DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 26--World business leaders and political powerbrokers wrapped up their annual gathering in Davos on Saturday by revisiting the issue of global economic uncertainty that clouded this year’s event.
International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn was to lead a round-table discussion on the economic outlook for 2008 amid talk of a US recession and fears of its potential impact on the rest of the world, AFP wrote.
The current shaky situation was to be addressed in a keynote speech by Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who will chair the annual Group of Eight (G8) summit in July.
The premier told reporters before his departure for Switzerland that he would call for a collective response to the recent turmoil. “The United States may seem to be the most responsible for the problem, but the global stockmarket plunge cannot be dealt with by a single country. It is important for all major countries to act at the same time,“ he said. He noted that the Davos gathering “often helps set the tone for world opinion“.
The condition of the faltering US economy dominated the opening of the World Economic Forum in this Swiss ski resort on Wednesday.
In a nod to the prevailing mood, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who gave the keynote speech at the opening ceremony, felt obliged to talk up the “resilience“ of the US economy, despite the stock market volatility triggered by the crisis in the subprime mortgage sector. The gloomy atmosphere was in stark contrast to recent years when the Davos gathering had been held against a backdrop of bumper corporate profits, strong growth and tame inflation.
This year’s Davos event drew nearly 30 heads of state or government, more than 110 cabinet ministers and several hundred corporate chiefs.
On Friday, the delegates put their own anxieties aside for a while in a bid to focus on the plight of the world’s poor, with rock star activist Bono, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates and UN chief Ban Ki-moon helped steering the conversation onto issues such as infant mortality and poverty alleviation.
Ban challenged delegates to renew a commitment to the UN Millennium Development Goals, aimed at halving extreme poverty, boosting health and education and further empowering women across the developing world by 2015. “Too many nations have fallen behind,“ he said. “We need new ideas and fresh approaches.“

MOSCOW, Jan. 26--Serbia has signed a multibillion-dollar deal that would make it a key hub for Russian energy supplies and strengthen Moscow’s dominance of the European energy market.
The agreement includes building a branch of a prospective major natural gas pipeline and a huge gas storage facility in Serbia, AP wrote.
A separate agreement also lays the groundwork for Russia’s state gas monopoly, Gazprom, to acquire a controlling stake in Serbia’s state oil company NIS.
“The agreements signed would make Serbia a key hub in the prospective network of Russian energy supplies to southern Europe,“ Russian President Vladimir Putin said after Friday’s signing.
The agreements, which Serbian officials have estimated its worth at least $2.2 billion, would include building a branch of the prospective South Stream natural gas pipeline in Serbia. South Stream would run under the Black Sea from Russia to Bulgaria, from where it would branch off. The section through Serbia would carry at least 10 billion cubic meters a year, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said.
Serbia President Boris Tadic said the deal would bolster his country’s standing by making it a key transit country for energy supplies to Europe.
Belgrade has turned increasingly away from the West and toward Russia, which has supported Serbia in the debate over independence for the province of Kosovo.
Meanwhile, Lithuania’s national gas distribution company Lietuvos Dujos signed a new supply deal with Russian giant Gazprom, a company spokeswoman said Friday, a move that could hit customers’ pockets hard.
Lietuvos Dujos’ spokeswoman Sigita Petrikonyte confirmed that a deal had been inked, but refused to give details of the amount and price of the gas, saying the information was confidential, AFP wrote.
However, new gas prices announced by Lietuvos Dujos late Thursday showed an average increase of 67 percent to 1,250-1,620 litas (362-469 euros, $531-688) per 1,000 cubic meters, depending on the amount consumed.
The Baltic News Service (BNS) agency, citing unnamed sources familiar with the deal, said that this year Lietuvos Dujos will pay $353 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas, compared with last year’s $260.
Gazprom is one of the major shareholders in Lietuvos Dujos. Gazprom has a monopoly on the supply of natural gas to Lithuania.

