EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson (l) and Indian Foreign Minister for Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath speak during the eight India-EU Business Summit in New Delhi on Thursday.

NEW DELHI, India, Nov. 30--The European Union and India launched summit talks Friday after setting a 2008 target for a free trade pact between the 27-member bloc and the South Asian giant, officials said.
The eighth EU-India Summit would seek to forge closer strategic ties and also deepen cooperation in “energy, climate change and World Trade Organization talks,“ said an EU mission statement in New Delhi, AFP reported.
The EU is India’s largest trading partner, accounting for a fifth of India’s total trade, and is also one of its most important sources of foreign investment.
Officials from both sides set the tone for the day with calls for a free trade deal to be wrapped up by next year.
Premier Manmohan Singh, foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee, trade minister Kamal Nath and national security advisor M. K. Narayanan were meeting Friday with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Jose Socrates, Prime Minister of Portugal, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency.
Nath had urged a successful conclusion of a free trade pact by the end of 2008 on Thursday and European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson voiced similar hopes. Barroso noted in a statement on the summit eve that India and the EU, “the world’s two largest democracies, can have a great impact in addressing global challenges such as peace and security, governance and climate change.“
While the EU continues to be India’s foremost trading partner and biggest foreign investor, “the conclusion of a bilateral Free Trade Agreement will certainly boost bilateral trade,“ Barroso added.
India’s foreign ministry said deals would be signed later Friday on scientific, technological and development cooperation.
The EU had earmarked 470 million euro ($690 million) to promote economic development with India over the next five years, Barroso wrote in an article published in the Indian media on Friday.
The EU has agreed to provide seven million euros to set up a European Business and Technology Centre in New Delhi to foster links between the business and scientific communities.

