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| Ukrainian opposition accuses Yanukovich of stealing EU dream Friday, Nov 29, 2013 03:44 PM PST  By Thomas Grove and Pavel Polityuk KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine's political opposition said on Friday that President Viktor Yanukovich had 'stolen the dream' of closer integration with Europe as his supporters hailed his decision to spurn a European Union free trade deal. In a sea of blue and gold, the colors of both the EU and Ukrainian flags, some 10,000 protesters chanted "Ukraine is Europe" in Independence Square, the theatre of the Orange Revolution of 2004-5 that thwarted Yanukovich's first presidential bid. The scuffle occurred as police tried to remove passersby near Independence Square to try to clear a pro-EU demonstrator's vehicle from the road. Full Story | Top |
| Ukraine's Yanukovich vetoes EU push to save trade deal Friday, Nov 29, 2013 03:43 PM PST  By Justyna Pawlak and Adrian Croft VILNIUS (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich vetoed last-minute attempts by the European Union to rescue a trade deal that could have been signed at a summit on Friday and would have signaled a historic shift away from Russia, EU diplomats said. Under pressure from Moscow, Yanukovich abandoned plans last week to sign the agreement, preferring closer ties with Ukraine's former Soviet master and dealing a blow to EU efforts to build closer relations with its eastern neighbors. As EU leaders gathered in Vilnius on Thursday for a summit with six countries in eastern Europe and the southern Caucasus, officials from the EU and Ukraine tried to work out a last-minute compromise that could have allowed Yanukovich to sign the trade deal in the near future. EU diplomats told Reuters a preliminary understanding had been reached, but Yanukovich had refused to sign off on it. Full Story | Top |
| Benin says frees Nigerian ex-militant after Jonathan intervenes Friday, Nov 29, 2013 11:12 AM PST Benin freed a former militant leader from Nigeria's oil-rich Delta region on Friday after a personal intervention by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, a government spokesman said. Mujahid Dobubo-Asari had been arrested in the West African nation's capital Cotonou on Tuesday. Like Jonathan, Asari is from the Ijaw ethnic group. He is best known for staging attacks on oil infrastructure in the swampy creeks of OPEC member Nigeria that drove up oil prices to record highs in 2004. Full Story | Top |
| 'Zombie' comet ISON may be back from the dead Friday, Nov 29, 2013 09:48 AM PST  By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A smaller, paler version of Comet ISON may have survived incineration in the sun's corona and may be brightening, scientists said on Friday. Since its discovery in September 2012, Comet ISON has been full of surprises. Conflicting pictures of the comet's future continued until Thursday when ISON apparently flew too close to the sun. Its long tail and nucleus seemingly vaporized in the solar furnace, dashing hopes of a naked-eye comet visible in Earth's skies in December. Full Story | Top |
| EU carbon down 9.4 percent in November as supply curbs seen distant Friday, Nov 29, 2013 09:35 AM PST EU carbon fell 9.4 percent in November as lawmakers advanced a plan to cut supply but were unable to move fast enough to block an influx of government permits depressing the market. The December 2013 EU Allowance ended on Friday at 4.36 euros on ICE, down 7 cents on Thursday's settlement and 51 cents down month-on-month. "It's a case of the auctions and EIB (European Investment Bank) sales coming and coming. Germany's sale of 4 million spot permits on Friday morning was almost three times subscribed, a sale typical of the near-daily government auctions that feed permits into the market at a rate of around 80 million a month. Full Story | Top |
| Government takes aim at green levies, denies seeking energy price freeze Friday, Nov 29, 2013 08:40 AM PST  By William James and Sarah Young LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged on Friday to cut energy bills by reducing green levies but denied a BBC report that he had asked the country's biggest gas and energy companies to hold prices steady until the 2015 election. In an unusually sharp reprimand for the publicly funded British Broadcasting Corporation, a spokesman for Cameron's office said the report which cited unidentified industry sources was utterly misleading. Details of a review of green levies, which include obligatory insulation for poor families and help with their bills, will be unveiled by Chancellor George Osborne in his December 5 Autumn Statement, a government spokesman said. "I want to help households and families by getting sustainably low energy prices," Cameron told reporters on the sidelines of a European Union summit in Lithuania on Friday. Full Story | Top |
| Governments seek to raise the EU cap on food-based biofuels Friday, Nov 29, 2013 08:25 AM PST By Charlie Dunmore BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union governments are trying to raise a planned limit on the use of transport fuels made from food crops, despite warnings that the fuels can harm the environment and push up food prices. Last year in response to such warnings, the European Commission, the EU executive, proposed capping the bloc's use of crop-based biofuels at 5 percent of total transport fuel demand. That was a U-turn from three years before, when the European Union had set a legally binding target to source 10 percent of its transport fuel from renewable sources by 2020, mostly crop-based biofuels. On Friday, EU ambassadors meeting in Brussels drew up a draft compromise that would raise the proposed cap to 7 percent. Full Story | Top |
| Iran sees nuclear deal implementation starting by early January Friday, Nov 29, 2013 08:07 AM PST  By Fredrik Dahl VIENNA (Reuters) - The implementation of a landmark deal between Iran and world powers to curb Tehran's nuclear program in return for some sanctions relief is expected to start by early January, its envoy to the U.N. atomic agency said on Friday. Israel, believed to be the region's only nuclear-armed state, has denounced the deal as an "historic mistake" since it does not dismantle its arch foe's uranium enrichment program. The Jewish state sees Iran as a threat to its existence. Israel's ambassador to the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency told an IAEA board meeting that "the increasing concerns regarding Iran's activities related to nuclear weapons should be thoroughly investigated and clarified". Full Story | Top |
