Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel proposed a new system of measuring greenhouse gas emissions in developing nations, a step aimed at helping countries such as China and India sign up to global efforts to tackle climate change after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
Merkel, on a five-day visit to China and Japan, proposed calculating the carbon-dioxide output of each country by its population instead of the absolute measurement used at present, according to the text of a speech to an economic symposium in Tokyo today.
By NATALIE OBIKO PEARSON and IAN JAMES, Associated Press Writers
Laid-off Brazilian factory workers have their jobs back, Nicaraguan farmers are getting low-interest loans and Bolivian mayors can afford new health clinics, all thanks to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Bolstered by windfall oil profits, Chavez's government is now offering more direct state funding to Latin America and the Caribbean than the United States. A tally by The Associated Press shows Venezuela has pledged more than $8.8 billion in aid, financing and energy funding so far this year.
While the most recent figures available from Washington show $3 billion in U.S. grants and loans reached the region in 2005, it isn't known how much of the Venezuelan money has actually been delivered. And Chavez's spending abroad doesn't come close to the overall volume of U.S. private investment and trade in Latin America.
Clay Lowery, the U.S. Treasury Department's acting undersecretary for international affairs, argues that the U.S. plays a larger role than reflected in its aid figures. The United States, for instance, drove Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank debt relief deals totaling $7.5 billion over the past three years in Latin America, he said.
"Who is the biggest financier of the IDB? The United States. Who is the biggest financier of the World Bank? The United States is. We don't count those," Lowery said. "We're basically engaged on a multilevel, multi-prong approach."
Reuters
A Dutch scuba diver became the surprise catch of the day for a 13-year-old boy fishing in the Netherlands when his hook got caught in the man's lip.
"I heard a sound on my head and immediately I felt a jerk on my lip," Wim van Huffelen, who had been swimming in the North Sea, was quoted as saying by Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf.
The daily ran a picture of the diver with the hook embedded in his lower lip.
The diver had been swimming close to the shore near the southern Dutch town of Zierikzee. A doctor managed to free him from the hook.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy lost his temper with two American news photographers covering his vacation Sunday, jumping onto their boat and scolding them loudly in French.
The confrontation came Sunday afternoon as Sarkozy and companions were headed for open water in a boat on Lake Winnipesaukee when he spotted Associated Press photographer Jim Cole and freelancer Vince DeWitt aboard Cole's boat, which was outside a buoy barrier monitored by the New Hampshire Marine Patrol.
"He was happy and smiling and he waved at the security people as he was coming out," Cole said of the president. "And then he noticed us taking pictures and his happy demeanor diminished immediately."
The men said they watched through their lenses as Sarkozy pointed toward them and his boat began moving in their direction. Coming alongside Cole's boat, Sarkozy, clad only in swim trunks, jumped aboard and began shouting at them.
"The president was very agitated, speaking French at a loud volume very rapidly," DeWitt said.
Both men said they repeatedly stated they did not speak French. Cole said that he asked whether any of the other passengers on Sarkozy's boat spoke English, but that no one answered or intervened.
Sarkozy picked up DeWitt's camera but then put it down. A woman then spoke up in English and relayed Sarkozy's request to be left alone, DeWitt said. The woman did not identify herself.