HANOI, Vietnam, Nov. 30--More than 10,000 workers have walked off the job at a South Korean-owned plant that makes sneakers for Nike Inc., demanding higher pay to keep pace with rising prices in booming Vietnam, officials said Thursday.
The Tae Kwang Vina plant, in southern Dong Nai province, is one of 10 that contracts with Nike to produce shoes in Vietnam, AP wrote.
The average monthly salary at the plant, which makes shoes solely for Nike, is 1 million Vietnamese dong, or US$62 (42 euros). That’s about 20 percent more than Vietnam’s minimum wage.
But with the country’s 9.5 percent inflation rate eroding their earnings, the workers are demanding higher pay, bonuses and cost-of-living allowances, said Kieu Minh Sinh, an official with Dong Nai Provincial Trade Union.
“Given the fact that inflation is so high now, it is hard to say they are being too demanding,“ said Sinh, whose union was trying to resolve the dispute.
The plant in Dong Nai, some 30 kilometers (19 miles) northeast of Ho Chi Minh City, employs more than 14,000 workers, most of them young rural women.
Officials from the plant, run by the South Korean company Tae Kwang, declined to comment.
Alan Marks, a Nike spokesman, said the company was aware of the strike and was encouraging workers and factory management to work out their differences.
Nike said that its contractors in Vietnam make about 75 million pairs of shoes each year, and the Tae Kwang plant accounts for about 10 percent.
Prices in Vietnam, Southeast Asia’s fastest growing economy, are 10 percent higher than they were a year ago.
The government has promised to increase the minimum wage by roughly 12 percent, starting in January 2008.
As inflation has picked up in recent years, strikes have become more common, with workers demanding higher pay and better work conditions.
Last year, nearly 387 strikes took place in Vietnam, nearly 300 at foreign-owned firms, said Le Dinh Quang an official with Vietnam Trade Union.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Nov. 30--South Africa’s Nationwide Airlines said on Friday that all its domestic and international flights had been grounded by the country’s civil aviation authority, but did not know how long the ban would last.
“The civil aviation authority has removed our aviation maintenance organization license, which effectively grounds our airplanes,“ Nationwide’s spokesman Rodger Whittle told Reuters.
“We do not know for what period of time, we have asked the civil aviation authority for clarification and information, and we don’t anticipate that it will be a long situation.“
Whittle said the airline operates about 50 to 55 flights a day, locally and internationally.
The Civil Aviation Authority said it would issue a statement on the grounding of Nationwide’s flights later in the day.
Earlier this month, South Africa’s Civil Aviation Authority grounded all Boeing 737 200 aircraft in the country for safety checks after an engine fell off the wing of a Nationwide Airline aircraft carrying 106 passengers in Cape Town. There were no injuries sustained by anyone on board or on the ground.
Nationwide, which has flights to London’s Gatwick airport, says on its website that it has more than 350 domestic, regional and international weekly flights, including to Zambia.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 30--The United States announced Thursday that China has agreed to eliminate a dozen WTO-banned subsidies that have given Chinese exports a broad, unfair trade advantage.
US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said Washington and Beijing had signed an agreement that would resolve a complaint filed by the United States and Mexico at the World Trade Organization in February, AFP reported.
The agreement marked a significant step forward in easing strained trade relations with China, which has by far the largest trade surplus with the US. “This outcome represents a victory for US manufacturers, producers and their workers,“ Schwab said at a news conference. The banned subsidies are to be eliminated by January 1.
The US-Mexico complaint at the Geneva-based WTO alleged China was maintaining several subsidy programs prohibited under the international institution’s rules across a spectrum of industrial sectors in China including steel, wood products and information technology.
Schwab said the 12 illegal subsidies distort the playing field for US-produced goods sold in the United States, China and third-country markets. Many of the subsidies are tax breaks that are available to benefit up to 60 percent of China’s exports.
She said she could not quantify the amount of benefits that would be gained by their elimination but said they were “very substantial because the subsidies were so pervasive.“
Two types of Chinese subsidies are affected: export subsidies, which give Chinese goods an advantage abroad, and import substitution subsidies, which encourage companies in China to purchase Chinese-made goods instead of imports.
The US has case is one of several pending at the WTO over the politically charged trade relationship between the US and China.
China’s surplus with the US in September ballooned by 5.5 percent from August to $23.8 billion.
Schwab underscored that Beijing’s renunciation of the banned subsidies “is excellent news for China as a WTO member and excellent news for world trade.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 30--Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wants the two-week UN climate conference that starts next week to launch negotiations for a new post-Kyoto accord, the UN said.
Ban will fly to the Indonesian resort island to attend the last three days of the conference, which runs from Dec. 3-14, UN spokeswoman Michele Montas said Thursday, AP wrote.
“He feels we need a breakthrough in Bali as a critical first step,“ she said. “If we are to meet the challenge of global warming, we need a new and comprehensive agreement that all nations can embrace.“
Ban does not expect world leaders to reach a new global agreement to succeed the 1997 Kyoto accord to combat global warming which expires in 2012, Montas said.
But Ban expects the meeting of parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change “to agree to an agenda of issues and set a timetable for reaching such an accord, before the Kyoto protocol expires,“ she said.
“He wants to maximize the prospects for the launch of climate change negotiations,“ Montas said.
The 1997 Kyoto accord required 36 industrial nations to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2012. A new agreement must be concluded within two years to ensure a smooth transition to a new post-Kyoto regime.
The United States has balked at mandatory emissions cuts while China and India have said any measures impinging on their booming economies and efforts to lift their people from poverty were Unacceptable.
US officials said Wednesday they intend to push for a framework for further negotiations in Bali but will make no commitment to specific reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
Ban has made combating climate change one of his top priorities since taking the reins of the United Nations on Jan. 1. He recently visited Antarctica, receding glaciers in Chile, and the Amazon to highlight the impact of climate change.

An oil worker takes measurements on TCO oil and gas processing plant at Tengiz oil field in western Kazakhstan in this file photo.

