Oil prices higher in Asian trade on bullish US inventory data

SINGAPORE, Oct 26: Oil prices rose in Asian trade today in a strong market boosted by lower US inventories and concerns at a cold snap in the US Northeast, a major consumer of heating oil, dealers said.

At 10:43 am (0813 IST) New York's main contract, light sweet crude for December delivery, was up 25 cents to 61.65 dollars a barrel from 61.40 dollars in late US trade yesterday after the contract jumped there by 2.05 dollars.

Brent North Sea crude for December delivery gained 23 cents to 62.28 dollars. The contract rose 2.22 dollars in London.

Steve Rowles, an analyst with CFC Seymour in Hong Kong, said a combination of factors led to the price rebound.

"The cold weather, the US inventory reports and the OPEC production cuts which will be coming through in about a week or two," Rowles said.

The US Northeast, the world's biggest consumer of heating fuel, is expected to see temperatures well below the seasonal average until at least the start of November, according to forecasters.

The US Department of Energy (DoE) said in its weekly report yesterday that crude oil inventories unexpectedly declined 3.3 million barrels to 332.3 million in the week to October 20, compared with market forecasts of an increase by a similar amount.

That was the larget weekly fall since July but the DoE said crude levels "remain well above the upper end of the average range for this time of year."

US crude oil imports averaged 9.5 million barrels per day last week, down a hefty 936,000 from the previous week. (AFP)

Six rounds of polling fail to break UNSC seat deadlock

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 26: Six rounds of polling in the United Nations General Assembly failed to break the deadlock between Venezuela and Guatemala over one non-permanent seat for the Security Council from the Latin American and Caribbean group.

Diplomats said that under pressure from the 35-member group, Venezuela and Guatemala have agreed in principle to withdraw in favour of an agreed candidate but so far both have failed to agree on any one country from their group.

The foreign ministers of the two contestants are expected to meet shortly in an effort to iron out the differences.

Venezuela did not agree to Costa Rica suggested by Guatemala as the former thought it would increase the influence of the United States, diplomats said. Venezuela too had suggested at least one name-- Bolivia --which was rejected by Guatemala.

Most of the members of the group are of the view that the two contestants should be allowed to select a common candidate but diplomats say that the group might intervene if the stalemate continued.

The six rounds held last night bring the total number of rounds to 41.

The next rounds of polling are scheduled for next week unless some agreement is reached in which case the Assembly can decide earlier.

In the latest rounds of polling, Guatemala got between 100 and 109 votes and Venezuela 72 and 84 votes. A candidate needs two-thirds majority to be elected. (PTI)

India proposes fund to acquire clean technolgies

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 26: In a bid to help developing nations meet their sustainable development goals, India has suggested the establishment of a "Clean Technology Acquisition Fund," to enable the countries access crucial technologies.

"This would encourage the use of clean technologies and significantly impact the realisation of sustainable development goals," Indian delegate and MP Rahul Gandhi told a United Nations committee yesterday.

He pointed out that due to globalisation external factors are contributing to the success or failure of the developing countries to a greater extent than before.

"Developing countries are caught between intellectual property rights and trade regimes as well conditionalities imposed by the World Bank and IMF, all of which erode their autonomy and flexibility to evolve policies and strategies for their economic growth and sustainable development which is critical to eradicating poverty and achieving Millennium Development Goals," he said.

He told delegates that the controversial intellectual property rights (IPR) regimes must represent the tradeoff between innovation and wider human societal imperatives. "We need to revisit the IPRs regimes to ensure that technologies necessary for pursuing the global imperatives of sustainable development are placed in the limited public domain and made accessible to the developing nations," he said.

India, he said, recognises the importance of conservation, protection and sustainable use of genetic resources. "It is particularly significant for developing countries that there be an international regime to protect and safeguard the equitable sharing of benefits arising from use of genetic resources and traditional knowledge."