KIEV, Ukraine,
Jan. 26--The World Trade Organization agreed Friday to accept Ukraine as a member, giving President Viktor Yushchenko a powerful new sales pitch as he made the case on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerlands for greater foreign investment.
Membership of the WTO will open up valuable new market opportunities for Ukraine’s industrial exports, and will help the country defend its trade interests, seen as especially important amid fears that the current economic uncertainty could lead to increased protectionism, AP wrote.
Yushchenko also has hopes of steering the country into the European Union and NATO. Yushchenko said joining the body also could improve Ukraine’s troubled trade relations with Russia, which also aspires to WTO membership, but still has numerous issues to resolve. “Ukraine and Russia are now in active dialogue with the WTO,“ he said. “I think we will soon begin consultations with the goal of optimizing our relations in the context of the rules, traditions and position of the WTO.“
Yushchenko, who travels to Moscow on Feb. 12 for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said it was important for Russia to join it in the Geneva-based organization setting the rules for global trade.
In making the case for investing in Ukraine, he cited its 7.3 percent growth last year and commitment to democracy, which he called the key to economic and political stability.
The WTO’s 151-member general council will formally invite Ukraine to join on Feb. 5, after which the country still has to sign the accession treaty. It would then officially become the body’s 152nd member a month later.
Russia had been wary of Ukraine entering the WTO first and had suggested that Kiev and Moscow “synchronize“ their accession processes, a proposal that Yushchenko long ago rejected.
By joining first, Ukraine effectively will get a veto over Russian membership since all WTO decisions are made by consensus. But, as Yushchenko’s remarks indicated, Ukraine may have an interest in seeing Russia bound by the same trade rules.
If, for instance, there were a repeat of the pricing dispute that led to Russia temporarily cutting off gas supplies to Ukraine two years ago, the conflict could be settled in the framework of the WTO, said Natalie Jareshko, the Ukrainian-American founder of the Horizon Capital investment fund.

Gold mining is a mainstay of the South African economy, contributing about 18 percent of GDP and employing hundreds of thousands of people.

NEW YORK, Jan. 26--Gold and platinum prices reached new highs Friday after mine stoppages in South Africa, a leading producer of the precious metals, led to buying on supply concerns.
Several major mining companies, including AngloGold, Harmony and Gold Fields Ltd., suspended all but emergency operations at some of the world’s largest mines because of a national electricity emergency, AP reported.
South Africa is second only to China in world gold production, and is the globe’s top producer of platinum.
Mining operations in the country were suspended Friday on fears that power interruptions would trap workers underground.
An ounce of gold for February delivery spiked to $924.30, a fresh record, on the New York Mercantile Exchange before easing back to settle at $910.70, up $4.90.
April platinum peaked at a new high of $1,694.90 an ounce. Prices later settled at $1,670, up $57.
The South African government is to introduce electricity rationing. The move to drastically cut power consumption came as the cabinet described a fortnight of rolling blackouts to millions of homes and businesses as a “national emergency“ amid warnings that the electricity shortage will go on for years.
In an unprecedented move, the state power utility, Eskom, told the mines to evacuate all underground staff and cease mining to cut electricity consumption to “minimal levels“.
The two biggest platinum mining companies, which account for more than half the global supply, were also forced to cease production, driving precious metal prices to new highs with platinum rising nearly 5 percent.
Eskom has warned the mine closures could last for up to six weeks as it will only supply power at “survival level“. It predicts that regular blackouts will continue for five years or more until new power stations are built.
Gold mining is a mainstay of the South African economy, contributing about 18 percent of GDP and employing hundreds of thousands of people.
The government has blamed the power shortages on increased demand caused by years of economic growth. But it has also admitted it failed to heed a warning from Eskom 10 years ago that without new power stations it might not be able to meet demand by 2007.

Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis (l) and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan give a press conference after their meeting at the ErdoganÕs office in Ankara on Jan. 23.

