Picture shows the regional train called "Hybride Bibi" from Canadian constructor Bombardier, which can use electrified and non-electrified rails and different electric currents, before its inauguration in Troyes station, France on Tuesday.

TROYES, France,
Oct. 10--The world’s first hybrid train, which is fuel efficient and reduces emissions, made its inaugural trip from Paris to the French Champagne region on Tuesday.
Built by Canada’s Bombardier, the train switched from electrical power to diesel fuel to reach the eastern French town of Troyes from Paris in two hours, traveling at a maximum speed of 160 kilometers per hour (100 miles per hour), AFP reported.
The train’s ground-breaking innovation lies in the fact that it can switch from diesel to electrical power without stopping, according to Bombardier.
Ten French regions have ordered 144 hybrid trains including the greater Paris metropolitan region, providing a boost to regional train travel in France.
Bombardier Transport president Andre Navarri said the hybrid train’s trip to Troyes produced 20 percent less emissions than a conventional diesel train, making it an environmentally-friendly option for expanding transport.

LONDON, Oct. 10--The global economy may face a marked slowdown next year as a result of the turmoil in financial markets, the International Monetary Fund has warned. The IMF said the global credit squeeze would test the ability of the economy to continue expanding at recent rates, BBC wrote.
While future economic stability could not be taken for granted, there was plenty of evidence that the global economy remained durable, it added. A sharp slowdown in the US economy is expected to restrain growth next year.
The IMF is due to publish revised economic growth estimates for the world’s leading economies next week ahead of its annual meeting starting on 20 October. It had been forecasting global growth of 5.2 percent next year but unconfirmed media reports suggest this could be downgraded to below 5 percent.
Remarks from the IMF’s World Economic Outlook briefing released ahead of the meeting show policymakers’ concerns about the long-term economic impact of the US housing slump and the tightening of credit markets. “With financial markets around the world now being affected by the fallout from the US sub-prime mortgage difficulties, a broader economic slowdown cannot be ruled out,“ it said.
The IMF noted that although interest rates had returned to more “neutral“ levels in leading industrialized countries, a lack of liquidity in banking markets “may test the strength of the current expansion“.
Respected bodies such as the OECD have already cut growth forecasts for the US and major European economies in light of the current instability. The US cut interest rates by a half a point last month in order to stabilize the economy while the UK officially reduced its annual growth forecast on Tuesday.
In separate remarks, the IMF warned that Eastern Europe was particularly vulnerable to a reduction in capital flows as a result of the global credit squeeze.

TOKYO, Oct. 10--Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said Tuesday that it will begin seeking orders for what it hopes will be the first passenger jet to be built in Japan. The group will soon start marketing the passenger aircraft, which would seat 70 to 90 people, to potential customers, said Kazuo Tsukuda, president of the Japanese industrial giant, AFP reported.
A final decision on whether to go ahead with a full commercial venture will depend on the number of orders for the jet, which will cost about three to four billion yen (25-34 million dollars), Tsukuda said.
“Development of a private-sector passenger jet has been a long dream of the Japanese government and business alike,“ he told a press conference. “Come next spring, we hope to be able to report to you that we have decided to fully establish it as a new business,“ he said alongside executives from Pratt and Whitney of the US which will supply the engines.
If airlines show enough interest, the Mitsubishi Regional Jet could enter commercial service by 2013.
“We have come to see a solid outlook for this business. The biggest hurdle we face now is whether or not we can confirm estimated demand through actual marketing,“ said Tsukuda.
The jet would use the newly developed Geared Turbo Fan engine from Pratt and Whitney, whose executives emphasized their product’s fuel efficiency, reduced noise and lower environmental emissions and engine operating costs.
“This engine will also be key to the airline industry reducing its greenhouse gas emissions,“ said Stephen Finger, president of the US firm.
The planned jet is roughly 20 percent more fuel efficient than existing jets of similar size and significantly more quiet, Mitsubishi said.
The jet is being developed under a project of the government’s New Energy and Industrial Development Organization.
Japan has in the past developed a turboprop plane, the YS-11, the only Japanese airliner built since World War II. Production ceased in 1974.
Mitsubishi estimates that globally there will be demand for 5,000 regional jets with 60 to 99 seats during the next two decades, and it aims to capture about 20 percent of the market.
Mitsubishi said it was also in discussions with US giant Boeing about possible cooperation.

FRANKFURT, Germany, Oct. 10--The number of German billionaires hit a record 122 in a poll published on Tuesday, with the founders of the discount supermarket chain Aldi solidly at the top of the list, AFP reported.
Compiled by the German weekly Manager-Magazin, the seventh annual survey questioned the 300 wealthiest Germans and found the Albrecht brothers were still the richest of all. “Thanks to a strong economy and broadly favorable stock market trend, the richest Germans were able to post strong increases in their personal fortunes,“ the magazine said.
Karl and Theodor Albrecht were estimated to sit on top of 17 billion euros ($23.8 billion) in assets. They led the Porsche family, owner of the luxury sports car maker and a major shareholder in Volkswagen, which was believed to have a fortune worth 12.45 billion euros.

