Canada has acted on climate as Keystone waits: envoy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Canada has taken action to protect the climate during the more than four years it has waited for U.S. approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, and there's little more it can do in the short term, the country's ambassador to the United States said.

As the U.S. State Department delays approval of TransCanada Corp's Keystone pipeline, which would link Alberta's oil sands to refineries and ports in Texas, speculation has emerged that Canada could take further action on the climate to help make it easier for the United States to approve the project.

Gary Doer, Canadian ambassador to the United States, told Reuters in an interview his country has taken various steps on climate, including helping to hash out an international deal with Obama in Copenhagen in 2009, aligning with Washington on car emissions limits in 2010, and working with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2012 on reducing black carbon emissions in the Arctic.

When asked if Canada can do more to help sweeten the pot for Keystone, Doer said, "We're not interested in gimmicks, we're interested in real action, both on energy security in North America and in reducing greenhouse gases."

He said substantial action on climate takes time, citing new Canadian rules on coal that took 18 months to develop.

Doer said he had no information about when the State Department would release an environmental assessment on the line, the next step it must take before a final decision is expected around the middle of the year. But his instinct was it could come within a month.

The pipeline splits important factions of U.S. President Barack Obama's base. Many environmentalists oppose the project because oil sands are carbon intensive to produce, while labor leaders support the pipeline for the jobs it would bring to states along its path.

Doer took issue with environmentalists who say the Keystone pipeline, approval of which has been pending for 4-1/2 years, would boost emissions.

"This pipeline is displacing comparable greenhouse gases, not creating new ones," he said, referring to the pipeline's potential to displace U.S. imports of Venezuelan oil, which is also carbon intensive to produce. "So we are not participating in gimmicks."

Still, Canada's Natural Resources Minister, Joe Oliver, told reporters last week his government was close to unveiling long-delayed rules on greenhouse gas emissions from the oil sands. He did not give details.

Doer was not worried that John Kerry, the new U.S. Secretary of State, has been an ardent advocate of taking action on global warming and highlighted the risks of climate change in his first foreign policy address this week.

Kerry said the United States must have the courage to make investments necessary to protect the environment from climate change for the next generations.

Doer pointed out that TransCanada, not Washington, would be making investments in the pipeline. He also repeated comments made by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu in late 2011 that it is better for the United States to import oil from Canada than from the Middle East and elsewhere.

HOLIER THAN THOU

Canada gets much of its power generation from renewable sources such as hydroelectric power, which Doer said was an indication of its seriousness on climate.

"We don't want to be holier than thou, but over 70 percent of our energy for electricity is renewable. The United States has a little bit of business to do" in reaching that level, he said.

Doer is expected to press the case for the Keystone pipeline with a number of U.S. state governors who have gathered in Washington for the National Governors Association meeting.

Among them is expected to be Nebraska governor Dave Heineman, who opposed an initial route of the pipeline. Since TransCanada crafted a different path to avoid sensitive ecological areas, Heineman now supports the project as do all of the other governors along the pipeline's path.

The Texas-to-Oklahoma leg of the project, which does not need State Department approval because it does not cross an international border, is already under construction.

Alberta Premier Alison Redford will also be in Washington this weekend talking with governors and outgoing U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar about the pipeline.

When asked by reporters on Thursday in Edmonton if Alberta would raise its carbon levy, currently C$15 per metric ton (1.1023 tons), Redford said there was no plan for that any time soon.

She emphasized that her province has redirected the current carbon payments into new technologies and that it believes in sustainable development in the oil sands.

Alberta warned this week that depressed prices for its oil sands crude, due partly to the lack of new pipeline space, could help push this year's budget deficit to C$4 billion, more than four times higher than initial projections.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner and Jeffrey Jones in Calgary; editing by Ros Krasny and Jim Marshall)

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Head of Mexico's powerful teachers' union arrested

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The head of Mexico's powerful teachers' union was arrested at an airport outside Mexico City Tuesday for alleged embezzlement, with federal officials accusing her using union funds to pay for plastic surgery, rent a private plane and even pay her bill at Neiman Marcus.

Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said that Elba Esther Gordillo, who has led the 1.5 million-member National Union of Education Workers for 23 years, was detained in Toluca on charges that she embezzled about 2 billion pesos (about $160 million) from union funds.

Gordillo's arrest marks the downfall of a colorful woman long seen as a kingmaker and power-behind-the-scenes in Mexican politics. It comes a day after President Enrique Pena Nieto signed Mexico's most sweeping education reform in seven decades into law, seeking to change a system dominated by Gordillo in which teaching positions could be sold or inherited.

