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[OMEN]

The United States is blocking efforts to get next month's Group of Eight summit to agree on targets for cutting carbon emissions over the next 20 years, according to a draft of the declaration.

The draft, dated May 5, shows that Washington wants to make the Major Emitters grouping set up by US President George W Bush last year the main forum for climate action, taking the initiative away from the smaller group of rich nations.

"We would be prepared to address mid-term goals in the G8 only if the Major Economies Leaders Statement does not do so and only in a way that points to the need for commitments from major emerging economies," said a US comment in the draft.

In the draft for the July 7-9 summit at Hokkaido in Japan, the US endorses expansion of civil nuclear power as a low carbon technology and says biofuels are not the main cause of the recent surge in world food prices.

The Major Economies Meeting – also known as the Major Emitters Meeting – will take place in Japan on the sidelines of the G8 summit.

It groups the United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Korea, South Africa and Britain, as well as the European Union and the United Nations.

The G8 summit is due to formally adopt the informal goal agreed a year ago that global carbon emissions should be reduced by 50 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050.

There is also rising pressure to set mid-term goals for 2020 to 2030 as well as a way of reinforcing the long-term target.

But by taking the initiative away from the G8, which has made most of the running, and linking a deal to agreement on action by booming emitters like China and India which have so far rejected targets, Washington is in effect blocking any movement.

Reinforcing that position, another US comment in the draft declaration said: "We will not agree to long-term language without mid-term language."

The US which only recently acknowledged that global warming was at least in part due to burning fossil fuels for power and transport, also rejected proposals by the G8 for an industry-by-industry approach to carbon curbs.

Here again it said the Major Emitters, not the G8, was the appropriate forum for any such declaration.

"We are prepared to address it in the G8 only if the MEM Leaders Declaration fails to capture the sectoral approach idea," it said.

In supporting civil nuclear power expansion and sustainable biofuels production such as cellulosic ethanol, the United States is also supporting its own agenda.

"The expansion of nuclear energy would help to mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change and would provide the greater global energy security by diversifying supply options," said the US comment in the draft text.

It called for agreement in the Doha round of world trade talks on eliminating barriers to trade in green goods and services, adding that a voluntary deal within the G8 would not be the right approach.

Reuters

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[OMEN]

the Assistant Director Of The Top Secret Nsw Crime Commission Who Directed Some Of Australia's Biggest Drug Investigations Has Been Arrested For Alleged Involvement With An International Drug Ring.

Mark Standen, 51, Was Arrested In A Raid By Australian Federal Police Officers At 2pm Today On The High Security Office Of The Nsw Crime Commission In Kent Street, Sydney.

The Australian Crime Commission Confirmed The Arrest But Declined Any Further Comment With A Spokeswoman Saying Its Long-serving, Founding Boss, Phil Bradley, May Release A Statement Tomorrow.

However, The Commission Confirmed That Federal Police Agents Who Arrested Standen At His Desk, Also Executed A Search Warrant And Seized A Number Of Items.

Standen Was Taken Later Taken To The Afp's Sydney Headquarters And Then To The Sydney Police Centre.

He Is Expected To Be Charged Tonight With Participating In A Plot To Import Chemicals From The Netherlands That Were To Be Used To Manufacture The Drug "ice".

Federal Police Are Understood To Be In Amsterdam As Part Of The Investigation, But It Is Unclear Whether There Have Been Any Other Arrests.

Such Was The Immediate Impact Of The Announcement Nsw Police Immediately Issued A Media Release Stating None Of Its Officers Were Involved.

"we Have No Information That Suggests Any Nsw Police Officer Has Been Involved In Any Wrong Doing,'' The Statement Read.

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[JohnCenaFan28]

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[OMEN]

Nepal's leading political parties are locked in a power struggle as celebrations of the end of the monarchy and the dawn of the world's newest republic ebbed.

A specially elected assembly toppled the Himalayan nation's 239-year-old monarchy last week and ordered deposed King Gyanendra to vacate his palace within two weeks.

But political parties, including the Maoist former rebels who won a surprise victory in April's elections for a constituent assembly, are yet to agree on how to form a new government or elect a president.

The Maoists, who emerged as the biggest political party in the assembly but lack a majority, want both the posts of prime minister and president.

Political parties have agreed to have a symbolic president and a powerful prime minister in the new republican system.

But the centrist Nepali Congress, the second biggest group in the assembly, say the Maoists are demanding too much.

"They can't have both the posts of a prime minister and the president at the same time," said Ram Chandra Poudel, a senior leader of the Nepali Congress.

"The Maoists want to have a totalitarian system and we cannot allow this to happen," he added. "We'll not kneel down."

Under a 2006 peace deal, the Maoists have confined more than 19,000 former fighters to camps and locked their weapons in containers monitored by the United Nations, although they retain their keys.

Poudel, who is also peace and reconstruction minister, said the Maoists should hand their weapons over to the government or destroy them, return property they seized during the war and disband their youth wing before forming a new government.

The Maoist youth wing, the Young Communist League, has been blamed for continued violence and intimidation even after the Maoists joined the political mainstream.

Senior Maoist leader and Local Development Minister Dev Gurung accused the Nepali Congress of double standards.

Its leader, outgoing Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, also performed the ceremonial duties of the head of state after Gyanendra was stripped of almost all of his powers after surrendering absolute power in 2006.

"They are biased. We can't accept this," Gurung said.

The Maoists have threatened to organise street protests if they were not allowed to form a government on their terms within two to three days.

The abolition of the monarchy was the centrepiece of the peace deal that ended a decade-long civil war which killed more than 13,000 people.

