Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico (l) and Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer saw a border barrier on Dec. 20 in Petrzalka, on the border with the Austrian border city of Bert, near Slovakia's capital Bratislava.

PRAGUE, Czech Republic, Dec. 21--Celebrations have been held after midnight to mark nine new states joining a European border-free zone.
The Schengen agreement, which allows passport-free travel across the area, now embraces 24 nations, BBC reported.
Some 2,000 people celebrated with the EU anthem, Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, and fireworks in the town of Frankfurt on Oder at Germany’s border with Poland.
Nine mainly ex-East bloc countries tore down their borders to join the European zone allowing 400 million people to travel from Estonia in the east to Portugal in the west without showing a passport.
The Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia joined the zone.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Polish PM Donald Tusk are to mark the event on Friday morning in the town of Zittau, near the point where Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic meet.
On Thursday a checkpoint between Austria and Slovakia was dismantled in one of several events marking the enlargement from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer sawed through a barrier at the Berg border crossing.
Other ceremonies took place in Hungary, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Poland and the Baltic states.
Initially the lifting of internal controls involves just land and sea borders, but that will be extended to airports at the end of March 2008.
Gusenbauer welcomed the extension of the Schengen zone, rejecting fears that it might create a crime wave in Austria.
The European Commission says that one billion euros have been spent on beefing up security on the new EU frontiers, including the establishing of missions along the Polish and Slovak borders.
Fico said: “From midnight tonight you can travel 4,000 km from Tallinn in Estonia to Lisbon in Portugal without any border controls.“
Although the enlargement allows passport-free travel throughout the area, travelers can be asked to carry documents by any of the countries concerned.
For non-EU nationals, a Schengen visa allows travel across all the participating countries.
Thirteen existing EU states have already been part of the Schengen accord, as well as two non-EU countries, Norway and Iceland.

MOSCOW, Dec. 21--Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Kazakh counterpart, Nursultan Nazarbayev oversaw a major new deal on Thursday to build a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Russia via Kazakhstan.
The agreement “on cooperation in building the Caspian pipeline“ was signed by ministers from Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. It is aimed at ensuring Russian gas supplies to energy-hungry countries in the European Union.
“The creation of this new energy artery allows us to ensure long-term, large-scale deliveries of gas to our partners and represents a new, serious contribution to strengthening the energy security of Europe,“ Putin was quoted by AFP as saying.
The planned pipeline is expected to come on line in 2010 and to have a capacity of 20 billion cubic meters annually, a level that could rise, Russian Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko said earlier.
It will skirt the northeast shore of the Caspian Sea from Turkmenistan to southern Russia.
Russian television showed Putin and Nazarbayev in the Kremlin holding a phone conversation with their Turkmen counterpart, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.

ZURICH, Switzerland, Dec. 21--UBS, one of the biggest casualties of the US subprime turmoil, faces a shareholders’ revolt over plans for a massive infusion of funds from Singapore and the Middle East to improve its capital ratios.
The move comes as the Financial Times learned that the mystery Middle Eastern investor ploughing SFr2 billion ($1.73 billion) into UBS’s recapitalization is from Saudi Arabia. “It’s a reasonable assumption the ruling family was involved and approved [the deal],“ said one figure with knowledge of the negotiations.
Details of the Saudi royal family’s involvement were unclear but one banker believed Prince Sultan, the crown prince and defense minister, was a leading figure in the deal. The investment is understood to be the result of a long relationship between the private banking arm of UBS for the Middle East, headed by Michel Adjadj, and the Saudi royal family. Prince Sultan was not available for comment and UBS declined to comment.
The investor’s insistence on anonymity, which sparked speculation since the arrangement was announced last week after a massive write-down on UBS’s portfolio of mortgage debt, was among concerns raised by critical UBS shareholders on Thursday.
One influential Swiss institutional investor called on shareholders to reject the proposal to raise SFr13 billion from sovereign wealth funds. A second demanded a special audit to look at how the bank could have made such massive losses.
The danger of a revolt at the special shareholders’ meeting in February to approve the measures prompted the Swiss National Bank to take the unusual step of recommending the recapitalization. Philipp Hildebrand, the SNB’s deputy chairman, said: “This is a very good deal. It is very important for UBS and for the country for shareholders to understand this at the extraordinary general meeting.“
Ulrich Grete, head of the Swiss Social Security Compensation Fund, an institutional investor, said the terms offered to the government of Singapore and the Middle East investor were unfair to UBS shareholders. “I believe this solution disadvantages existing shareholders,“ he said.
Grete also called on UBS to name the mystery investor, as its almost 2 per cent stake would make it one of the biggest single shareholders in the bank.