"We are looking at a case in which the funds of education workers have been illegally misused, for the benefit of several people, among them Elba Esther Gordillo," Murillo Karam said.

Prosecutors say the funds were drained from union accounts and later channeled through accounts in Switzerland and Lichtenstein. They said they had detected a whopping $2.7 million in purchases at Neiman Marcus using those funds, as well as $17,000 in U.S. plastic surgery bills and the purchase of a million-dollar home in San Diego.

"Between 2008 and 2012, there was systematic embezzlement of union accounts," Murillo Karam said.

Gordillo made little attempt to hide her extravagant, opulent lifestyle with designer clothing and accessories, a habit that drew heated criticism in a country where public

The overhaul of Mexico's education system was Pena Nieto's first major proposal since taking office Dec. 1 and was considered a political blow to Gordillo.

The plan moves much of the control of the education system to the federal government from the teachers' union. Gordillo was elected to another six-year term as union leader in October. She was the only candidate and there was not a single dissenting vote.

For years, she has beaten back attacks from union dissidents, political foes and journalists who have seen her as a symbol of Mexico's corrupt, old-style politics. Rivals have accused her of corruption, misuse of union funds and even a murder, but prosecutors who investigated never brought a charge against her.

She was expelled from Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party in 2006 for supporting other parties' candidates and the formation of her own New Alliance party.

Gordillo's arrest recalled the 1989 arrest of another once-feared union boss, Joaquin Hernandez Galicia, known as "La Quina." The longtime head of Mexico's powerful oil workers union, Hernandez Galicia was arrested during the first months of the new administration of then-President Carlos Salinas.

Like Gordillo, Hernandez Galicia's power was believed to represent a challenge to the president, and his arrest was interpreted as an assertion of the president's authority. He was freed from prison after Salinas de Gortari left office.

In 1988, he criticized Salinas' presidential candidacy and threatened an oil workers' strike if Salinas privatized any part of the government oil monopoly, Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex. On Jan. 10, 1989, — about a month after Salinas took office — soldiers used a bazooka to blow down the door of Hernandez' home in the Gulf Coast city of Ciudad Madero.

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32 people killed as bus rolls in Kenya's east

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A police official says 32 people have died after the bus they were travelling in rolled in Kenya's eastern region.

Traffic police boss Samuel Kimaru said Wednesday the driver of the bus lost control at Tulimani area about 125 miles east of the capital, Nairobi. Kimaru said the bus was heading to Garissa, in eastern Kenya.

Kimaru said 50 people were hospitalized with injuries from the crash. Some 3,000 people die every year in Kenya as a result of traffic accidents. New laws introduced last year, which increase fines for traffic violations, have resulted in payment of higher bribes to police officers by traffic offenders, according to anti-corruption organizations.

Experts say lack of enforcement of traffic rules by police is a major cause of the road carnage.

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Guinea police fire tear gas at march, many injured

CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — Officials say security forces fired tear gas at protests that turned violent after opposition marchers started throwing stones in Guinea's capital.

Government spokesman Albert Damantang Camara said Wednesday that at least 18 security personnel were injured. Opposition spokesman Mouctar Diallo said at least 9 Guineans were also injured.

Police official Capt. Lamine Sano said police tried to disperse those demonstrating because they feared further violence. He said opposition supporters were marching and throwing rocks in a Conakry neighborhood that is home to the ruling party.

A spokesman for Guinea's opposition said that it has withdrawn from the upcoming legislative election set for May 12 because the opposition is unhappy with preparations for the election.

President Alpha Conde was elected in 2010, but the vote for the legislature has been delayed.

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Mexico plays hardball in jailing of union boss

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The arrest of Mexico's most powerful union leader echoes the hardball tactics of Mexico's once-imperial presidency while pushing forward an education reform that Enrique Pena Nieto has made a centerpiece of his new administration.

Elba Esther Gordillo, known for flashing her Hermes handbags and heels, stood behind bars Wednesday in a grim prison in eastern Mexico City as a judge read off charges of embezzlement and organized crime. The arrest sidelined a woman who had tried to mobilize teachers to block a schools shake-up designed to end her control over hiring and firing of teachers across the country.

It also sent a message to other union bosses and business magnates: Don't get in the way of Pena Nieto, whose Institutional Revolutionary Party has newly returned to the power it held for seven straight decades, when incoming presidents often crushed those who challenged them.