Reuters

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[OMEN]

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says he will stick to his principles over plans to detain terrorism suspects for longer prior to being charged, despite the prospect of a humiliating defeat in parliament.

With a rebellion rumbling in the ranks of his ruling Labour Party and threatening Brown's faltering leadership, the prime minister said a plan to allow detention of suspects for up to 42 days without charge was the "right thing" to do "to protect the security of all and the liberties of each".

Brown, whose Labour Party lost a safe parliamentary seat last month and was beaten into third place in local elections, does not have to call a national election until 2010, when he hopes the economy will have had time to recover.

His poll ratings have fallen in recent months, wiping away the political "honeymoon" he enjoyed after taking over from former prime minister Tony Blair almost a year ago.

As many as 50 Labour parliamentarians are thought to be ready to vote against Brown's 42-day detention plan when it comes to the vote next week.

The plans, which would extend the 28-day pre-charge detention limit, were attacked by the government's former top lawyer, ex-attorney-general Lord Goldsmith, who described them as a "very serious incursion on our fundamental freedoms".

Interior Minister Jacqui Smith was scheduled to meet the parliamentary party later on Monday to try to persuade them to fall into line behind Brown.

Writing in The Times newspaper, Brown said he would not give ground.

"Some have argued that I should drop or significantly water down the 42-day limit," he wrote. "But having considered carefully all the evidence . . . I believe that. . . allowing up to 42 days' pre-charge detention in these exceptional terrorist cases is the right way to protect national security."

Political analysts say Brown will be fighting for his political life over the next two months and may struggle to survive as party leader into the summer parliamentary recess.

Most commentators recognise that it is most likely to be the economy – an area where Brown won a good reputation for competence during his 10 years as finance minister under Blair – which is crucial to Brown's future.

The British economy grew at its slowest pace in three years in the first quarter of 2008 and inflation is forecast to rise near to 4 per cent, limiting the central bank's scope for interest rate cuts.

News on Monday that Britain's largest buy-to-let mortgage lender has run into financial difficulties in a global credit squeeze which has already contributed to the collapse of one major British bank was likely to darken the scene further.

And Brown's opinion poll ratings have shadowed the economic decline. A YouGov poll in last Friday's Telegraph newspaper put Labour 14 points behind in popularity, with 23 per cent support versus 47 per cent for the main opposition Conservative Party.

Reuters

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[OMEN]

Hillary Clinton has won the Democratic nominating contest in Puerto Rico, but still badly trails front-runner Barack Obama as he draws closer to clinching the party's presidential nomination.

Clinton's win in Puerto Rico, a territory where residents are not allowed to vote in the November election, gave her more fuel for her argument that she has won more popular votes and is the best Democrat to face Republican John McCain.

But the results pushed Obama closer to the magic number of 2,118 delegates needed to become the nominee, and the Illinois senator already has turned his attention to a general election fight with McCain.

Two contests on Tuesday in Montana and South Dakota, with 31 pledged delegates to the August nominating convention at stake, conclude the voting in the Democratic presidential race.

Clinton had campaigned heavily in Puerto Rico, a Caribbean island with 55 delegates at stake on Sunday. Obama visited there for one day last week.

With a portion of the Puerto Rico delegates allocated, Obama is about 50 delegates shy of securing the nomination. He probably will be short on Tuesday, but could reach the total quickly with help from some of the approximately 180 uncommitted superdelegates -- party officials who can back any candidate.

Obama picked up endorsements from at least two more superdelegates on Sunday.

With barely more than one-quarter of the vote counted, Clinton led Obama by 2-to-1. Obama, who called Clinton to congratulate her, looked past the New York senator to focus on her role in his general-election race against McCain.

"Senator Clinton is an outstanding public servant. She is going to be a great asset when we go into November to make sure that we can defeat the Republicans," Obama said at a rally in Mitchell, South Dakota.

Obama cleared a significant hurdle on Saturday when a party committee decided to seat the disputed Michigan and Florida convention delegations at half-strength.

The decision was a victory for Obama, preventing Clinton from significantly cutting his delegate lead. Clinton had won both disputed contests -- which were not sanctioned by the national party because of a dispute over their timing -- and demanded the delegations be seated at full voting strength.

'GETTING CLOSE'

"Now that Michigan and Florida have been added, we are getting close to the number that will give us the nomination," Obama said on Saturday in South Dakota after the rules committee meeting.

"And if we've hit that number on Tuesday night we will announce that, and I think even if we don't, this is the end of the primary season," he said.

Once the long primary season ends on Tuesday after five months of state-by-state nominating contests, the Obama camp expects the superdelegates to quickly line up behind him and end the campaign.

The Clinton campaign said it planned to continue the fight, possibly all the way to the national convention in Denver, and try to woo superdelegates on the claim that she won more primary votes and was beating McCain in states Democrats need to win.

"This race goes on until someone meets the magic number to be the nominee of the Democratic Party," Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said on ABC's "This Week."

Clinton argues she has won more popular votes in the lengthy nominating fight if Michigan, where Obama was not on the ballot, and Florida are counted and all the caucus states won by Obama are not. That shows she would be a better candidate in November, she says.

A big win in Puerto Rico, where votes were just being counted, could put her over the top in the popular vote even if estimated caucus results are included.

But popular votes do not determine the party's nominee, who is selected by delegates at the convention. Obama's lead in delegates is unassailable unless she wins nearly all the remaining uncommitted superdelegates.

Obama plans a victory celebration after the South Dakota and Montana polls close on Tuesday night at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota -- the site of the Republican convention in September.

He has increasingly turned his attention to the race against McCain, an Arizona senator, and expects to focus exclusively on the general election after the final two contests.

Reuters

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