Visitors to the Paris Auto show watch the new Ferrari F430 put on display at the Paris Mondial de L'Automobile. (Reuters Photo)

PARIS, Sept. 25--The Paris Motor Show, one of the top automobile showcases in the world, opens its doors Saturday to a public keen to see the latest dream vehicles and redesigned people movers the industry has come up with, AFP reported.
The two-week event is the most visited in the world, with around 1.5 million people filing through its vast halls packed with gleaming sedans, SUVs, sports cars and concept cars, many of them more pretty than practical.
Porsche, Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, Rolls-Royce, BMW, Citroen, Fiat, Kia, Ford and General Motors are among the major brands all presenting their latest models on stands artfully lit and often accessorized with multilingual young women.
The major trend to be seen this year is a declination of the SUV craze, with the urban pseudo-off-roaders shrunken down to more manageable dimensions in a concession to sky-high oil prices, pollution concerns and growing resistance by some cities around the world to seeing them add to traffic problems.
For the carmakers selling to European and US consumers especially, the show represented ambitions to pull the industry out of a chronic slump that has hurt profits. US companies in particular are keen to show that the ferocious competition in both oversupplied regions will not scare them away.
Porsche, BMW and Ferrari are unveiling their latest sports cars, all designed to make motor heads and wealthy F1 aficionados drool over their excessive horsepower and racetrack-ready speeds.
The more rarefied marques of Rolls-Royce and its upstart competitor Maybach are displaying their limousines costing hundreds of thousands of euros (dollars) and which they are positioning to tempt increasingly wealthy Asian customers.
Ecologically friendly cars from Citroen (a model boasting a stop-start engine that cuts off at standstill to reduce carbon dioxide emissions), BMW (a car with a hydrogen-powered engine capable of hitting 300 kph) and so-called hybrid vehicles from Toyota and Honda relying on fuel and electricity also feature.
In the cute category, Italian scooter manufacturer Piaggio and other companies are boasting their tiny four-wheelers pushed along by lawnmower-sized motors.

WASHINGTON,
Sept. 25--Afghanistan must break out of its vicious cycle of insecurity, informal economy and drugs to end poverty and violence gripping the country for three decades, AFP quoted the World Bank as saying in a report on Friday.
It was the bank's first economic report on Afghanistan in a quarter century and came ahead of landmark presidential elections October 9.
The World Bank said up to 90 percent of Afghanistan was an informal economy, denying the government of much needed taxes and other revenue to develop the country.
Furthermore, most donor funding do not cover cost of crucial government administrative functions.
The report said the country's future prospects "depend on whether the political leadership can free it from a vicious cycle in which a largely informal economy, the opium trade, and violence reinforce each other. "This has hindered state-building activities, and undermined development efforts," it said.
William Byrd, the bank's senior economic advisor, said addressing the key problems of insecurity, state building, reconstruction, and drugs in a timely, coordinated manner was "absolutely pivotal" to determining which path the country would follow in coming years.
The World Bank re-entered Afghanistan in 2001 after shunning work there during the more than two decades of conflict there.
Byrd, who has spent the last three years working on Afghanistan issues, said the Afghanistan economy was recovering "but 80 to 90 percent of it, including the opium trade, was informal. This meant entrepreneurs cannot become sizable registered businesses, and the government cannot collect revenue, he said.
"In turn, a weak government with insufficient funds and technical expertise cannot provide the economy with the support it needs to grow, nor can it provide the people with the security from violence and the social services they need to thrive," Byrd said.

BERLIN, Sept. 25--A majority of Germans now backs Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's economic reforms, according to a survey published on Friday before local elections on Sunday that are expected to confirm he has halted an opinion poll slump, AFP reported.
The survey showed 48 percent of Germans were generally in favor of the government's health, pension, labor market and tax reforms, with 45 percent opposed.
It was the first time the survey by the Electoral Research Group showed more Germans in favor of the reforms than against.
In February, 55 percent had been opposed to them with 35 percent in favor.
The poll is good news for Schroeder after 18 months of regional election routs, internal SPD revolts and street protests against the biggest welfare cuts in half a century.
SPD leaders have been celebrating what they see as the first signs of a comeback after the party managed to hold onto power in an election in the eastern state of Brandenburg last Sunday, while the opposition conservatives suffered major losses.
The reforms, which will lead to jobless benefit cuts for many of the country's long-term unemployed, have outraged many Germans used to generous welfare provisions, but are seen as crucial to cutting unemployment and boosting economic growth.
The monthly poll, commissioned by ZDF television, also showed Schroeder's Social Democrats advancing one point to 27 percent. The opposition conservative Christian Democrats were still well in the lead, but down one point at 44 percent.
The poll comes ahead of local elections on Sunday in the Social Democrat heartland of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state with a population of 18 million.