Gandhi, who is here as a part of the Indian delegation to the United Nations for last one week, has been spending most of his time attending meetings of various committees, interacting with ambassadors and delegates to get the flavour of the way the world body works and have first hand look at diplomatic maneuvering.

Expressing concern over impasse in the Doha round of trade negotiations, he criticised the rich countries for not keeping their promise to phase out "trade distorting" agricultural subsidies within a given definite time-frame when agriculture was brought into multinational negotiations. As a result, he said, the gains expected to accrue to the developing countries from agricultural reform by developed countries continue to elude the poor.

"Minimising the vulnerability of poor farmers must be our collective priority. Reducing agricultural tariff and subsidies is not enough: there must be exceptions to allow developing countries more space to pursue their pro-development strategies and polices aimed at protecting their poor," he said.

Stressing the need for environment protection, Gandhi said that India has actively participated in shaping international agreements to tackle major global environmental issues.

"In 1972, at the United Nations International Conference on Human environment in Stockholm, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi emphasised that environmental concerns cannot be viewed in isolation from development imperative," he recalled, adding that 20 years later, the Rio Conference affirmed the importance of sustainable development. (PTI)

Global warming likely to decrease polar bear numbers in Canada

TOKYO, Oct 26: Polar bear population in Canada is likely to decrease by 30 per cent in the next 45 years due to global warming, a report said.

A research team of the Canadian Wildlife Service and the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has recently compiled a report saying global warming is cutting down on the volume of sea ice and causing the living conditions of polar bears to deteriorate.

It said the average weight of polar bears is declining and warned that the species will be threatened if global warming continues.

Sea ice is considered indispensable for polar bears to find food, such as seals.

The Canadian-US team, using data collected by NASA satellites, analysed seasonal changes in the amount of sea ice in coastal areas of Hudson Bay and Baffin Bay in northern Canada -- polar bears' main habitat -- from 1979 to 2004.

It found that sea ice has consistently been on the decline since 1979 and that the period of the ice's disappearance in the western part of Hudson Bay during the summer has lengthened by seven to eight days in 10 years.

Dr. Ian Stirling of the Canadian government's wildlife bureau and others, who carried out research in the Hudson Bay area, reported that the weight of adult male polar bears dropped to 230 kilograms in 2004 from more than 290 kilograms on average in 1980. (AGENCIES)

US taking steps to strengthen non-proliferation: Rice

WASHINTON, Oct 26: The United States has said it has taken a number of steps towards strengthening the global non-proliferation regime, which was under "strain", including signing the nuclear deal with India that would bring New Delhi into the non-proliferation framework for the first time.

"...The United States and our partners are joining together to preserve the continued vitality of the global regime to prevent and counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The non-proliferation regime is now under more strain than at any time since it was established over 40 years ago," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in her address at the Heritage Foundation yesterday.

"For our part, the United States is working to strengthen and renew this important pillar of international stability, and to modernise it," she said.

"We are bringing India from the outside to the inside of the non-proliferation regime for the first time with a pioneering agreement between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W Bush that gives India access to civil nuclear power and gives the International Atomic Energy Agency access to India's civil nuclear facilities," the top US official said.

Washington is also rallying the nations of the world behind a UN Security Council resolution that requires all countries to criminalise proliferation activities, she added.

Apart from this, "along with Russia, we have launched a global initiative to combat nuclear terrorism," Rice said.

"Another tool is the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), a voluntary partnership among nations to prevent the spread by air, by sea and by land of weapons of mass destruction and related materials," she said pointing out that the PSI has scored some "major" counter-proliferation victories as in the case of Libya.

The Secretary of State maintained that the greatest challenge to the non-proliferation regime comes from countries that violate their responsibilities under the non-proliferation treaty with North Korea and Iran being key examples.

"The Iranian regime is watching how the world responds to North Korea's behaviour and it can now see that the international community will confront this threat. Iran can see that the path North Korea is choosing is not leading to more prestige and more prosperity or more security. It's leading to just the opposite," Rice pointed out.