A young adult humpback whale breaching into the air during a migratory frolic in Australia's Hervey Bay Marine Park off Fraser Island, north of Brisbane

TOKYO, Dec. 21--Japan has dropped its plan to kill humpback whales in Antarctic waters after strong protests led by Australia, Japanese public broadcaster NHK said Friday.
An official at Japan’s Fisheries Agency declined all comment on the report, which came hours after Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura warned that the growing row with Australia would be difficult to resolve, AFP wrote.
NHK television, quoting unnamed officials, said Japan “has decided to delist humpbacks from the whaling list for now due to concern about the negative impact on relations with Australia.“
Japan had planned to harpoon 50 humpback whales in its current expedition to Antarctica, marking the first time that Japan would hunt the animal beloved by whale-watchers since the 1960s.
Japan had earlier denied remarks by Thomas Schieffer, the US ambassador to Tokyo, who said Wednesday that Japan had agreed in diplomatic discussions to stand down from its plan to kill humpbacks.
Australia’s new left-leaning government earlier this week stepped up the case against Japan’s whaling, saying it would deploy an unarmed customs ship and a surveillance aircraft to monitor the hunt.
Humpback whales, protected under a 1966 worldwide moratorium after years of overhunting, are renowned for their complex songs and acrobatic displays.
The humpbacks’ slow progression along Australia’s coast to breed has turned into a major tourist attraction bringing 1.5 million whale watchers a year.
Defying warnings from Australia and other Western nations, Japan’s fleet set off last month for Antarctica on its largest ever expedition with a mission to kill 1,000 whales, most of them of the small minke variety.
Japan says whaling is part of its culture, although critics point out that Japanese today eat little whale compared with other meats.
Komura, the foreign minister, earlier said he hoped to speak with his Australian counterpart Stephen Smith about the growing row but doubted he would make much headway.
“Japan has its own culture as much as Australia does and since (whaling) involves public sentiment, it’s not an issue we can resolve by convincing each other using logic,“ Komura told reporters.
“That’s why it’s hard,“ he said.
“Japan is conducting whaling research in line with international agreements so that’s that. We have our own ideas and so does Australia,“ Komura said.

PARIS, Dec. 21--International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on Friday global financial stability had taken a blow from the subprime crisis and European and US growth will be weaker as a result.
“Stability has taken a blow,“ Strauss-Kahn said in an interview on French RTL radio.
“We know that it (growth) will be hit. We know that it will be weaker. Is this reduction in growth in the United States and Europe massive? Not yet, not yet,“ he was quoted by Reuters as saying.
“The effects that we can measure, notably at the IMF, are significant. Growth will be weaker. It will not necessarily be catastrophic, it will continue to exist,“ he added.
He said that emerging countries would be less affected.
Strauss-Kahn also said that a French government growth prediction of 2.25 percent for 2008 would be “difficult to reach.“
“As (in) all countries, this prediction will be difficult to reach,“ said the former French finance minister.

HANOI, Vietnam, Dec. 21--Airbus on Friday signed deals for 30 passenger jets with Vietnam Airlines and an aircraft leasing company, the latest orders in a major shopping spree by the state-run Asian carrier.
The European aircraft maker signed contracts, agreed in principle and announced on October 1 in Paris, for ten A350-900XWB aircraft and twenty A321-200s at a ceremony in the capital Hanoi, reported AFP.
The 30 Airbus jets have a total catalogue price of nearly $3.8 billion. The first A321s are due to be delivered by 2012 and the first wide-body, long-haul A350s by 2016, the companies said.
The Vietnam Aircraft Leasing Company (VALC), which is co-owned by Vietnam Airlines and a number of state banks and companies in the communist country, bought ten of the A321s, while the airline bought the other 20 jets.
Vietnam Airlines--which says it hopes to become one of Asia’s leading carriers alongside Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines--last month signed a deal with US aircraft maker Boeing for twelve 787-8 Dreamliners.
The latest deals were signed by Airbus CEO in charge of customer relations John Leahy, Vietnam Airlines CEO Pham Ngoc Minh and VALC CEO Tran Long.
“Airbus is proud to be playing a central role in the continued modernization of the rapidly developing Vietnamese air transport industry,“ said Leahy.
Air travel is fast growing in the country of 84 million--which has seen tourism and business travel surge amid more than eight percent economic growth last year--and foreign airlines and budget carriers are flocking to Vietnam.
Minh said “demand for air services between Vietnam’s major cities and from Vietnam to countries in the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), Northeast Asia, Europe and North America regions has significantly increased.“

FRANKFURT, Germany, Dec. 21--The head of German engineering giant Siemens has acknowledged in an interview to be published Friday it will take the company “several years“ to overcome corruption scandals currently plaguing it.
“What we need is a cultural revolution,“ chairman Peter Loscher told the newspaper Handelsblatt. “It is a job that will take several years.“
Loscher, appointed last May, has reorganized and streamlined the operations of the 100-year-old enterprise, AFP wrote.
“The old structure was for another time, the 1980s. The chain of responsibility is now clear, which was not the case before.“
Investigators are currently looking into allegations that Siemens gave several million euros (dollars) in funding to the head of the AUB trade union to build it up as a counterweight to the large, established IG Metall labor union.
In early November, Siemens said it had uncovered 1.3 billion euros ($1.9 billion) in a number of dubious transactions, highlighting the scope of corruption scandals that have engulfed the company.
The group in particular is alleged to have made payments in several countries to obtain contracts.
Siemens earlier Thursday said had had named Ralph Thomas as the new chief financial officer of its industry unit after revoking an earlier appointment owing to an ongoing corruption probe.
Thomas, 46, is currently head of Siemens’ corporate finance and taxes unit, a company statement said.
He got the nod in place of Hannes Apitzsch following a Siemens investigation into records at the Nuremberg public prosecutor’s office in connection with the AUB trade union case.
Siemens said it had revoked Apitzsch’s nomination as a precautionary measure.