Elche, Spain,
Sept. 25--Several hundred people have taken to the streets for a second day in the Spanish town of Elche to protest against Chinese-owned shoe firms, BBC reported.
Elche is the capital of Spain's footwear industry and has been hard hit by Asian competition.
Some protesters held banners reading "Chinese out" - others smashed windows.
Last week, the protest took a more menacing turn when two Chinese-owned warehouses and a lorry belonging to a Chinese entrepreneur were set on fire.
The attacks caused damage estimated at hundreds of thousands of euros.
Several arrests were made, but the Chinese government has asked the Spanish authorities to compensate the businesses for their losses and to safeguard Chinese citizens and their property in Spain.
Elche, located in the south-east of the country, is the capital of Spain's once flourishing footwear industry.
Many Spanish manufacturers blame their current crisis on cheap Asian imports.
The protesters in Elche say the unfair competition is not just a matter of cut-price products. A significant proportion of Chinese-imported goods in Spain is untaxed and sold on black markets, making it impossible, they say, for legal businesses to compete.

A Shell platform and refinery in the Niger Delta

LAGOS, Nigeria, Sept. 25--Multinational oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell has evacuated non-essential staff from two oilfields in Nigeria where troops are fighting a major offensive against rebel militia, Reuters quoted a spokesman as saying.
The decision to withdraw 235 workers was taken as a precaution after the company noted troop movements on Thursday around the Soku and Ekulama fields, about 30 miles (40 km) west of the southern city of Port Harcourt, he added. Oil production was not affected.
"We noticed the movement of troops to the Soku and Ekulama areas where we have flow stations and for security reasons we had to evacuate non-essential staff," the spokesman said.
"We have not heard of any exchange of fire, but we sense there may be clashes."
Companies are on a heightened state of alert after a commander of the rebel Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF) told Reuters on Thursday that they would attack oil installations unless the military halted a two-week-old
operation to flush out what it calls armed bandits from their river hideouts in the remote area of mangrove swamps and creeks.
Nigerian troops fired on an NDPVF camp using helicopter gunships last week, killing several militants.
An army spokesman said troops raided a village near the Shell oilfields, but met no resistance from suspected militants hiding there.
"Soldiers went in to continue their cordon and search operations to track down the gangsters," the spokesman said.
"Our people recovered communications gadgets, but when the gangsters spotted the soldiers they ran away."
Companies fear a repeat of last year's uprising in the nearby Delta state by members of the Ijaw tribe, who are in majority in the region, which forced companies to shut 40 percent of Nigeria's production.

MOSCOW, Sept. 25--China said Friday it would back Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization but failed to win a commitment from Moscow to build an oil pipeline Beijing sees as critical to meet growing energy needs, AFP reported.
Speaking to reporters, visiting Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said an accord formally ending Sino-Russian negotiations on WTO membership was expected to be signed next month when Russian President Vladimir Putin visits Beijing.
"This is the most important result of our meeting," Wen was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying after talks with his Russian counterpart, Mikhail Fradkov.
"The two sides have agreed to sign documents confirming Russia's accession to the WTO in the framework of bilateral relations," Fradkov was quoted as saying.
Russia on Tuesday secured South Korea's agreement for Russian accession to the WTO during a visit to Moscow by South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun.
In May, the European Union gave the green light to Russia's membership of the Geneva-based body which sets global trade rules. But Russia, which is hoping to join the trade organization in 2005, still needs to complete accession deals on a bilateral basis with nearly 20 countries, notably Japan and the United States.
Beijing's public expression of backing for Russia was nonetheless an important success for Moscow, which meanwhile kept China guessing about future expansion of its access to Russia's vast oil and gas reserves.
A succession of top Russian officials in Moscow and abroad gave conflicting signals on which route would be selected for a new pipeline linking Siberia's oil fields to north Asia.
China favors an option for a new pipeline that would terminate there, while Japan has backed a proposal for the link to run to Russia's Far East port of Nakhodka, directly opposite Japan.
Russia's ambassador to Tokyo told AFP there that Moscow had already made its decision and had opted for Nakhodka. But several top officials in Moscow taking part in talks during Wen's visit said no decision had been reached.

LOS ANGELES, USA,
Sept. 25--Air quality regulators in California on Friday approved the world's toughest controls on car exhaust to combat greenhouse gases, leaving US auto makers fuming, AFP reported.
The seven-member California Air Resources Board unanimously adopted the measure that will apply to new passenger cars, sports utility vehicles (SUVs) and pick-up trucks starting in 2009.
"This landmark decision sets a course for California that is likely to be copied throughout the US and other countries," said the board's chairman Alan Lloyd in a statement.
The rules are expected to slash greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles by an average of 22 percent by 2012 and by 30 percent in 2016, officials said.
"It's good for the economy, creating jobs ... but more importantly it's good for public health," he said, following the passage of the measure that is likely to be opposed by the administration of President George W. Bush.
But auto industry officials vowed to contest the decision in court, contending that the groundbreaking measure would raise the price of new vehicles by up to $3,000 and would not lower the risk of illness.
"This is an issue about balancing the benefits and there are no apparent environmental health benefits for a very costly regulation for Californians," said Gloria Bergquist of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. But Lloyd and other board members said they would defend their decision. "We are responsible to protect the public health," he said. "We are doing our job, now it's up the auto companies to do their job."
Other US states including New York and New Jersey have indicated they plan to follow suit with similar rules, which add to already strong emissions controls in freewheeling California.