She asserted that both she and President Bush have said before that the United States has no intention of attacking or invading North Korea."

"So the entire world should understand that North Korea's claims that our policies are hostile are simply excuses for the government's refusal to make constructive choices and to stick with them," Rice said going on to list the policy over and beyond the strengthening the vitality of the non-proliferation regime.

"We are strengthening our strategic relationships in Northeast Asia. I made it clear last week that the United States has both the will and the capability to meet the full range-- and here I stress "the full range"-- of our security and deterrent commitments to allies like South Korea and Japan," Rice said.

At the interactive session Rice was asked to comment on a remark by the Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei that the given the reliance on nuclear weapon by some countries and the resistance to bring a CTBT into force made the North Korean nuclear testing predictable.

"I understand that there is, under the non-proliferation regime, an expectation that the nuclear states would begin to bring down their own nuclear capabilities; that that was the, sort of, understanding at the time that the Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed.

"I would just ask people to look at, for instance, what's happening between the United States as Russia as a part of the Moscow Treaty, as the number of deployed warheads is coming down dramatically after the Cold War," Rice replied.

"But I don't really believe for one minute that North Korea is looking at the progress of the Moscow Treaty to decide whether or not to test the international system with a nuclear weapon. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe that's what they're doing. I just don't think so," she said.

"I think that North Korea and other states that are trying to break out of the -- that have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty and are violating it are doing it for reasons to try and gain advantage," she said. (PTI)

Latin American ministers seek breakthrough at UN

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 26: Foreign ministers from Guatemala and Venezuela seek to break the deadlock today in their countries' battle for a seat on the UN Security Council but initial soundings show no sign of a compromise.

The goal is to find an alternate candidate that could fill an open Latin American seat on the council, the most powerful UN body, following 41 rounds of inconclusive voting and sharp divisions among the 35 Latin American and Caribbean nations.

For Venezuela, the race is one against what it calls US dominance over developing nations. Washington has lobbied for Guatemala, a country that has never had a seat on the council.

In an attempt to break the impasse, Foreign Ministers Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and Gert Rosenthal of Guatemala confer today. Both have said they would withdraw providing they could agree on an acceptable substitute.

''The pressure is on them now. They cannot possibly leave New York empty-handed,'' said Mexico's UN ambassador, Enrique Berruga, whose country supports Guatemala.

Voting was conducted three days last week and on Wednesday when Guatemala received between 100 and 109 votes, compared with Venezuela's range of 72 to 84 votes.

But Guatemala was not able to get the required two-thirds majority in the 192-member General Assembly. Balloting will resume next Tuesday.

''They accept in principal that they will withdraw their candidacies. But they are not set on a third country,'' Brazilian Ambassador Ronaldo Moto Sardenberg told reporters.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said his ally Bolivia would be a good compromise, which he called a ''brother nation.''

''We will not go to the meeting with a knife in our hands,'' said Venezuelan UN Ambassador Francisco Arias Cardenas. ''We are looking for a favorable agreement, a dignified one. We want to send a lesson to those countries who try to impose their will on others that this is not the way to go.''

Guatemala's Rosenthal has made clear Bolivia was unacceptable. Other nations mentioned included Uruguay, Paraguay, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.

The United States, Russia, Britain, France and China hold permanent seats on the Security Council. Ten other nations sit on the council for two-year terms, five elected each year.

Guatemala and Venezuela are vying for the Latin American seat that Argentina will vacate on December 31. Peru stays on the council until the end of 2007.

Chilean UN Ambassador Heraldo Munoz said after a meeting on Wednesday of the 35 nations the question of a third candidate should be left to Guatemala and Venezuela.

''Any consensus of the Latin American-Caribbean group is based on the agreement between the two candidates, and that is why the meeting of the candidates' foreign ministers is so important,'' Munoz said.

Chavez has portrayed the contest as a competition with the United States because of US support for Guatemala, and has boasted of a moral victory in blocking Washington's choice.