"This is an old tactic, let's hope that it doesn't just stop there, as it did in the past, when a single case was enough to calm things down and add legitimacy" to presidential power, said Jose Antonio Crespo, an analyst at the Center for Economic Studies. "Let's hope this doesn't stop and that it becomes something more systematic, for which there is a burning need."

Crespo was referring to the business magnates and union bosses who have built fortunes and political power by dominating whole sectors of the economy. Like Gordillo, their resistance could be an obstacle to Pena Nieto's pledges to modernize and open up Mexico's economy.

But the tough message of Tuesday's arrest may have been enough.

Gordillo, whose 1.5 million-member National Union of Education Workers organized protests against Pena Nieto's education reform signed into law this week, was pulled off a plane arriving from San Diego late Tuesday and taken to Mexico City's women's prison.

It was a dizzying fall from power for a woman often credited with swinging a presidential election and who maintained properties worth millions of dollars in Southern California.

Gordillo, 68, was charged with embezzling 2 billion pesos (about $160 million) from the union she has led for nearly a quarter century. The judge in the case said he would rule in three to six days on whether the evidence is sufficient to merit a trial.

If found guilty, Gordillo could face 30 years in prison.

As in past cases, officials denied any political motive. Asked if he had other cases planned, Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam told the Televisa news network, "I don't have evidence as clear as in this case."

Still, analysts said other powerful figures will surely take notice.

"I think there will be more willingness to negotiate and accept" reforms "rather than engage in confrontation," said Crespo.

With education reform now enacted, Pena Nieto is also proposing to open the state oil company to more private investment, a move that could awaken opposition from the oil workers union. The administration is also proposing measures to bring more competition in the highly concentrated television and telecom sectors, steps that business magnates have long tried to stymie with court appeals.

There is a sense that "this is a message to all the other corrupt leaders," said Humberto Castillo, a 55-year-old retired teacher from Mexico State, who was reading a newspaper story about Gordillo's arrest while he waited for his daughter to come out of a job interview. "I thought she was untouchable."

For many, Gordillo stood as a symbol of the powers that dominate Mexico. She was a favorite of newspaper cartoonists because of her immediately recognizable face and designer clothes and accessories. Prosecutors said she spent nearly $3 million in purchases at Neiman Marcus department stores using union funds, as well as $17,000 in U.S. plastic surgery bills and $1 million to buy a home in San Diego.

It was unclear if the arrest would force Gordillo out of her union leadership position. Mexican mining union boss Napoleon Gomez Urrutia has continued to hold his post more than four years after he moved to Canada amid accusations that he misappropriated $55 million in union funds.

Many Mexicans immediately began suggesting prosecution of other union leaders. Opposition parties mentioned the boss of the oil workers union, Carlos Romero Deschamps, who, according to Mexican news media, gave his son a $2 million Ferrari and whose daughter posted Facebook photos of her trips to Europe aboard private jets and yachts.

Romero Deschamps' immunity from prosecution as a legislator — a status he still enjoys — helped keep him from going to jail in a scandal over his union's illegal $61.3 million campaign donation to the PRI in 2000.

But if Deschamps stayed within the womb of the PRI while under fire, Gordillo was unusually defiant, allying at times with the new non-PRI presidents, helping create a new political party and finally bolting from the PRI, where she had long been an influential figure. Many credited her party with pulling enough votes to swing the narrow 2006 election to National Action Party's Felipe Calderon.

Sergio Aguayo, a political analyst at the elite Colegio de Mexico, said Gordillo "wasn't just a shadow power, but one that wanted to be a political power."

"In Pena Nieto's vision of Mexico, no one can be above the president," Aguayo said. "It's the same old imperial presidency."

Gordillo's combativeness may have led her to miscalculate Pena Nieto's willingness to reinstate the old tradition of unquestioned presidential authority.

"She underestimated him," columnist and political analyst Raymundo Riva Palacio said of Pena Nieto.

The PRI, which ruled Mexico from 1929 to 2000, spent 12 years out of power before returning to the presidency with Pena Nieto's 2012 election victory.

Gordillo's arrest recalled the 1989 detention of once-feared oil union boss Joaquin Hernandez Galicia. He had criticized the presidential candidacy of Carlos Salinas and threatened a strike if Salinas privatized any part of the government oil monopoly.

On Jan. 10, 1989, about a month after Salinas took office, soldiers used a bazooka to blow down the door of Hernandez's home in the Gulf Coast city of Ciudad Madero.

He was freed from prison after Salinas left office.