BELGRADE, Serbia, Oct. 10--Russia’s natural gas monopoly, Gazprom, wants to buy Serbia’s state oil company as part of an investment project that includes building part of a European pipeline through the Balkan country, state television reported on Wednesday.
A senior Gazprom delegation, led by a top manager, Alexey Miller, held separate meetings late Tuesday with Serbia’s President Boris Tadic and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica to discuss cooperation in the energy sector, statements from the Belgrade leaders said, AP reported.
Serbia has recently turned to Russia for political support in its bid to prevent secession of the separatist Kosovo province, shifting politically from the West toward Moscow. Such a political shift by Belgrade allows Russia to make significant gains in controlling the Balkan energy networks, which Russia sees as a crucial corridor to providing natural gas and oil to Western Europe.
“Special attention“ was given to the possibility that part of a planned pipeline for transporting Russia’s gas to Western Europe, be built through Serbia, a statement from Tadic’s office said. Kostunica added strategic cooperation with Gazprom was in Serbia’s interest.
In another development Gazprom said Tuesday it had reached a deal on settling Ukraine’s US$1.3 billion (922 million euros) debt for gas supplies. Gazprom said in a statement that the agreement to settle the debt by Nov. 1 was signed after talks between Gazprom’s Chief Executive Alexei Miller and Ukraine’s Energy Minister Yuri Boiko.
The statement comes as Ukraine’s Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych headed to Moscow for talks expected to focus on gas supplies.

GENEVA, Oct. 10--The WTO is expected to break its own rules by not holding a ministerial conference in 2007 given the low chances of securing a global trade deal by the year’s end, trade sources said Tuesday.
The global trade body’s rules state that a conference of ministers from the 151 members should be held once every two years, and the last such meeting took place in Hong Kong in December 2005, AFP said.
But the chairman of the World Trade Organization’s general council told delegates that such a meeting was unlikely to happen given the continuing impasse in multilateral trade liberalization talks, known as the Doha Round.
“The factors which have prevented members taking a decision on the timing and location of the next ministerial conference before now continue to apply,“ chairman Muhammad Noor said. “All of the members with whom I have spoken accept that as a practical consequence it will not be possible to hold the conference before the end of 2007,“ he added.
He stressed that many trading nations were concerned about the likely breach of the WTO’s rules, adding that “I know we all share a commitment to uphold all the legal agreements on which this rules-based organization is founded.“
However, sources close to the organization stressed that the WTO takes a pragmatic approach, and that members’ efforts were best spent trying to secure a conclusion to the long-running Doha Round.
WTO director general Pascal Lamy told the council he still believed a deal was “as doable as it is essential.“
“The challenge now is to accelerate (momentum) in the days and weeks ahead... however, now more than ever, time is running against us,“ Lamy said.
The Doha negotiating round, aimed at tearing down trade barriers, was launched in 2001 but has been mired in deadlock over disputes between developed and developing countries. The United States and the European Union are under pressure to cut their agriculture subsidies but demand in return that other WTO members, notably developing nations, reduce their tariffs on imported industrial goods.

SEATTLE, USA,
Oct. 10--Microsoft Corp. issued seven security patches in a regular update Tuesday, among them fixes for flaws that could let hackers hijack computers using a Web browser. The software maker gave four of the security updates its most urgent critical rating, AP reported.
Within that group, Microsoft used a single update to fix several separate flaws found in different versions of the
Internet Explorer Web browser, including the most recent, IE7.
That patch blocks any attempts by attackers to put fake content into the address bar of a Web browser--a technique used in phishing scams to convince Web surfers that a fake site is actually their bank, for example.
The patch is also meant to prevent hackers from breaking into Web surfers’ computers using specially crafted Web pages.
“There has always been this escalating arms race“ between hackers and security professionals, said Ben Greenbaum, a senior manager at Symantec Security Response. “Lately, the stakes are higher. People are losing actual money due to attacker activities.“
The three other critical patches also help keep hackers from breaking into users’ computers to steal information or install malicious software. One fixes a problem with Kodak Image Viewer, formerly known as Wang Image Viewer, used on computers that run Windows 2000 or that were upgraded from Windows 2000. Another critical patch fixes a flaw in the way newsgroups are handled by Outlook Express and Windows Mail. The third protects users of Microsoft Word 2000 and 2004 and Office for Mac 2004 from malicious Word documents.
Microsoft also issued four important patchesÑthe software maker’s second-most-urgent rating--related to Windows, Office and Sharepoint. Windows users can visit Microsoft’s security Web site to get the updates, or configure their computers to automatically update each month.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Oct. 10--South Africa’s central bank governor expressed doubts Tuesday about plans for a common African currency, saying countries practicing controversial economic policies might benefit unfairly.
Tito Mboweni accused the African Union of ignoring the opinions of central bank governors, who felt there should be monetary policy uniformity before an African central bank was set up. He was speaking to more than 200 senior banking officials at an international banking conference at Sun City in the North West province, AFP reported.
“I think the political leadership will have to think very seriously and carefully about who qualifies to be in the union and who doesn’t, and take very serious and strong decisions, not based on brotherhood and sisterhood, that doesn’t work,“ Mboweni said.
Mboweni referred to neighboring Zimbabwe, whose economic meltdown was a major obstacle to prospects of economic integration. Criticizing the country’s economic management and controversial economic policies, he added, “We now know that one of the most important ingredients for a good economic policy is the respect for private property.“
The convergence of macro-economic indicators such as inflation and interest rates was critical before the establishment of one central bank for the continent, Mboweni said.
Zimbabwe’s economy has steadily declined over the past seven years, with inflation running well past the 6,500-percent mark and at least 80 percent of the population living below the poverty threshold.