South Korea Urged To Streamline International Aid System

“A committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on Monday advised South Korea to streamline its international aid system and introduce related legislation.

‘Korea needs to tackle the fragmented nature of the system, as too many actors and government ministries are involved in the aid system,’ Eckhard Deutscher, Chairman of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC), told reporters. …South Korea aims to join the DAC in 2010. The committee has 23 members, including the European Commission, and is the only OECD committee of which Korea is not yet a member. …” [Asia Pulse (Australia)/Factiva]

Korea Times adds that the government is seeking to “…increase its officials development aid (ODA) to underdeveloped or developing countries to 0.25 percent of the nation's gross national income by 2015, the Foreign Ministry officials said.

South Korea's ODA rose 48 percent in 2007 from a year earlier to $672 million. The figure accounts for 0.07 percent of its gross national income. The country plans to increase the ratio to 0.15 percent by 2012 and 0.25 percent by 2015, they said. …” [Korea Times/Factiva]

The Korea Herald notes that “…Deutscher said Korea's enthusiasm for foreign aid was impressive, but the country needed to tackle the fragmented structure of its foreign assistance. He urged Korea to create a single entity to improve the efficiency of its official development assistance…” [The Korea Herald/Factiva]

Asian Development Bank Grants Pakistan $500 Million Loan

. “The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Tuesday that it has approved a $500 million loan that will support Pakistan's economic stabilization program. The loan will specifically fund reforms in the energy and agriculture sectors and help diversify and expand the industrial sector. …

The ADB loan is part of a global financing plan that will support the government's economic stabilization program. This program includes actions to shore up and manage foreign reserves, improve monetary policy, trim the fiscal deficit and its financing gap, and cut back on government borrowing from the State Bank of Pakistan.

‘ADB's support balances the need for addressing the needs of Pakistan's people while reassuring markets that the government is on the right track with its ongoing economic stabilization program,’ Juan Miranda, Director General of ADB's Central and West Asia Department, said in a statement. …” [Dow Jones/Factiva]

Meanwhile Kyodo News reports that “Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani announced Monday that Pakistan will launch a ‘Benazir Credit’ card for poor farmers that would entitle them to credit from banks for materials such as seeds and fertilizer.

Speaking after a Cabinet meeting that approved the scheme, Gillani called the initiative ‘yet another milestone’ by the … government to help poor people through economic difficulties and inflation. Under the plan, farmers owning up to 25 acres of land would be issued cards that would allow them short-duration loans payable after the next harvest.

In the budget for 2008-2009, the government said the ‘Benazir Card’ would benefit an expected 3.5 million of poorest people by providing a monthly cash subsidy of 1,000 rupees ($13.3). …” [Kyodo News (Japan)/Factiva]

Russia's Rosneft Signs Kyoto Deal To Use Wasted Gas.

“The World Bank has signed a deal with Russia's largest oil company, Rosneft, to cut planet-warming emissions by making use of gas from an oilfield rather than flaring it off, Rosneft said on Monday.

Rosneft will cut the equivalent of 5.3 million tones of carbon dioxide emissions in 2008-12, which can then be sold as carbon offsets, under the Kyoto Protocol, to European countries trying to meet climate targets. …

State-controlled Rosneft will achieve the emissions cuts by harnessing associated natural gas, a by-product of oil production, at the Komsomolskoye oil field in the far northern region of Yamal-Nenets, the company said in a statement. …Rosneft is ready to invest $159 million in the associated gas project and hopes to sell the ERUs, it said. …” [Reuters/Factiva]

            SKRIN notes that “…The World Bank acted on behalf of the European, Danish, Italian and Spanish Carbon Funds respectively. During the period of 2008-2012 Rosneft is prepared to allocate a minimum 5.32 million ERUs in the above-mentioned Funds (one ERU equals one tone of CO2). The World Bank…will formalize transactions with ERUs, as well as will monitor and control compliance with procedures governing project implementation. …” [SKRIN Newswire (Russia)/Factiva]

‘Urgent Action’ Needed To Boost Renewables, IEA Warns

“Governments must take ‘urgent action’ to promote the renewable energy sources that are badly needed for mankind to reduce its carbon footprint, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Monday. …Nearly 50 percent of global electricity supplies will have to come from renewable energy sources if we want to halve CO2 emissions by 2050 in order to ‘minimize significant and irreversible climate change impacts,’ the IEA said. …

