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ROME (AFP) –
The sale of the RU486 abortion pill in Italy was given a final green light on Wednesday, despite protests from the Vatican and members of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government.

The Italian pharmaceutical authority AIFA had initially authorised the sale of RU486 on July 31, but was then asked by a Senate committee to rethink its decision in the face of objections in this predominantly Catholic nation.

It upheld its decision on December 2 -- and publication of that stance in the online edition of the Italian government's official journal on Wednesday cleared the way for its sale.

Unlike in other countries, however, RU486 -- an alternative to surgical abortion -- will only be administered in hospitals in Italy.

"The debate is not yet over," Senator Donatella Poretti told AFP. "From tomorrow, it has to be asked why Italian women (prescribed RU486) will be required to stay in hospital."

When AIFA initially approved the drug, deputy interior minister Alfredo Mantovano said its decision was tantamount to classifying it as just another drug for treating fever, rather than "an instrument for ending a life".

Bishop Elio Sgreccia, former head of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life, went so far as to threaten "excommunication for the doctor, the woman and all those who push for the use" of RU486, which he called "a deadly poison".

Three months ago, during a conference in Rome, the French inventor of RU486, Etienne Baulieu, denounced the fact that Italy was "the only major country in Europe" where it was still not available.

Approved in France since 1988, RU486 -- also known as mifepristone -- is manufactured for Europe by French laboratory Exelgyn, which applied two years ago to put it on the Italian market.

It differs from the morning-after pill Norlevo, which has been available in Italy since 2000.

Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- The proposal drawing the most
attention and criticism at the United Nations climate-change
talks in Copenhagen never got put on the table.

The formula for slowing global warming, circulated by
Denmark before the two-week negotiations started Dec. 7, has
generated a stir because Denmark is the host country for more
than 190 nations, striving to be neutral.

The plan, leaked more than a week ago, is flawed because it
was drawn up outside the UN process without input from poorer
nations, said Kim Carstensen, head of the global climate
initiative at environmental group WWF. UN climate chief Yvo de
Boer issued a statement saying the paper is “informal” only.

“It has been dealt with in closed circles, closed meetings
without proper representation from all groups,” Carstensen told
reporters yesterday. “It is being seen by developing countries
as an attempt to accommodate the interests of the U.S. and other
developed countries.”

The document, obtained by media including Bloomberg and
non-governmental organizations, proposes that the global deal
being negotiated in Denmark’s capital limits warming to 2
degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) since industrialization began,
a goal shared by many corporations and trade groups.

The proposal is garnering so much attention in part because
Denmark is hosting the climate negotiations, giving it oversight
of the final text of a deal, said David Waskow, climate-change
program director of Oxfam America.

‘Profoundly Destructive’

The UN chief played down its importance compared with
proposals that are officially admitted to negotiating tables.

“This was an informal paper ahead of the conference given
to a number of people for the purposes of consultations,” de
Boer said in his statement. “The only formal texts in the UN
process are the ones tabled by the chairs of this Copenhagen
conference at the behest of the parties.”

The draft was circulated among envoys from the U.S., the
U.K. and Denmark, The Guardian newspaper reported.

Lumumba Di-Aping, a Sudanese envoy who speaks for 130
developing nations and China, criticized the proposal and said
the UNFCCC is the only legitimate forum for debates.

“The proposal makes itself a laughing stock,” Quamrul
Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi delegate said today in an interview.
The behavior of the Danish hosts is “funny” and their text
doesn’t include the “massive public feeling” in poorer
nations, he said.

Su Wei, China’s lead negotiator, said he hadn’t seen the
Danish document.

Climate Aid

“The draft Copenhagen agreement is profoundly destructive
-- it violates the principles of the UN negotiations,” Andy
Atkins, executive director of Friends of the Earth, said in an
e-mailed statement. “The Danes holding secret back-room
meetings with a few select countries is also deeply
disappointing.”

Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister who’s chairwoman of
the talks, on Dec. 7 denied there was a specific proposal for
the final outcome of the meeting.

“There isn’t one text; there are lots of different issues
circulating where we try to consult with different parties,”
Hedegaard said. “The draft text that might eventually be
accepted here is for a later stage.”

The proposal also includes provisions for developed nations
to channel $10 billion a year for the next three years to help
developing nations cope with the immediate effects of climate
change and early steps to bring down their emissions.

Bangladesh’s Chowdhury said his country alone will need $9
billion a year to build sea defenses, protect farmland and take
efforts to lower emissions. Bangladesh is classed by the UN as a
least-developed country, or LDC, and Chowdhury coordinates the
position on finance and adaptation of the 49 LDCs.