Salinas' sweep of old, uncooperative union bosses also led to opening the way for a new, up-and-coming leader in the teachers union, Gordillo, who was at first seen as a reformer.

Gordillo's arrest alone is far from enough to help Pena Nieto improve Mexico's schools. So great is the union's control over hiring that even the government acknowledges it's not sure how many schools, teachers or students exist in Mexico.

The Mexican education system has been persistently one of the worst performers among the world's developed economies, with few signs of improvement. Nearly every Mexican 4-year-old is in pre-school, but only 47 percent are expected to graduate high school. In the U.S., the number is closer to 80 percent.

In a television interview last week about education reform, the interviewer told Gordillo that she was the most hated woman in Mexico.

"There is no one more loved by their people than I," Gordillo answered. "I care about the teachers. This is a deep and serious dispute about public education."

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Associated Press writers Olga R. Rodriguez, Adriana Gomez Licon and Michael Weissenstein contributed to this report.

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Seals take scientists to Antarctic's ocean floor

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Elephant seals wearing head sensors and swimming deep beneath Antarctic ice have helped scientists better understand how the ocean's coldest, deepest waters are formed, providing vital clues to understanding its role in the world's climate.

The tagged seals, along with sophisticated satellite data and moorings in ocean canyons, all played a role in providing data from the extreme Antarctic environment, where observations are very rare and ships could not go, said researchers at the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystem CRC in Tasmania.

Scientists have long known of the existence of "Antarctic bottom water," a dense, deep layer of water near the ocean floor that has a significant impact on the movement of the world's oceans.

Three areas where this water is formed were known of, and the existence of a fourth suspected for decades, but the area was far too inaccessible, until now, thanks to the seals.

"The seals went to an area of the coastline that no ship was ever going to get to," said Guy Williams, ACE CRC Sea Ice specialist and co-author of the study.

"This is a particular form of Antarctic water called Antarctic bottom water production, one of the engines that drives ocean circulation," he told Reuters. "What we've done is found another piston in that engine."

Southern Ocean Elephant seals are the largest of all seals, with males growing up to six meters (20 feet) long and weighing up to 4,000 kilograms (8,800 lbs).

Twenty of the seals were deployed from Davis Station in east Antarctica in 2011 with a sensor, weighing about 100 to 200 grams, on their head. Each of the sensors had a small satellite relay which transmitted data on a daily basis during the five to 10 minute intervals when the seals surfaced.

"We get four dives worth of data a day but they're actually doing up to 60 dives," he said.

"The elephant seals ... went to the very source and found this very cold, very saline dense water in the middle of winter beneath a polynya, which is what we call an ice factory around the coast of Antarctica," Williams added.

Previous studies have shown that there are 50-year-long trends in the properties of the Antarctic bottom water, and Williams said the latest study will help better assess those changes, perhaps providing clues for climate change modeling.

"Several of the seals foraged on the continental slope as far down as 1,800 meters (1.1 miles), punching through into a layer of this dense water cascading down the abyss," he said in a statement. "They gave us very rare and valuable wintertime measurements of this process."

(Reporting by Pauline Askin, Editing by Elaine Lies and Michael Perry)

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Q&A: Argentina's NY court showdown on default debt

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Judgment day is approaching in an epic battle between Argentina and New York billionaire Paul Singer, who has sent lawyers around the globe trying to force the South American country to pay its defaulted debts.

Three U.S. appellate judges hear oral arguments in New York on Wednesday in the case, NML Capital Ltd. v. Argentina. The case has shaken bond markets, worried bankers, lawyers and diplomats, captivated financial analysts and generated enough "friend of the court" briefs to kill a small forest.

Much more is at stake than the future of Argentina's shaky economy, which could collapse if President Cristina Fernandez goes into default rather than pay a judgment of more than $1.3 billion to the plaintiffs, whom she calls "vulture funds."

The U.S. Federal Reserve and the world's largest banks have warned that the smooth functioning of the global funds-transfer system is threatened by U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa's unusual proposal for forcing Argentina to pay. The same appellate judges hearing arguments Wednesday have already broadly upheld Griesa's plan but want more details on how it would work.

Argentina and the Obama administration both argued that the judge's remedy could make debt relief harder for troubled economies, dooming their citizens to more years of poverty than necessary.

"While the U.S. government does not condone Argentina's actions in the international financial arena," this ruling also could damage U.S. foreign policy, threaten U.S. assets overseas and even harm the U.S. dollar by persuading nations to take their bond business elsewhere, the administration's brief said.

