An orange line shows the most direct route the ice-free Northwest Passage beside partially blocked Northeast passage (blue line) in this Envisat ASAR mosaic photo of the Arctic Ocean, early September, 2007. The dark gray color represents the ice-free areas, while green represents areas with sea ice.

LONDON, Sept. 16-- The Arctic’s Northwest Passage has opened up fully because of melting sea ice, clearing a long-sought but historically impassable route between Europe and Asia, the European Space Agency said. Sea ice has shrunk in the Arctic to its lowest level since satellite measurements began 30 years ago, ESA said, showing images of the now “fully navigable“ route between the Atlantic and the Pacific, Reuters reported.
A shipping route through the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic has been touted as a possible cheaper option to the Panama Canal for many shippers.
“We have seen the ice-covered area drop to just around 3 million square km,“ said Leif Toudal Pedersen of the Danish National Space Centre, describing the drop in the Arctic sea ice as “extreme.“
The figure was about 1 million sq km (386,870 sq miles) less than previous lows in 2005 and 2006, Pedersen added.
The Northeast Passage through the Russian Arctic remained partially blocked, but in the light of the latest developments it may well open sooner than expected, Pedersen said.
Polar regions are very sensitive to climate change, ESA said, noting that some scientists have predicted the Arctic would be ice free as early as 2040.
Almost all experts say global warming, stoked by human use of fossil fuels, is happening about twice as fast in the Arctic as elsewhere on the planet. Once exposed, dark ground or sea soak up far more heat than ice and snow.
September and March generally mark the annual minimum and maximum extent respectively of Arctic sea ice.
The ESA announcement on its Web site came amid a scramble for sovereignty rights in the Arctic.
Russia, which recently planted its national flag on the seabed beneath the ice of the North Pole, has been staking its claim to a large chunk of the resource-rich Arctic region. Countries such as Russia are hoping for new shipping routes or to find oil and gas.
Canada has also been pressing its Arctic sovereignty claim and has announced plans for a deep-water port at Nanisivik near the eastern entrance of the Northwest Passage, which will allow it to refuel its military patrol ships.

Job seekers look at recruitment boards during the job fair held in Hong Kong.

GUANGZHOU, China, Sept. 16--China’s private enterprises employed 120 million people by September this year, up 9.5 percent from the same month a year ago, said a senior official on Saturday. “The private sector of the economy is a main avenue of employment and re-employment in China,“ said Zhong Youping, deputy minister of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, Xinhua wrote.
Zhang made the remarks at a forum on Chinese and Japanese small and medium-sized enterprises held in Guangzhou of south China’s Guangdong province.
Developing the private sector would help increase job opportunities and enable economic growth and employment to boost each other, said Zhang. Labor-intensive firms and the service sector could absorb a lot of laid-off workers and college graduates, he added.
Last year China’s industrial and commercial authorities helped 2.54 million unemployed people find jobs in the private sector and nearly half of the country’s new graduates entered private firms.

Visitors discuss dried fruit, spices and condiments at a recent Malaysia International Halal Showcase exhibition near Kuala Lumpur.

BANGKOK, Thailand,
Sept. 16--Southern Thailand and the northern part of peninsular Malaysia can join forces to create a viable international halal business environment as a win-win situation for both sides.
Southern Thailand can be the source of basic and raw materials while the Malaysian states in the north can provide the capacity and expertise in the manufacturing sector, a combination that can spur a strong industrial base for halal products and services.
This is being seen in the larger context of the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT), which can be both a driver and consumer of the halal business sector due to its combined Muslim population.
In this context, Malaysia’s Northern Coridor Economic Region (NCER), encompassing Perlis, Kedah, Penang and northern Perak, can become the engine of growth for the IMT-GT in the halal sector, as Perlis has been earmarked to be a halal logistics centre in NCER.
This is the broad picture gleaned by a Malaysian delegation following its goodwill visit to Bangkok this week to cement bilateral cooperation in the halal sector.
“We have come away with a better view of what the opportunities are in Thailand in terms of investing,“ World Halal Forum chairman Khairy Jamaluddin told Bernama.
He had led the 32-strong team which included Halal Industry Development Corporation chief executive officer Jamil Bidin.
“We can source raw materials particularly livestock from southern Thailand while Malaysia can offer expertise in processing and packaging. It’s a matter of a supply chain from initial producers to end users.“
Thai businessmen have also been looking at how halal parks are being set up and managed, especially those in the Northern Corridor like Perlis as well as in the Eastern Corridor, and see how they can supply the ingredients for the halal food products made in these parks, he said.
IMT-GT, established as an economic network, encompasses North Sumatera and Acheh in Indonesia; Kedah, Perlis, Penang and Perak in Malaysia; and Satun, Narathiwat, Yala, Songkhla and Pattani in Thailand, with a total population of about 20.5 million people.
Malaysia is aggressively promoting itself as a world halal hub while Thailand is keen to project itself as the hub of the halal industry in terms of services like hospitals, restaurants and tourism.

MONTREAL, Canada, Sept. 16--A meeting of signatories to the Montreal Protocol could make a “historic gesture“ by working simultaneously to restore the ozone layer and halt global warming, a UN official said in an interview.
Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN program for the environment, explained that the fight against global climate change and the fight to restore the ozone layer are linked, AFP wrote.
The interview appeared ahead of a conference marking Sunday’s 20th anniversary of signing of the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty seeking to end production of chemical compounds that contribute to ozone depletion.
“With the anniversary coming up, the enormous challenge has still not been met, and it offers the international community the chance to make rapid gains both concerning the ozone layer and global climate change,“ Steiner told the Montreal daily.
Haloalkane (HCFC) and Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) chemical compounds, once widely used as refrigerants and propellants in aerosol cans, have been largely curtailed by multilateral agreements in the Protocol.
CFC emissions opened a large hole in the ozone layer in the Earth’s upper atmosphere, allowing more of the sun’s harmful ultra-violet radiation to enter and raising the specter of increased cases of skin-cancer and eye cataracts.
If production of CFCs are halted and eliminated over the next 10 years the effect of global warming could be cut by 4.5 percent, Steiner said.