“It’s not even inadequate, it’s minuscule,” Chowdhury
said of the $10 billion. “We will require $9 billion per annum.
There are 49 least-developed countries. What happens to the rest
of them?”

Developed countries would inscribe absolute emissions-
reduction pledges in one annex, and developing nations would lay
out their actions and the “emissions outcome expected” from
their policies.

“I think they’ve looked too much toward the U.S. and too
little toward what the developing countries were wanting to see
and that was a big tactical mistake,” Carstensen told Bloomberg
Television. “I think they have now gotten the signal from
developing countries that we want to see something different.”

‘A Distraction’

Envoys at the UN talks are discussing how to extend or
replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that limits emissions in 37
developed nations. Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen
has said he wants leaders to reach a “strong political
agreement” by the end of the summit on Dec. 18, when U.S.
President Barack Obama and U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown come
to Copenhagen.

“The Rasmussen text is a distraction,” Martin Kaiser,
Greenpeace International climate political adviser, said in an
e-mail.

“Rasmussen needs to get serious and focus on solving the
roadblocks that have been caused by the industrialized countries
refusing to agree on deep cuts in emissions, long-term finance
for the developing world and a legally binding outcome in
Copenhagen,” Kaiser said.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Alex Morales in Copenhagen via
amorales2@bloomberg.net
Kim Chipman in Copenhagen via
Kchipman@bloomberg.net .

ABUJA (AFP) –
A rise in insecticide resistant mosquitoes has become the latest threat to combating malaria in Nigeria, where roughly up to 300,000 people die each year from the killer disease, experts have warned.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, contributes more than a quarter of the one million malaria deaths in Africa, according to official statistics.

Some 75 million Nigerians, or half of the population, get attacked by malaria at least once a year while children below five years (around 24 million) get up to four bouts each year.

"The problem of insecticide resistance is very real and growing," Peter Cleary, communications director of Vestergaard Frandsen, European-based manufacturers of insecticide-impregnated bednets, said.

Malaria kills up to 300,000 Nigerians each year, according to official estimates. Around 97 percent of the 150 million Nigerians are at risk of infection, says Roll Back Malaria, a global initiative aiming to eradicate the disease.

Major constraints in fighting the endemic disease have been poverty, ignorance and a dilapidated health infrastructure.

Nigerian scientists, policy makers and foreign experts who met in Abuja last week highlighted the dangers of mosquito resistance to insecticides arising mainly from the heavy use of agro-chemical pesticides, as another concern.

Although resistance to insecticides is not new, there are signs it is growing and it might worsen due to the effects of climate change.

"There is concern that the malarial vectors are becoming resistant to the entire class of insecticides the WHO (World Health Organisation) approves," Cleary told AFP.

Mosquitoes evolve over time to adapt to the climatic environment and against any chemicals used to control them. The most common insecticide, pyrethroid, is also used to control pests in rice and cotton farming.

"In cases where there is high resistance of mosquitoes to insecticides, there is high usage of agricultural pesticides," said Yayo Abdulsalam, a researcher and lecturer in medical entomology at Bayero University in Nigeria's northern Kano State.

The trend is becoming more worrying with the unpredictable effects of climate change.

"Some 25 years ago we could predict (trends)... but now we cannot. It's really worrisome," said Chioma Amajor, a senior official in Nigeria's health ministry.

Abdulsalam said the likely rise in temperatures, decrease in rainfall and advance of the Sahara desert are likely to impact on the distribution of mosquitoes and the intensity of malaria.

Climate change is also likely to induce human behaviour that exposes people more to mosquito bites.

"Climate change can affect both men and the mosquitoes. If temperatures get too uncomfortable to sleep indoors, people sleep outside and the vectors that used to bite indoors can change habit and bite outside," Abdulsalam told AFP.

Malaria accounts for about 65 percent of out-patient visits and 30 percent of hospitalisations in Nigeria, says WHO and takes up around 18 percent of annual household income in treatments.

Resistance is the "first warning sign that you have to take necessary measures to ensure that the few insecticides we have... will be effective," said Sam Awolola, a scientist with Nigerian Institute of Medical Research.

Researchers also voiced worry that resistance might worsen due to access to cheap and inferior bednets.

With a government target to roll out 62 million bednets in Nigeria by the end of next year, there are fears fake products might filter into the country previously notorious for fake pharmaceutical drugs.

"Instead of a net being 100 percent impregnated (with an insecticide) they may be 50 percent impregnated, and that means the mosquitoes get half a dosage, survive and pass the gene to the next generation and resistance builds," said Awolola, adding "unfortunately we have a very porous market in Nigeria".