Here are some questions and answers on how so much could be at stake in what seems to be a simple contract dispute:

Q. What was Griesa's ruling?

A. The judge wants U.S. financial institutions to become his enforcers, diverting the payments that Argentina makes to other bondholders if it doesn't first pay an equal amount to the plaintiffs. The Bank of New York, which normally processes the payments, would have to redirect the money to the plaintiffs, and banks say such interventions could threaten the automatic nature of the U.S. electronic funds transfer system, which is vital to the global economy.

Q. Who are the bondholders already being repaid?

A. More than 92 percent of the debt from Argentina's world-record $100 billion default in 2001 was restructured in 2005 and 2010. Argentina gave them new bonds initially worth less than 30 cents on the dollar. These "exchange bondholders" are slowly regaining their original investments: Most already have been paid 71 cents for each dollar invested. This slow recuperation is what debt relief looks like for troubled economies — it has been key to Argentina's recovery.

Q. Who are the bondholders who went to court?

A. A small group refused the debt swaps and filed suit instead. Griesa ruled in their favor, and ordered the Bank of New York to reroute any payments that Argentina makes to other bondholders until the plaintiffs get paid in full, plus interest.

Q. Why go to such extremes?

A. Argentina has ignored a number of court judgments, and Griesa is determined to get satisfaction after many years of litigation. Argentina still hasn't made payments on $10 billion in defaulted debt dating from its 2001 economic collapse. Adding other unpaid judgments, loans and other claims, including $10.5 billion sought by Grupo Repsol for the YPF oil company expropriated last year, Argentina owes as much as $61 billion.

Q. What about NML Capital's position that Argentina's central bank holds enough currency reserves to easily pay the $1.3 billion sought by the plaintiffs?

A. Argentina's dollar reserves dropped to $41 billion this week as uncertainty fueled capital flight. More than half of that is already loaned out or otherwise committed, and Argentina says the reserves can't withstand the demands of creditors for immediate payment of $43 billion that would be triggered if it was forced to pay Singer's group. Graham Fisher analyst Joshua Rosen, however, says: "Argentina is a $450 billion, G-20 economy, and the government has numerous other sources of liquidity" if it decides to negotiate a deal.

Q. What are the arguments over Griesa basing his ruling on the "equal treatment" clause in Argentina's 1990s-era bond contracts?

A. NML Capital says getting paid immediately in full, plus interest, is more than fair, because the plaintiffs spent millions litigating while the holders of swap bonds were getting regular payments. A group of the latter bondholders counters that there's nothing fair about taking other people's property, or getting as much as a 1,500 percent return on debt bought for pennies on the dollar.

Q. What about Argentina's suggestion that "equal treatment" could be provided through a new debt swap giving holdouts the same terms others accepted?

A. Anna Gelpern, an American University law professor who has closely followed the case, says Argentina is arguing for a bankruptcy concept of fairness — that when debtors can't pay, all creditors must suffer, accepting less so that recovery can happen more quickly. Sovereign debt relief depends on this concept, and many of the legal briefs reflect a desire that the courts invoke it while engineering a comprehensive solution to Argentina's debt problems. But Gelpern says the appeals panel is more likely to base its ruling in simple contract terms, as in, "they owe the money, and they need to pay."

Q. What's the end game?

A. Expect the appellate ruling in two to four months. Most analysts predict Argentina will lose and further appeals will be turned down, giving this panel the final word. Since Argentina appears unwilling to settle out of court, J.P. Morgan analyst Vladimir Werning says, "This boils down to a blueprint for an end game where Argentina snuffs N.Y. law, its courts and its payment system and it offers restructured bondholders the option of getting paid fully in Buenos Aires."

Q. Would Argentina really pull out of the U.S. financial system?

A. Economist Rodolfo Rossi, Argentina's central bank president in the 1990s, says ending up "completely isolated and refusing to pay its debts" would only bring more trouble for the country. Like many Argentines who have backed Fernandez's fight against the holdouts, he says she can't show weakness now, but has to settle eventually in order to refinance all of Argentina's debts and bring back investment.

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Kenya: Official who oversaw 2007 chaotic poll dies

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenya's former electoral chief who oversaw a flawed electoral process in 2007 has died following a battle with cancer.

A family spokesman, John Musyoki, says the 74-year-old Samuel Kivuitu died Monday of cardiac arrest. The death comes one week before Kenya holds its next presidential elections, the first since a flawed 2007 vote triggered violence in which more than 1,000 people were killed and 600,000 were evicted from their homes.