| Journal withdraws controversial French Monsanto GM study Friday, Nov 29, 2013 07:59 AM PST  Reed Elsevier's Food and Chemical Toxicology (FCT)journal, which published the study by the French researcher Gilles-Eric Seralini in September 2012, said the retraction was because the study's small sample size meant no definitive conclusions could be reached. "Ultimately, the results presented - while not incorrect - are inconclusive, and therefore do not reach the threshold of publication for Food and Chemical Toxicology." At the time of its original publication, hundreds of scientists across the world questioned Seralini's research, which said rats fed Monsanto's GM corn had suffered tumors and multiple organ failure. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) issued a statement in November 2012 saying the study by Seralini, who was based at France's University of Caen, had serious defects in design and methodology and did not meet acceptable scientific standards. In its retraction statement, the FCT said that, in light of these concerns, it too had asked to view the raw data. Full Story | Top |
| UK takes aim at green levies, denies seeking energy price freeze Friday, Nov 29, 2013 07:42 AM PST By William James and Sarah Young LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged on Friday to cut energy bills by reducing green levies but denied a BBC report that he had asked the country's biggest gas and energy companies to hold prices steady until the 2015 election. In an unusually sharp reprimand for the publicly funded British Broadcasting Corporation, a spokesman for Cameron's office said the report which cited unidentified industry sources was utterly misleading. Details of a review of green levies, which include obligatory insulation for poor families and help with their bills, will be unveiled by finance minister George Osborne in his December 5 Autumn Statement, a government spokesman said. "I want to help households and families by getting sustainably low energy prices," Cameron told reporters on the sidelines of a European Union summit in Lithuania on Friday. Full Story | Top |
| Angola says Dos Santos is fine, denies cancer treatment report Friday, Nov 29, 2013 07:29 AM PST  Angola on Friday denied a report by Portuguese state TV that President Jose Eduardo dos Santos was undergoing cancer treatment, saying the long-serving 71-year-old was in good health. The RTP report on Thursday said Dos Santos had checked in to the oncology unit of a clinic in Barcelona. "He is in good health and will return within days." In power since 1979, Dos Santos is Africa's second longest-serving leader. He flew to Barcelona from Luanda on November 9 on a private visit. Full Story | Top |
| Gas pipeline explodes in Missouri, no injuries reported Friday, Nov 29, 2013 06:42 AM PST (Reuters) - A 30-inch (75-cm) natural gas pipeline ruptured and exploded in Missouri just before midnight on Thursday, with no injuries or fatalities reported and no impact to customers shipping gas on the line, a spokeswoman for Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Co said on Friday. The release of natural gas occurred at approximately 11:55 p.m. on Thursday (0555 GMT) just north of the rural community of Hughesville, Missouri, forcing the evacuation of some area families as a precaution, the spokeswoman said. New York Mercantile Exchange natural gas futures prices reached a five-month high of $3.939 per million British thermal units early Friday and were last trading 2.2 cents higher at $3.917 at 9:30 a.m. EST. Panhandle Eastern operates a 6,500-mile (10,500-km) natural gas pipeline system that supplies East Coast and Midwest markets with up to 2.8 billion cubic feet of gas per day, according to the company's website. Full Story | Top |
| U.N. carbon offset market seen 'in a coma' for years after Warsaw Friday, Nov 29, 2013 05:55 AM PST  By Susanna Twidale LONDON (Reuters) - The U.N.'s carbon offset market is likely to remain "in a coma" for years, project developers said, after countries failed to agree on measures to encourage demand at last week's climate talks in Warsaw. Investment under the U.N.'s $315 billion Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has ground to a halt as the value of the credits they generate has plunged 95 percent in five years to around 0.30 euros, crushing profits that investors count on to set up carbon-cutting schemes in the developing world. CDM credits can be used by companies and governments to help meet emission targets, but prices have crashed as industrialized nations delay setting new emission reduction pledges, while registered projects pump out more offsets at minimal additional cost. The Warsaw talks were meant to advance a global climate accord to be agreed in 2015 and come into force after 2020, but no major nation offered to set or deepen emission targets, while Japan scaled down its 2020 goal. Full Story | Top |
| Ukraine holds key to Putin's dream of a new union Friday, Nov 29, 2013 04:46 AM PST  By Timothy Heritage MOSCOW (Reuters) - Ukraine's refusal to sign a trade pact drawing it into Europe's orbit marked a victory for Vladimir Putin, winning him time to lure Kiev into a project for a trade and political bloc stretching from the frontiers of China to the edge of the EU. The Russian president sees his "Eurasian Union", in which Ukraine would play a central role, as a future rival to China, the United States and the European Union. Some say he sees it as the president's personal political legacy - a strong force emerging from the ashes of the old Soviet Union. "The Eurasian Union is a very important project for Putin. Full Story | Top |
| PetroChina, Longyuan strike first Chinese carbon offset deal Friday, Nov 29, 2013 04:13 AM PST By Kathy Chen and Stian Reklev BEIJING (Reuters) - State-owned PetroChina bought 10,000 Chinese carbon offsets from wind power producer Longyuan on Friday for 16 yuan ($2.62) each, six times higher than international prices, in the first publicly known trade in the country's fledgling carbon market. The deal was carried out on the China Beijing Environment Exchange and was the first transaction of Chinese Certified Emissions Reductions (CCERs), the exchange said. The CCERs are generated from emission reductions attributed to Longyuan's wind power project in Gansu province, western China. The trade comes a day after Beijing became the third of seven planned pilot carbon markets to launch in the country as China aims to limit its output of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Full Story | Top |
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