Deji Asa, a Lagos-based behavioural therapist who gets a malaria attack every year, believes some of the household insecticides available are no longer effective.

"I change the insecticides regularly because after a while some of them don't seem to kill the mosquitoes anymore," he told AFP.

TOKYO (Reuters) –
The Bank of Japan offered banks more short-term funds after an emergency meeting on Tuesday, winning an immediate reprieve from government pressure to help avert recession before upper house polls next year.

"We can say this is quantitative easing in the broad sense that we are trying to ensure banks are not faced with (liquidity) constraints," said Governor Masaaki Shirakawa, casting the move as an attempt to contain the fallout of Dubai's debt woes.

Market reaction to the bank's decision to offer 10 trillion yen in three month funds at 0.1 percent suggested investors had anticipated a more dramatic response.

The finance minister had raised expectations by talking openly of quantitative easing -- a policy of flooding banks with cash to stimulate lending.

The dollar fell against the yen and 10-year Japanese government bond futures trimmed gains as investors unwound positions taken after the emergency meeting was announced following weeks of government pressure.

"There will hardly be an impact on the real economy," said Hirokata Kusaba, senior economist at Mizuho Research Institute.

"The BOJ knows there is very little left it can do, but probably made the move today because it was under pressure from the government. Not doing anything was not an option."

The BOJ kept its key policy interest rate at 0.1 percent.

Shirakawa said government pressure had nothing to with the BOJ decision. He said it was a response to a yen rally and a drop in stock prices last week after debt troubles in Dubai briefly threatened to reignite the turmoil of the global credit crisis.

The government appeared to have been placated for now.

"The BOJ's action at this time is highly welcome," Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who holds talks with Shirakawa on Wednesday, told reporters.

Ministers said they hoped it would bring down long-term interest rates. That would reduce borrowing costs for the most indebted government in any rich nation and lower the risk of another recession after the longest economic contraction on record.

"If they were free from pressure, they wouldn't have done anything, because they've been saying their assessment hasn't changed," said Dariusz Kowalczyk, chief investment strategist at SJS Markets in Hong Kong.

After rebuffing criticism that its view of the economy was too rosy, the central bank had shown signs of caving in and some analysts had expected it would pour more cash into the banking system, in a near replica of attempts to stimulate lending after a property bubble burst in the 1990s.

Others had forecast purchases of more government bonds.

But the BOJ stopped well short of both responses. It did not broaden the range of collateral against which it would lend the new three-month funds, a move that could channel some cash to smaller companies which the government says are struggling to access credit.

The new money would now just sit in bank deposits, said Mizuho's Kusaba.

"But banks already have access to cheap money, so the additional funds are unlikely to flow to the private sector," he said.

"The situation is now such that even with money so cheap, companies are not investing and consumers are not spending."

The emergency meeting was the first since last December.

Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii welcomed the BOJ's decision.

Fujii and his cabinet colleagues had kept up unrelenting pressure on the central bank last week, raising expectations of a BOJ volte-face. One minister had even accused the central bank of falling "asleep at the wheel".

"Quantitative easing could have a positive impact on the economy," Fujii told reporters after a cabinet meeting earlier in the day, though he added he would not force such a policy on the central bank.

After a week of fierce public criticism from ministers, Shirakawa said on Monday the BOJ shared the government's view that Japan was in deflation and that the bank was ready to act in the event of renewed financial turmoil.

Hatoyama's Democratic Party, which rode to power promising to cut spending on public works so it could offer more support to households, fears another recession in early 2010 after the worst economic contraction on record ended this year.

That could hurt the DPJ's chances of winning an outright majority in the upper house to avoid relying on two small, vocal coalition allies to get measures passed unopposed.

Reducing public works spending could slow growth early next year, and with public debt set to exceed 200 percent of gross domestic product next year the government cannot spend enough to stimulate demand.

The government will this week compile an additional budget, likely worth more than 2.7 trillion yen, but economists say that will have little effect as the government is just reshuffling money allocated by the previous administration.

Any new spending may force the government to miss its 2010 borrowing target of 44 trillion yen. Fitch Ratings warned last month a big increase in borrowing could prompt a downgrade of Japan's credit rating, raising government borrowing costs.

To see a graphic of fiscal pressures building in Japan, click: http://r.reuters.com/paw97f

The last time the BOJ had a public showdown with political leaders was in August 2000, when it raised rates despite government opposition.

Just eights month later the central bank had to abandon its rate target and adopt quantitative easing, flooding markets with excess cash in a bid to fuel growth.

(Additional reporting by Stanley White; Writing by Leika Kihara; Editing by Dayan Candappa and Hugh Lawson)