[IEA Executive Director Nobuo] Tanaka said $45 trillion need to be invested in renewables between now and 2050 - an amount he described as not a ‘big number’ and being equal to 1.1 percent of global economic output over the period. …The IEA [Deploying Renewables: Principles for Effective Policies] report compared for the first time the renewables policies of 35 countries including all members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as well as the so-called BRICS nations …It found that that there were still significant barriers hampering a swift expansion and increase the costs of accelerating renewables’ transition into the mainstream. If these were removed, it ‘could allow the great potential of renewables to be exploited much more rapidly and to a much larger extent,’ Tanaka said. …” [Agence France Presse/Factiva]

Reuters notes that “Oil prices should ease in coming months but extreme weather conditions and labor disputes in the industry could create new supply bottlenecks, the head of the IEA said on Monday. However, no dramatic bottlenecks were to be expected between now and 2010 because oil supply was relatively generous compared to demand, Tanaka said at an event on renewable energy sources in Berlin.

But after 2010, and above all after 2013, the situation would become more difficult because there was no immediate prospect of new reserves coming on to the market and this would affect prices, he added. …” [Reuters/Factiva]

Ocean ‘Dead Zones’ Spread, Fish More At Risk – Study

“The number of polluted ‘dead zones’ in the world's oceans is rising fast and coastal fish stocks are more vulnerable to collapse than previously feared, scientists said on Monday. The spread of ‘dead zones’ - areas of oxygen-starved water - ‘is emerging as a major threat to coastal ecosystems globally,’ the scientists wrote in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Such zones are found from the Gulf of Mexico to the Baltic Sea in areas where algae bloom and suck oxygen from the water, feeding on fertilizers washed from fields, sewage, animal wastes and pollutants from the burning of fossil fuels. … [The study] showed that the number of ‘dead zones’ had risen to more than 140 in 2004 from almost none until the late 1970s. …” [Reuters/Factiva]

Briefly Noted…

Banking authorities raised the daily withdrawal limit in Zimbabwe, prompting tens of thousands to line up Monday in desperate hopes of getting enough cash for groceries before spiraling inflation eats away more value. New rules went into affect allowing withdrawals of up to 20,000 Zimbabwe dollars ($35). The old 1,000 Zimbabwean-dollar limit was barely enough to buy a newspaper. [The Washington Post/Factiva]

The World Bank is in the final stages of approval of a $698 million loan for Argentina which aims to support the program for remediation of the Matanza-Riachuelo river basin, the presidency reported on its website. [Business News Americas /Factiva]

The Amazon is being deforested more than twice as fast as last year, Brazilian officials said Monday, acknowledging a sharp reversal after three years of declines in the deforestation rate. Brazil's Environment Minister Carlos Minc said coming nationwide elections are partly to blame, with mayors in the Amazon region turning a blind eye to illegal logging in hopes of gaining votes locally. [The Wall Street Journal/Factiva]

Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa pledged on Monday to move quickly to enact changes in the Andean’s nation’s 20th constitution, including the imposition of a new tax on mining companies. The tax, intended to develop an estimated $220 billion in metals reserves, was low, Correa said, but the constitution established that the state would receive at least 50 percent of income generated by companies in natural resources. [The Financial Times (UK)/Factiva]

Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim said Monday he will invest $45 million in a microfinance joint venture with the international arm of Grameen Bank. At a press conference, Slim said the venture, called Grameen-Carso, is aimed at reducing poverty in Mexico by creating employment opportunities. [The Wall Street Journal/Factiva]

Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha foresees no new deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) once a three-year program expires in January and will undertake only regular consultation with the Fund from now on. The IMF had offered a new program focused on macroeconomic stability that would contain fewer conditions on structural reforms and might or might have not included access to IMF financing. [Reuters/Factiva]

On Wednesday, EU Commissioner for internal markets, Charlie McCreevy, will propose changes to overhaul banking regulation across Europe that include creating groups of national regulators to supervise banks doing business across national borders. [The Wall Street Journal/Factiva]

Japan will present at upcoming international climate talks a proposal that would require some developing countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, officials said Monday. The proposal will be discussed at the 14th Conference of the Parties (COP14) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, to be held in Poland in December. [Jiji Press (Japan)/Factiva]

People will have to be rationed to four modest portions of meat and one litre of milk a week if the world is to avoid run-away climate change, a report, by the Food Climate Research Network, based at the University of Surrey warns. It also says total food consumption should be reduced, especially low nutritional value treats such as alcohol, sweets and chocolates. [The Guardian (UK)/Factiva]