Picture taken in 2003 of the Eiffel Tower in Paris seen through a haze of pollution. (AFP File Photo)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Dec. 14--Only 21 of the 25 European Union nations will join the start of a carbon dioxide emissions trading market aimed at reducing gases which cause global warming, the European Commission announced here Monday, AFP reported.
The Czech Republic, Greece, Italy and Poland will not join the market when it opens on January 1, commission official Jos Delbeke told the UN climate change conference here.
The European Union decided in 2003 to set up an emissions trading market at the center of its efforts to meet the Kyoto climate accord.
The most polluting countries will have carbon dioxide emissions limited within national quotas drawn up by the commission. But the companies will be able to buy emission rights to be able to go above their set limit.
Delbeke said national plans for Spain, Malta, Hungary, Lithuania and Cyprus would be ready by the end of the month so 21 would be ready for the start of the market.
He said Greece had not yet proposed a national pollution plan to the commission and those of the other three were not considered strong enough.
The official indicated that the commission did not believe Italy had fixed tough enough limits.
The French plan, which was sent back by the commission to the French government in September, has now been agreed by the commission, Delbeke said.
Several countries, including Spain, are using mechanisms which allow a company to invest in clean technology in other countries. The pollution that is avoided can be added to the company's limit in its own country.
Delbeke said about 500 million tons of carbon dioxide would be credited to EU companies following investments that have been mainly concentrated in the Third World.
About $2.5 billion of investment has been made, according to Yvo de Boer, head of the Dutch delegation.

BEIJING, Dec. 14--China, formerly a major recipient of aid from the World Food Programme (WFP), has given a commitment to gradually step into the role of donor country instead, the WFP chief said Tuesday, AFP reported.
WFP Executive Director James T. Morris received the pledge from leaders including Prime Minister Wen Jiabao during a visit to China, one year before the agency was scheduled to phase out its operating work in the country.
"Clearly this is a place that no longer needs the operational engagement of the World Food Programme on a daily basis," Morris told reporters in Beijing at the end of his visit.
"I believe that given the Chinese experience, we have as much to learn from China as China could learn from us," he said.
He said China had given a commitment "to do more" although it did not provide specific details.
"It was clear in my meeting with Wen Jiabao that he strongly understands... the role of hunger and poverty in peace and security and stability," Morris said.
In one indication of its appreciation of the security aspects of hunger, China is a major provider of bilateral food aid to North Korea, whose collapse would cause immense problems for Beijing.
A total of 30 million Chinese have received support from the WFP since 1979, mostly in central and western regions that have not benefited as much as the eastern seaboard from the country's economic reforms.
Morris said China had considerable expertise that could benefit other parts of the world, given its record of lifting 300 million of its citizens out of hunger and poverty over the past quarter century.
"This is an unprecedented accomplishment and achievement, certainly in the last 50 years, maybe of all time," he said.
He said it was a "reprehensible, absolutely shameful" fact that the world has 300 million starving children, on top of 500 million adults without enough food.
"Twenty-five thousand people will die today because of hunger, 18,000 of them will be children," he said.

Ali Babacan

ANKARA, Turkey, Dec. 14--Turkey and the International Monetary Fund have completed talks on a new three-year stand-by deal supported by a loan of $10 billion (7.5 billion euros), Turkish Economy Minister Ali Babacan said Tuesday, AFP reported.
"The discussions were completed last night... The amount foreseen for use from the IMF in the framework of the new stand-by agreement is $10 billion," Babacan told a joint press conference with the chief of the IMF's Turkey desk, Reza Moghadam.
Turkey and the IMF have been holding talks for several weeks on a new three-year economic program to succeed the current 16-billion-dollar deal that expires in February.
Moghadam said the agreement was subject to approval by the IMF executive board.
The new economic strategy is based on targets of five-percent growth each year between 2005 and 2007 and single-digit inflation, projected at 8 percent next year, 5 percent in 2006 and 4 percent in 2007, Babacan said.
The program also foresees far-reaching structural reforms in the fields of social security and tax collection and in the banking sector, he added.

A view of Malacca Port, Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Dec. 14--Malaysia must simplify tariffs, cut red tape and make local ports duty-free if it wants compete with major hubs like Hong Kong and Singapore, a report said Tuesday.
The Federation of Malaysian Port Operating Companies chairman G.Gnanalingam told Bernama news agency the government must remove outdated regulations and unnecessary charges to make the sector more competitive.
For example, he said tariff structures drawn up in the 1960s for local ports contained many charges that could be simplified and made more transparent to help lower the cost of logistics for shippers.
"Hong Kong and Singapore have the largest ports in the world because they do not have any bureaucracy and they are duty-free," said Gnanalingam, who heads one of Malaysia's leading port, Westport.
Dubai had also emerged as the world's 13th busiest port in terms of volume because "it is duty-free and regulation-free," he noted.
"So we need to standardize and simplify our charges so that everybody knows what the fees are," he said, calling on the government to map out a national strategy on ports to ensure "efficient service at a reasonable price."
Malaysian ports had grown from handling 1 percent of world trade to 3 percent now but an estimated investment of more than $1 billion is needed to raise terminal capacity and win a greater share of global trade, officials have said.
It's main Klang Port has jumped from the 26th largest port in the world to 12th in the past two years, while the Port of Tanjung Pelepas (PTP) is expected to emerge among the world's top 20.
PTP, which is in southern Johor state just across the narrow Tebrau Strait from Singapore, has enjoyed rapid growth since beginning operations four years ago.
Singapore lost Denmark's Maersk Sealand and Taiwan's Evergreen Marine to PTP last year, and has since overhauled its shipping strategy, including cutting handling fees and offering shipping lines the opportunity to run their own berths.