ANKARA, Turkey, Jan. 26--Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Greek counterpart Costas Karamanlis on Friday called for more trade across their common border to further improve long difficult relations.
“Cooperation in the economic field opens the way for further rapprochement between our two countries and eliminates damage caused by friction and tension,“ Karamanlis told a gathering of Turkish and Greek businessmen in Istanbul on the final day of a three-day visit to Turkey, AFP wrote.
Speaking through an interpreter, he also added that his country would support Turkey’s bid to host the prestigious International Expo in 2015 in the western city of Izmir on the Aegean shore.
“I am convinced that Greek businessmen will be there in force,“ added Karamanlis, the first Greek prime minister to visit Turkey in nearly 50 years.
Erdogan for his part said, “The people of our two nations will benefit from the process that we launched in order to ensure stability in the Mediterranean, in the Balkans and also in Europe.“
He stressed that the countries were also working for the security of Europe in the field of energy.
Traditional rivals, Turkey and Greece have significantly improved relations over the past decade especially in the field of trade, but remain at loggerheads over territorial disputes in the Aegean and the divided island of Cyprus.
Trade volume rose to $2.84 billion (1.93 billion euros) in 2007 from $870 million in 2000, according to official statistics. Of that amount, $2.04 billion were Turkey’s exports to Greece.
In November, Karamanlis and Erdogan inaugurated a pipeline to carry gas from Azerbaijan to Greece via Turkey, hailed as a symbol of a new era of economic cooperation.

LONDON, Jan. 26--Banks may need to raise as much as $143 billion (£77 billion) to weather the credit crisis, leading global investment bank Barclays Capital reported on Friday.
They say the banks will need extra money if bond insurers, who insure the products at the center of the sub-prime crisis, lose their top credit ratings. If their credit ratings are cut, it could make it harder for them to pay out, leading to banks reporting bigger losses on sub-prime debt, BBC wrote.
Fears about bond insurers helped spark off this week’s stock market falls.
The world’s largest banks have already admitted losing more than $100 billion from mortgage bonds gone bad.
Analysts at Barclays Capital said banks own $820 billion of securities guaranteed by bond insurers.
“This is a huge amount, but the assumptions used are also very aggressive, designed only to show how, taken to its extreme..., bank capital could be influenced,“ the Barclays Capital report said.
Bond insurers, such as American companies Ambac Financial Group and MBIA, have suffered billions of dollars of write-downs in recent months and are expected to sustain more, after insuring debt hit by the sub-prime mortgage crisis.
Many investors fear the insurers have too little capital given their obligations, and worry that a cut in their credit rating would make it more expensive for them to borrow money.
Ratings agency Fitch cut Ambac’s rating last week, while rival agencies Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s are reviewing Ambac’s and MBIA’s ratings.
However, there is some optimism for the sector after reports that billionaire Wilbur Ross was in talks to acquire Ambac.
The reports follow comments this week from New York State regulators saying they would consider lending support to the struggling bond insurance industry.
Firms like Ambac are known as ’monoline’ insurers and are at the center of the sub-prime crisis.
The sub-prime market is focused on providing home loans to those with limited or poor credit histories.
Many of these mortgages were converted into financial instruments and sold on to investors including banks.
But a series of interest rate rises over the past two years has meant many sub-prime borrowers could no longer afford their monthly payments, causing them to default.
This led to a steep fall in the value of investments linked to sub-prime loans and has caused many banks to report massive losses.

BEIJING, Jan. 26--China announced plans Saturday to build nearly 100 new airports by 2020 to cater for soaring demand.
The proposals will mean eight out of every ten residents will live within 100 kilometers (60 miles) of an airport within 12 years, AFP quoted the General Administration of Civil Aviation as saying.
It put the cost of building the 97 new airports at 450 billion yuan ($61.6 billion).
Air traffic volume rose 16 percent to 185 million passengers in 2007, according to official figures.
The General Administration predicts passenger traffic will grow by 11.4 percent a year between now and 2020, and freight traffic by 14 percent.
The number of airports serving more than 30 million passengers a year will rise from three now to 13, it said.