Although Venezuela is a major oil supplier to the United States, ties have deteriorated, particularly since Chavez described Washington as his No. 1 enemy and called President George W Bush ''the devil'' in a General Assembly speech in September. Diplomats said that cost Caracas votes.

(AGENCIES)

China, India dominate global carbon market: World Bank

BEIJIBNG, Oct 26: The global carbon market grew to nearly 22 billion US dollars in the first nine months of this year, more than doubling in value over the previous year with China and India leading the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) market, according to the World Bank.

"All the data show that the carbon market is becoming a powerful financial force supporting clean development," said Karan Capoor, co-author of the report titled "State and Trends of the Carbon Market 2006".

"To put this into perspective, the almost 22 billion dollars is four times the GDP of Mongolia and more than twice the GDP of Laos, and the year is not even over," Capoor said at a press conference on the sidelines of the ‘Carbon Expo Asia’ organised by the World Bank and the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA).

Up to the end of September, Asian countries accounted for 84 per cent of total volumes in the CDM market. China continues to dominate the project-based market with 60 per cent of the volume of projects transacted, down from 73 per cent in 2005 with India next with a 15 per cent share of the market volume, up from three per cent in 2005, he said.

Asia accounted for 40 per cent of the number of transactions so far in 2006 compared to 30 per cent last year. Out of this, China accounted for 24 per cent and India at 15 per cent compared to 12 and 11 per cent respectively last year, Capoor told PTI.

The average size of transactions ranged from 3.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in China and 1.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in India.

The European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EUETS) dominated the market in terms of value, accounting for nearly 19 billion dollars of the total carbon market worth, with project-based transactions well on track to be worth over three billion dollars by the end of the year.

The overall volume of CDM transactions in developing countries in the carbon market remains steady although prices are up over 2005, Capoor said.

"The GHG market has performed well in terms of market functioning, but what is more important, it is delivering in terms of catalyzing green investments at a more rapid pace than expected," Executive Director of the IETA, Andrei Marcu said.

"It is a real change in terms of the availability of finance to address environmental problems in developing countries. We will continue to work to ensure that all countries benefit equally from carbon finance and that projects have a strong sustainable development component, especially on the energy side," he said.

The CDM market data shows that renewable energy and energy efficiency projects are gaining market share, now accounting for 26 per cent of total project-based volumes, more than doubling from 11 per cent in 2005. (PTI)

India proposes fund to acquire clean technolgies

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 26: In a bid to help developing nations meet their sustainable development goals, India has suggested the establishment of a "Clean Technology Acquisition Fund," to enable the countries access crucial technologies.

"This would encourage the use of clean technologies and significantly impact the realisation of sustainable development goals," Indian delegate and MP Rahul Gandhi told a United Nations committee yesterday.

He pointed out that due to globalisation external factors are contributing to the success or failure of the developing countries to a greater extent than before.

"Developing countries are caught between intellectual property rights and trade regimes as well conditionalities imposed by the World Bank and IMF, all of which erode their autonomy and flexibility to evolve policies and strategies for their economic growth and sustainable development which is critical to eradicating poverty and achieving Millennium Development Goals," he said.

He told delegates that the controversial intellectual property rights (IPR) regimes must represent the tradeoff between innovation and wider human societal imperatives. "We need to revisit the IPRs regimes to ensure that technologies necessary for pursuing the global imperatives of sustainable development are placed in the limited public domain and made accessible to the developing nations," he said.

India, he said, recognises the importance of conservation, protection and sustainable use of genetic resources. "It is particularly significant for developing countries that there be an international regime to protect and safeguard the equitable sharing of benefits arising from use of genetic resources and traditional knowledge."

Gandhi, who is here as a part of the Indian delegation to the United Nations for last one week, has been spending most of his time attending meetings of various committees, interacting with ambassadors and delegates to get the flavour of the way the world body works and have first hand look at diplomatic maneuvering.

