nine mountain ranges were analysed.

Dr. Wilfried Haeberli, director of the service, said: "The latest figures are part of what appears to be an accelerating trend with no apparent end in sight.

"This continues the trend in accelerated ice loss during the past two and a half decades and brings the total loss since 1980 to more than 10.5 metres of water equivalent."

During 1980-1999, average loss rates had been 0.3 metres per year. Since the turn of the millennium, this rate had increased to about half a metre per year.

The record annual loss during these two decades - 0.7 metres in 1998 - has now been exceeded by three out of the past six year (2003, 2004 and 2006).

On average, one metre water equivalent corresponds to 1.1 metres in ice thickness. That suggests a further shrinking in 2006 of 1.5 actual metres and since 1980 a total reduction in thickness of ice of just over 11.5 metres or almost 38 feet.

In its entirety, the research includes figures from around 100 glaciers, with data showing significant shrinkage taking place in European countries including Austria, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.

Norway's Breidalblikkbrea glacier thinned by almost 3.1 metres in one of the largest reductions.

BBC News

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Male fertility problems are determined in the womb, research from the University of Edinburgh suggests.



Common genital disorders, low sperm count and testicular cancer could all be linked to hormone levels early in pregnancy, studies in rats suggest.

It was found that levels of male hormones, such as testosterone, in a critical "window" at 8-12 weeks determine future reproductive health.

The results are published online in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Problems with reproductive development such as the testes not descending properly into the scrotum (cryptorchidism) or the urinary tract opening in the wrong place on the penis (hypospadias) are fairly common in young boys.

Other disorders, such as low sperm counts and testicular cancer, are thought to be part of the same pathway.

Using the mouse model, researchers at the Medical Research Council Human Reproductive Sciences Unit found the disorders resulted from low levels of male hormones - or androgens - at the equivalent to 8-12 weeks human gestation.

They also found that the level of androgen hormone at this time was related to the distance between the base of the penis and the anus.

This measurement could be an early warning system of future reproductive problems in baby boys, they said.

It could also give insights into links between hormones in the womb and fertility problems in later life.

Timeline

Study leader, Dr Michelle Welsh, said: "We know from other studies that androgens work during foetal development to programme the reproductive tract.

"But our assumption was that it would be much later in pregnancy."

She added the anogenital measurement would be a useful tool.

"Say a clinician were to examine a 30-year-old man with testicular cancer - previously there would have been no way of knowing what hormones he was exposed to in the womb.

"We would suggest that this measurement, even at this later stage in life, could offer an indication of hormone exposure."

"For example, the shorter the distance, the less confident we can be that hormones have acted correctly and at the right time."

Co-author, Professor Richard Sharpe, said around 7% of boys had cryptorchidism and low sperm counts affect as many as one in five young men.

Dr Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in andrology at the University of Sheffield, said scientists had been worried for many years about the increasing incidence of problems resulting from disrupted development of the male reproductive system during pregnancy.

"Understandably, this is almost impossible to study in humans directly and so animal models are needed to unravel the precise details.

"To use the adult anogenital distance as a proxy marker of foetal exposure in utero is a good suggestion and I would encourage studies to investigate how well this correlates with problems of the male reproductive system."

BBC News

[OMEN]

GRIPPING: Police arrest a Tibetan protester in the Nepali capital Kathmandu. Tibetan refugees in Nepal are demanding justice in front of the UN office in Kathmandu over the crackdown on Tibetans by Chinese authorities, just one of the many protests going on worldwide.
Ethnic Tibetan students have staged a candle-lit vigil in Beijing, saying it was to pray for the dead, hours before a midnight deadline warning anti-Chinese rioters in the Tibetan capital to surrender.
Police kept reporters well away from the peaceful protest by dozens of apparently ethnic Tibetan students gathered inside the Central University for Nationalities.

It was a small, rare show of defiance in the host city of this year's Olympic Games, where Communist Party authorities are especially eager to prevent public shows of dissent.

"It was only to pray for the souls of the dead," said an ethnic Tibetan student from northwest China's Gansu province, who was kept away from the sit-in by security guards.

The vigil was broken up by authorities hours before a deadline in Tibet's regional capital, Lhasa, for protesters who rioted through the city on Friday to hand themselves in to police or face harsher treatment afterward.

Exiled representatives of Tibet in Dharamsala in India on Sunday put the death toll in Friday's protests against Chinese rule at 80.

Qiangba Puncog, chairman of the Tibet regional government, said only 13 "innocent civilians" had been killed and dozens of security personnel injured.

A Tibetan shopkeeper near Lhasa's marketplace, badly hit by the violence, said he had not heard of anyone surrendering to the police or informing on suspected rioters.

"We are just waiting for the time to pass," he said.

As the deadline approached, a Chinese spokesman told reporters his government would not compromise with Tibet's exiled Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, or re-examine its policies in Tibet.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said the often bloody unrest had been organised by the Dalai Lama's followers at home and abroad.

"It's not an ethnic issue, not a religious issue or a cultural one," he said. "At the root, it's the fundamental problem of the Dalai clique seeking to separate Tibet from China."

The Dalai Lama says he wants autonomy for Tibet within China but not outright independence, and he has strongly rejected the allegation that he launched the protests.

RESTRAINT AND TROOP CONVOYS

China said it had shown great restraint in the face of violent protests by Tibetans and Lhasa was returning to order.

Troops poured into areas neighbouring Tibet which are largely inhabited by ethnic Tibetans but ethnic Tibetan people there said angry anti-Chinese demonstrations were still sporadically erupting.

An ethnic Tibetan in remote, mountainous Aba prefecture in Sichuan province said fresh protests flared near two Tibetan schools on Monday, with hundreds of students facing police and troops.

About 40 students from a high school for Tibetans in Maertang county, Aba, were beaten and arrested for protesting, the Dharamsala-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy later said. Repeated calls to the school went unanswered.

The resident, who asked not be identified, said 18 people, including Buddhist monks and students, had been killed when troops opened fire on Sunday. Earlier a policeman was burned to death, he said. His account could not be immediately verified.

The violence of the past week is likely to weigh uncomfortably on the Chinese state, anxious to polish its image in the build-up to the Games.

"If the Tibetans in Lhasa take to the streets again in large numbers and really challenge the Chinese authorities, I think we'll see a very harsh crackdown," said Kenneth Lieberthal, a political scientist at the University of Michigan.

INTERNATIONAL REACTION

The European Union has called on both authorities and protesters to refrain from violence and said a boycott of the Olympics would not be the right answer.

Russia said it hoped China would do what was necessary to curtail "unlawful actions" in Tibet. A brief Russian Foreign Ministry statement made no criticism of Beijing.

There have been daily pro-Tibet protests around the world since last Monday. On Sunday, French police used tear gas against around 500 demonstrators at the Chinese embassy in Paris, and there were incidents at missions in New York and Australia.

"We strongly condemn the violent action of Tibet independence activists," spokesman Liu said, denouncing attacks on its missions abroad.

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959 and set up a government-in-exile in Dharamsala, northern India.

Spokesman Liu said the riots were a blow to the Dalai Lama's claim to support peaceful protest. "His act is getting harder and harder to keep up," Liu said.

Reuters