A 2008 government report said the electoral commission overseeing the 2007 poll lacked independence, capacity and functionality. The report said results of that election were so perverted it was impossible to determine who won the presidency.

Kenyan leaders hope a new constitution, an improved judiciary and police reforms will help next week's election proceed without violence.

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South Africa: Buffalo and donkey in beef products

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South African food scientists say there is water buffalo, donkey and goat meat in mislabeled South African foods including beef burgers and sausages.

A study published by three professors at Stellenbosch University found that 99 of 139 samples contained species not declared in the product label, with the highest incidence in sausages, burger patties and deli meats.

The study found soya and gluten were not labeled in 28 percent of products tested, undeclared pork in 37 percent and chicken in 23 percent.

Co-author Professor Louwrens C. Hoffman says Tuesday that "This study confirms that the mislabeling of processed meats is commonplace in South Africa and not only violates food labeling regulations but also poses economic, religious, ethical and health impacts."

He says no horsemeat was found.

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Coral comeback: Reef 'seeding' in the Caribbean

ORACABESSA BAY, Jamaica (AP) — Mats of algae and seaweed have shrouded the once thick coral in shallow reefs off Jamaica's north coast. Warm ocean waters have bleached out the coral, and in a cascade of ecological decline, the sea urchins and plant-eating reef fish have mostly vanished, replaced by snails and worms that bore through coral skeletons.

Now, off the shores of Jamaica, as well as in Caribbean islands from Bonaire to St. Croix, conservationists are planting fast-growing coral species to try and turn things around by "seeding" reefs. The strategy has doubters, with one expert joking that prayer might be as effective, but conservationists say the problem is so catastrophic that inaction is not an option. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, live coral coverage on Caribbean reefs is down to an average of just 8 percent, from 50 percent in the 1970s.

Lenford Dacosta grew up in the north Jamaican fishing village of Oracabessa Bay and spear-fished the waters for most of his 46 years. Now he is part of a crew that tends to a small coral nursery in a fish sanctuary, hoping to revitalize the reef that sustained his village, whose shoreline is now dominated by ritzy resorts.

"I used to think that children would only hear about coral reefs and fish in books," said Dacosta, expressing hope that his work will yield fruit.

Seascape Caribbean, the fledgling company that employs Dacosta and touts itself as the region's first and only private coral restoration business, uses low-tech coral nurseries consisting of buoys and weights with small fragments of staghorn coral suspended from them on strings. The fragments grow on the strings until bits of tannish coral with the beginnings of antler-like branches are ready to be planted onto reefs. Other specialists grow coral fragments on concrete pedestals placed on the seabed.

Advocates say the reef restoration work, focused on the region's fast-growing but threatened staghorn and elkhorn coral species, can boost rates of recovery and improve the outlook for coral. The efforts will never resurrect the vibrant reefs of 50 years ago, they acknowledge, but they believe they can help preserve some of a reef's functionality and beauty.

"Coral cover is getting a little better here and I believe it will keep improving in the gardened areas," said Andrew Ross, a Canadian marine biologist and entrepreneur who founded Seascape Caribbean.

Reef-building coral is a tiny polyp-like animal that builds a calcium-carbonate shell around itself and survives in a symbiotic relationship with certain types of algae. Its reefs serve as vital spawning and feeding grounds for numerous marine creatures. It comes in some 1,500 known species, ranging from soft, undulating fans to those with hard skeletons that form reef bases.

But across the globe, reefs that have proven resilient for thousands of years are in serious decline, degraded by overfishing, pollution, coastal development and warming ocean waters. And threats to coral are only expected to intensify as a result of climate change and ocean acidification due to greenhouse gases.

The stakes couldn't be higher along the Caribbean Sea, which has nearly 8,000 square miles (20,720 sq. kilometers) of coral reefs.

The tropical islands' iconic reefs protect fragile coastlines by absorbing energy from waves during hurricanes and normal conditions. Financially, the Caribbean has a multibillion-dollar beach tourism and commercial fishing economy. In Jamaica alone, reef fisheries support up to 20,000 fishermen.

Caribbean coral has deteriorated so badly in recent decades that a new report from a team of international scientists says that the rocky structures of the reefs are on the threshold of gradual erosion.

"The Caribbean, as a whole region, seems to be in a very poor state," said Chris Perry, a geography professor at the University of Exeter who led the regional coral research.

In the face of this decline, some coral specialists and conservationists say passive inaction would be a grave mistake. They argue that the results of the nascent coral restoration work will be seen in coming years.