Expressing concern over impasse in the Doha round of trade negotiations, he criticised the rich countries for not keeping their promise to phase out "trade distorting" agricultural subsidies within a given definite time-frame when agriculture was brought into multinational negotiations. As a result, he said, the gains expected to accrue to the developing countries from agricultural reform by developed countries continue to elude the poor.

"Minimising the vulnerability of poor farmers must be our collective priority. Reducing agricultural tariff and subsidies is not enough: there must be exceptions to allow developing countries more space to pursue their pro-development strategies and polices aimed at protecting their poor," he said.

Stressing the need for environment protection, Gandhi said that India has actively participated in shaping international agreements to tackle major global environmental issues.

"In 1972, at the United Nations International Conference on Human environment in Stockholm, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi emphasised that environmental concerns cannot be viewed in isolation from development imperative," he recalled, adding that 20 years later, the Rio Conference affirmed the importance of sustainable development. (PTI)

US taking steps to strengthen non-proliferation: Rice

WASHINGTON, Oct 26: The United States has said it has taken a number of steps towards strengthening the global non-proliferation regime, which was under "strain", including signing the nuclear deal with India that would bring New Delhi into the non-proliferation framework for the first time.

"...The United States and our partners are joining together to preserve the continued vitality of the global regime to prevent and counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The non-proliferation regime is now under more strain than at any time since it was established over 40 years ago," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in her address at the Heritage Foundation yesterday.

"For our part, the United States is working to strengthen and renew this important pillar of international stability, and to modernise it," she said.

"We are bringing India from the outside to the inside of the non-proliferation regime for the first time with a pioneering agreement between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W Bush that gives India access to civil nuclear power and gives the International Atomic Energy Agency access to India’s civil nuclear facilities," the top US official said.

Washington is also rallying the nations of the world behind a UN Security Council resolution that requires all countries to criminalise proliferation activities, she added.

Apart from this, "along with Russia, we have launched a global initiative to combat nuclear terrorism," Rice said.

"Another tool is the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), a voluntary partnership among nations to prevent the spread by air, by sea and by land of weapons of mass destruction and related materials," she said pointing out that the PSI has scored some "major" counter-proliferation victories as in the case of Libya.

The Secretary of State maintained that the greatest challenge to the non-proliferation regime comes from countries that violate their responsibilities under the non-proliferation treaty with North Korea and Iran being key examples.

"The Iranian regime is watching how the world responds to North Korea’s behaviour and it can now see that the international community will confront this threat. Iran can see that the path North Korea is choosing is not leading to more prestige and more prosperity or more security. It’s leading to just the opposite," Rice pointed out.

She asserted that both she and President Bush have said before that the United States has no intention of attacking or invading North Korea."

"So the entire world should understand that North Korea’s claims that our policies are hostile are simply excuses for the Government’s refusal to make constructive choices and to stick with them," Rice said going on to list the policy over and beyond the strengthening the vitality of the non-proliferation regime.

"We are strengthening our strategic relationships in Northeast Asia. I made it clear last week that the United States has both the will and the capability to meet the full range-and here I stress "the full range"-of our security and deterrent commitments to allies like South Korea and Japan," Rice said.

At the interactive session Rice was asked to comment on a remark by the Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei that the given the reliance on nuclear weapon by some countries and the resistance to bring a CTBT into force made the North Korean nuclear testing predictable.

"I understand that there is, under the non-proliferation regime, an expectation that the nuclear states would begin to bring down their own nuclear capabilities; that that was the, sort of, understanding at the time that the Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed.

"I would just ask people to look at, for instance, what’s happening between the United States as Russia as a part of the Moscow Treaty, as the number of deployed warheads is coming down dramatically after the Cold War," Rice replied.

"But I don’t really believe for one minute that North Korea is looking at the progress of the Moscow Treaty to decide whether or not to test the international system with a nuclear weapon. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe that’s what they’re doing. I just don’t think so," she said.

"I think that North Korea and other states that are trying to break out of the-that have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty and are violating it are doing it for reasons to try and gain advantage," she said. (PTI)

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