HANOI, Vietnam, Sept. 16--Aircraft giants Boeing and Airbus are competing to sell their new jetliners to Vietnam while Bombardier of Canada is also fighting for a slice of the fast-growing market. Air travel is taking off in the communist-ruled country of 84 million where the economy is growing at over eight percent a year and a new middle class is taking to the skies for both tourism and business travel, AFP wrote.
State-run Vietnam Airlines, soon to be part-privatized, plans to modernize its fleet of 45 aircraft--a mix of Boeing, Airbus, ATR and Fokker planes--to compete against a slew of foreign carriers and new budget airlines.
“We want to be one of the leading regional carriers,“ said Vietnam Airlines general manager for corporate affairs Bach Quoc Thang. “Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific are the examples we want to follow.“
The airline is also considering turning subsidiary Vietnam Air Service Co. into a low-cost carrier, sources say, to take on Pacific Airlines, part-owned by Qantas, and AirAsia, now in partnership with ship-builder Vinashin.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung is expected to make a decision soon on buying new long-range jets for Vietnam Airlines, and lobbying has intensified for the big-ticket orders from US manufacturer Boeing and European rival Airbus.
Montreal-based Bombardier Aerospace has also joined the fray, taking its 90-seat CRJ900 NextGen jet, launched this year, to Vietnam last week, saying it could fly domestic and Asian routes at the lowest fuel cost per seat.
“This would be an ideal feeder aircraft for Vietnam’s domestic and regional air transport needs,“ said Trung Ngo, vice president of Bombardier, adding that airlines such as Lufthansa and Air France have used their jets since the 1990s.
To secure financing for any new planes, Vietnam’s first aircraft leasing company has just been set up by Vietnam Airlines, Vietindebank, Petrovietnam and telecom group VNPT, with initial capital of 200 million dollars.
Vietnam Airlines now operates 45 aircraft--ten Boeing 777, ten Airbus A320, ten A321, three A330, ten French-made ATR-72 and two Fokker-70. It will receive five more A321 next year and four Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners from 2009.

LONDON, Sept. 16--The world’s investment banks are to reveal a $30 billion (£14.9 billion) hit from bad debts as they unveil results that give the first real insight into the impact of the debt crisis.
City analysts predict the banks will have to write down as much as 10 percent of the $300 billion of leveraged loans currently agreed but not yet syndicated when they report third-quarter results to the market, www.timesonline.co.uk reported.
Banks are also expected to announce further hefty provisions to cover their exposure to commercial paper, including the so-called conduits and SIVs, a type of highly leveraged investment fund. In some cases profits for the third quarter could have been almost wiped out by a combination of exposure to bad debts and complicated commercial paper.
Kian Abouhossein, banking analyst at JP Morgan, said, “The hits will essentially mean that some investment banks will have made almost no money over the last quarter. Profits will be close to zero.“
“It’s going to be one hell of a week,“ said one investment banker. “The banks’ numbers are as important as whether the Fed cuts rates. On top of that, what gets said will have a profound impact. People are spooked, there is a feeling that there are some surprises out there. Clarity is very important right now.“
Also, Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, said that when he was in charge he “didn’t really get“ how the boom in sub-prime lending might hurt the economy. Greenspan said in the interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes that while he was aware of lax lending standards in the sub-prime market, “I had no notion of how significant they had become until very late. I really didn’t get it until very late in 2005 and 2006 [as he was about to leave office].“
Attention in the markets will switch this week to the Federal Reserve and its decision on interest rates on Tuesday. While the Fed is widely expected to announce a cut in the key Fed funds rate, and possibly an accompanying reduction in the discount rate, analysts are split on whether it will be a quarter or half-point reduction. “There seems little doubt that the Fed will cut the funds target at least 25 basis points,“ said Christopher Probyn, chief economist at State Street Global Advi-sors.

DETROIT, USA,
Sept. 16-- General Motors Corp. and the United Auto Workers still faced significant hurdles at the bargaining table Sunday despite making progress at negotiations a day earlier. Negotiations ended for the day without an agreement around 9 p.m. EDT Saturday, GM spokeswoman Katie McBride said. They were scheduled to resume midmorning Sunday, AP reported.
Some union subcommittees--which handle issues such as pensions, benefits and job security--have wrapped up talks, but negotiators were still dealing with some key issues, according to a person who was briefed on the negotiations.
The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are private, confirmed that GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner and UAW President Ron Gettelfinger were actively involved in the discussions.
Several local union officials who have been in touch with bargainers said the talks were going well but the outstanding issue was retiree health care expenses. GM wants the union to take over responsibility for retiree health care costs using a company-funded trust and the union was asking for job guarantees in exchange for taking on the costs.
GM’s 73,000 US auto workers were without a contract as of midnight Friday and could go on strike at any time if negotiations break down. In Spring Hill, Tenn., hundreds of union members were at the local UAW hall Saturday, waiting for news.
“Members are very apprehensive. These are historic times and everybody realized that,“ said UAW Local 1853 President Mike O’Rourke.