In the U.S. Virgin Islands, scientists with The Nature Conservancy have reared some 2,500 coral colonies and transplanted over 1,000 fragments to local reefs with the aid of U.S. stimulus money. In the Dominican Republic, the Puntacana Ecological Foundation in the thriving tourist town of Punta Cana has planted some 1,200 fragments of Acropora coral, a genus that includes staghorn and elkhorn.

"What started as an experiment to protect the endangered Acropora species has become one of the largest nurseries in the Caribbean and a laboratory for other resorts and researchers to conduct restoration work," said Jake Kheel, the foundation's environmental director.

The Key Largo, Florida-based Coral Restoration Foundation, a pioneer in efforts to revitalize stressed reefs, has helped the Dutch Caribbean island of Bonaire set up coral nurseries. Meanwhile, in southern Jamaica, researchers are feeding low-voltage electricity to young coral to try and spur growth, a method that has been used in places like Indonesia and Malaysia.

Some coral experts say the labor-intensive reef restoration projects may be increasingly popular but they have yet to see any significant successes out of them. These critics believe the scope of the problem is simply too vast and restoration efforts don't address the underlying, accelerating forces collapsing reefs.

"It responds more to the very human need to 'do something' in the face of calamity, even if what you do is really a waste of time. Prayer would be just as useful," said Roger Bradbury, an ecologist and adjunct professor of resource management at Australian National University in Canberra.

Bradbury argues that coral restoration actually diverts scarce resources away from what should be researchers' main focus, which is what to do with reef regions after the reefs are gone. "The reefs just won't be there, but something will — a new sort of ecosystem," he said.

Phil Kramer, a marine geologist who is director of The Nature Conservancy's Caribbean program, acknowledges that the long term outlook for coral reefs is poor in the face of current threats and projected increases in temperature and ocean acidification. But he says that can't justify the "abandonment" of reefs.

"It is true that Caribbean reefs are generally in bad shape at the moment and that if more interventions are not taken we will continue to lose what remains. But I remain cautiously optimistic about the future," Kramer said.

Helping the various restoration efforts, some regional governments are taking action to protect key species on the reefs. Belize, which boasts the largest barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere, has established bans on harvesting parrotfish, a colorful herbivore that grazes on the algae and seaweed that smothers coral.

By contrast, parrotfish are now the most popular catch in heavily-overfished Jamaica, sold at the side of the road and in supermarkets and restaurants.

Increasing sea surface temperatures have led to a dramatic rise in coral bleaching incidents in which the stressed organisms expel the colorful algae living in their tissues, leaving a whitish color. Up to 90 percent of corals in parts of the eastern Caribbean suffered bleaching in 2005, and more than half died.

But on Jamaica's north coast, Dacosta says he is gradually seeing some balance restored to the Oracabessa Bay fish sanctuary where he works to transplant coral fragments and scoop up snails and worms from reefs. He says bigger fish and algae-grazing black sea urchins are seen more frequently.

"I tell you," Dacosta said. "We should have started this a long time ago,"

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David McFadden on Twitter: http://twitter/com/dmcfadd

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Online:

Seascape Caribbean: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Seascape-Caribbean/346524898685

The Nature Conservancy's Caribbean programs: http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/caribbean/index.htm

Puntacana Ecological Foundation: http://www.puntacana.org/

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Political tensions rise ahead of Kenyan election

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Political tensions are rising in Kenya, ahead of the election Monday, the first presidential vote since 2007 when the country devolved into months of tribal violence that killed more than 1,000 people.

Dozens of shacks have been burned to the ground in recent weeks in Mathare, Nairobi's most dangerous slum. Families are moving into zones controlled by their own clans, fearful of attacks between the rival tribes of Kenya's top two presidential candidates.

This year's presidential candidates pledged at a weekend prayer rally to accept the outcome of the election and ensure violence doesn't break out again.

But the government-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights Wednesday released a long list of attacks, hate speech and ethnic intimidation in recent weeks, exposing an undercurrent of tribal tensions before the election.

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Fire at illegal market In India kills at least 18

KOLKATA, India (AP) — A fire broke out at an illegal six-story plastics market in the Indian city of Kolkata early Wednesday morning, killing at least 18 people, police said.

The blaze, which started before 4 a.m., was likely caused by a short circuit, said West Bengal fire minister Javed Khan. The fire was under control by mid-morning, he said, but toxic gases being released by the blaze was hampering rescue efforts.