ASTANA, Kazakhstan, Nov. 30--Kazakhstan plans to introduce a new oil production tax to boost budget revenues, a senior official said on Friday, in a move certain to alarm foreign investors in the oil-rich Central Asian state.
Deputy Finance Minister Daulet Yergozhin said the tax, likely to come into force in 2009, will be based on output and world oil prices instead of on export volumes, Reuters wrote.
It would also apply to companies working within production sharing agreements, he said. These have so far been exempt from the rent tax, introduced in 2004, which is also based on world prices but calculated on the basis of export volumes.
“Everyone’s reaction will be predictably negative,“ he told reporters in Astana.
Kazakhstan, embroiled in a row with Western investors over delays and cost overruns at the Kashagan oilfield, has been increasingly assertive in its energy policy. It has made national security a key priority in its relations with foreign investors. Yergozhin said the Central Asian state’s government would submit the draft for parliamentary approval in the first quarter of 2008--seen largely as a technical procedure since the lower chamber is controlled by pro-presidential loyalists.
“We think that the introduction (of the new tax) would boost budget revenues and increase transparency,“ Yergozhin said, adding that the government believed the rent tax did not generate enough budget revenues. “(But) this should not scare investors,“ he said.
Foreign investors have voiced concern about the business climate in Kazakhstan this year due to the country’s row with the Eni-led group developing Kashagan, as well as separate subsoil law amendments that allow the government to unilaterally break contracts with oil companies.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 30--The United States lambasted key ally Japan Thursday for what it called lack of leadership in talks to forge a global trade accord, accusing the Asian economic powerhouse of behaving like a “protectionist“ developing nation.
“We have been somewhat disappointed by the fact that Japan has not, in our view, done enough to show leadership for open markets in some key international institutions, in particular in the Doha negotiations of the World Trade Organization,“ a senior US trade official said, AFP reported.
“On Doha, I think we would like to see Japan act more like the developed country powerhouse that it is and less like a protectionist mid-level developing country,“ said the official, on condition of anonymity.
He was speaking ahead of a meeting of senior economic officials from both countries on a range of issues in Tokyo next week.
The WTO’s Doha round of talks to forge new global trade rules has been bogged down for the past six years in disputes largely between developed and developing countries over agricultural subsidies and industrial tariffs.
Japan has come under criticism during the WTO talks for its zealous protection of its farmers, particularly those growing rice, which Tokyo argues is a national institution.
“I have to say that we have been disappointed in the role that Japan has played in Doha and we plan to say so next week,“ the official told reporters during a media conference call. The official accused Japan of adopting an “excessively defensive“ negotiating stance in the talks.
“In those areas where we do share some common offensive interests with Japan, such as in the non-agricultural market access negotiations, Japan has played only a very limited role. “That is disappointing, and we will say that,“ the official said.
Washington’s concerns about Japan were not just over its actions at the WTO but also at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, where a US-led move to establish a vast free trade area involving 21 Pacific basin economies was met with a cold response from Japan, China and several other Asian nations.

ROME, Nov. 30--Cab drivers on Thursday staged a strike for a second day in central Rome, snarling traffic in the Italian capital as drivers protested plans by the city to issue more Taxi licenses.
Dozens of cabs converged on the central Piazza Venezia and nearby squares, slowing traffic and forcing authorities to close off some streets. Cab drivers at Rome’s main airport, Leonardo da Vinci, also protested, leaving tourists and locals stranded, AP reported.
Unions, which have been negotiating fare increases with Mayor Walter Veltroni, decided to stage the sudden protest on Wednesday after city authorities said they wanted to issue 500 new Taxi licenses.
The city hall said it would not attend further talks unless Taxi drivers resumed regular service, particularly at airports and train stations.
The situation remained deadlocked late Thursday, as hundreds of drivers stood in the rain on the majestic steps leading to city hall and the Michelangelo’s Piazza del Campidoglio. Below, traffic inched by in the narrow lane left open in the sea of white cabs that took over the historic streets.
Cab drivers, who have staged several strikes in recent months, want their rates raised and also oppose government plans to liberalize the service and grant more licenses.
The latest protest in Rome came on the eve of a series of national strikes scheduled for Friday and expected to idle buses and subway trains as well as disrupt rail and air travel across Italy.