SEOUL, South Korea, Dec. 14--South Korea's Samsung Electronics and Sony of Japan on Tuesday singed an agreement to share patents for digital technologies in major products, Samsung said, AFP reported.
"Samsung Electronics Co. and Sony Corporation signed a cross-license agreement on December 14, detailing mutual usage of patent portfolios owned by the two companies," Samsung said in a statement.
The two electronics giants would share patents across major product lines through the agreement, including basic semiconductor technology and industry standard technologies, it said.
"The goal was to construct a mutually beneficial relationship whereby Samsung and Sony could use each others patent portfolios to effectively keep pace with the fast and sophisticated advancement of digital technologies," Samsung said.
"This indicates a new patent relationship appropriate for the broadband and network era," it said of the agreement, the culmination of a year-long negotiation.
To enable efficient product development, the contract licenses those patents which are considered to be the basic technologies necessary for product development, such as basic semiconductor technology and industry-standard technologies.
However, each will retain exclusive rights for unique "differentiation technology patents" to foster healthy competition and ensure each company's uniqueness.
Examples of the technology patents not licensed by Sony to Samsung are those related to digital reality creation (DRC), and PlayStation Architecture.
Patents excluded from Sony use include those related to Samsung's Digital Natural Image engine, and home networking technology.
The agreement also excludes TFT-LCD and Organic Light Emitting Diode display patents.

WASHINGTON,
Dec. 14--US emissions of greenhouse gases increased 0.7 percent in 2003 from, driven by increased consumption of fossil fuels, the Department of Energy said Monday, AFP reported.
US emissions increased to 6.94 billion tons carbon dioxide equivalent in 2003, up from 6.89 billion tons in 2002.
This represents roughly 24 percent of total world emissions in 2003, according to a report produced by the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Energy Department.
Greenhouse gases--primarily carbon dioxide--are suspected of contributing to a gradual warming climate, a change that some believe will threaten weather patterns, impair agricultural crops, and lead to the melting of ice caps.
The US has faced growing international pressure to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions after it opted out of ratifying the Kyoto climate change protocol.
The protocol, set to take effect February 16, 2005, imposes caps on the emissions levels of those industrialized nations that have ratified the treaty in an effort to reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2015.
US greenhouse gas emissions have climbed a total of 13.4 percent above the 1990 level, or roughly 1 percent a year between 1990 and 2003, the report said.
The bulk of emissions, 83 percent, consisted of carbon dioxide produced from the combustion of coal, petroleum, and natural gas.
"US emissions trends are driven largely by trends in fossil energy consumption," the report said. Emissions of methane-stemming from landfills, coal mines, animal waste, and natural gas systems-increased by 0.5 percent in 2003 compared to 2002, but are still 15 percent below the 1990 level.

SINGAPORE, Dec. 14--Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell is a step closer to building a proposed chemical project in Singapore that could cost up to one billion US dollars, the company said Tuesday, AFP reported.
The company also announced the project might include the participation of the Singapore government with talks between the two parties to start next year.
"Shell is pleased to announce that it is progressing to the next phase of its proposed world-scale cracker and derivatives project in Singapore," it said in a statement.
"This phase will result in a detailed design and engineering package for construction to begin in 2006 and start-up in the first half of 2009."
The project involves the construction of a new world-scale ethylene cracker on Bukom island, a new monoethylene glycol (MEG) plant in Jurong island plus modifications and additions to the company's existing crude oil refinery on Bukom island.
"Both the cracker and the MEG plant will benefit from integration with Shell's considerable existing investments in Singapore," the company said.

AMMAN, Jordan, Dec. 14--Job creation is vital to restore peace and stability in Iraq, where two million people are unemployed, experts said Monday at the end of a conference organized by the International Labor Organization (ILO), AFP reported.
"Reducing unemployment rates could make a major contribution to peace and stability that in turn could help generate a recovery in investment and growth," they said in a final statement of the two-day forum in Amman.
A recent survey estimated some "30 percent of the Iraqi labor force of around seven million people is unemployed, with 50 percent of youth unemployed", according to the statement received by AFP.
Iraqi Labor and Social Affairs Minister Leila Abdullatif urged the international community to help cut unemployment "or at least reduce its detrimental effect on the livelihood, security and progress of Iraq".
A "plan of action" was adopted that focused on the best means to capitalize on the reconstruction drive underway in Iraq and how it can create jobs.
The conference organized by the UN's labor agency also discussed ways of empowering workers, safeguarding their rights, and of fighting child and forced labor, as well as the private sector's role in achieving an economic recovery.
The forum, the first of its kind to address employment in Iraq, brought together more than 60 representatives of Iraq's government and labor sector as well as UN agencies, the World Bank and international donors.