A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said at least 18 people had died. He said police were looking for the owner of the building, which was filled with dozens of small shops selling various plastic products.

At least eight people were hospitalized in critical condition and the death toll was expected to rise, Khan said.

He called the scene of the fire "an illegal, unauthorized market."

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Puerto Rico airport privatization deal lifts off

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico's governor on Tuesday approved turning over the operations of Puerto Rico's largest airport to a private company as part of an estimated $2.6 billion deal that began under his predecessor and has been fiercely protested.

Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla said that while he would have managed things differently, the U.S. territory's government already had committed to the deal.

"Puerto Rico gave its word and we must be firm and transparent in honoring it," he said in an announcement hours before the deal would have expired, with dozens of protesters gathered outside Garcia's office pledging civil disobedience in upcoming weeks.

Garcia had faced pressure from unions and legislators from his own party who have criticized the proposed 40-year contract with Aerostar Airport Holdings, saying it will lead to lost jobs, reduced wages and potentially higher costs for passengers.

Garcia, however, said the deal needed to be signed because the island's Port Authority has to pay a $600 million debt Wednesday and a $340 million debt in June.

"Right now, the Port Authority has zero dollars to invest in this airport," he said. "As everyone who has visited the airport knows, its infrastructure has to be improved greatly and quickly."

It is the second U.S. airport to sign a deal under the Federal Aviation Administration's pilot privatization program, which was approved in 1996 and aims to allow states or local governments to tap into private funds.

The FAA informed Puerto Rico's government late Monday that it had approved the lease deal "subject to certain conditions," Port Authority Director Victor Suarez said.

Among the requirements is that the Port Authority cannot use airport revenue from other regional airports to compensate Aerostar. It also must submit an annual performance report on its regional airports as well as a transition plan on the 35th year of the agreement.

The FAA said the Port Authority has collected nearly $26 million in passenger facility charges, but the money has not been used for projects that were approved to use those funds. The FAA added that it is unclear whether the unaccounted funds were used for allowable airport purposes, and said that under the deal the Port Authority must submit an audit of that account.

Aerostar is a joint venture of Highstar Capital and Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, which operates Mexican airports at Cancun and eight other locations in southeastern Mexico.

Under the deal, Aerostar would make an initial payment to Puerto Rico's government of $615 million, through $350 million in investment-grade bonds and $265 million in equity. It would make additional payments of $2.5 million annually for the next five years. It would then pay 5 percent of airport revenues for 25 years and 10 percent for the remaining decade of the contract.

Port Authority union employees and their allies protested the deal for months, fearing the loss of stable government jobs. But Garcia said they should support it.

"If this deal wouldn't have gone through, it's important for you to know that there would be no money to pay your salary," he said. "There would be no money to honor your retirement."

Aerostar has pledged to retain an undetermined number of current employees, the FAA said in its decision.

Aerostar has said it plans to invest $250 million in the next four years on improvements including centralizing check-ins and adding 35,000 square feet (3,250 square meters) of retail area. It plans to spend a total of $1.4 billion on capital improvements over the next 40 years and set aside $6 million in an escrow account to reward airlines that increase their service in the first three years of the agreement.

Port Authority spokesman Juan Rivera said the island's airport gets about 8.5 million passengers a year and is served by 20 airlines that make more than 150 flights daily. The government has struggled to boost passenger traffic, expand and modernize the airport and make improvements to terminals and taxi ways and runways.

The Port Authority is nearly $1 billion in debt, and officials have said they would use the new revenue to renovate the island's regional airports and its cruise ship piers.

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Cyclone intensifies, Australia's iron ore mines brace

PERTH (Reuters) - A powerful cyclone headed for Australia's Port Hedland, that has brought half the world's seaborne-traded iron ore to a halt, has intensified and is set to make landfall late on Wednesday, threatening to flood inland mine operations and rail links.

Weather warnings extend as far as 500 kms (310 miles) inland to the massive mining camps and towns of Tom Price, Mt Newman and Nullagine, operated by Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Fortescue Metals Group.

Hardest-hit areas could receive up to 600 millimeters, or 2 feet, of rain in 24 hours, said the Bureau of Meteorology.

Such extensive flooding threatens to submerge hundreds of kilometers (miles) of rail lines owned by the miners and used to transport ore to the ports.

"Extreme weather preparations continue across our mining operations in anticipation of the cyclone moving further inland," BHP said in a statement emailed to Reuters. "Additional operations will be suspended if necessary."

The Pilbara, a sparsely populated and inhospitable outback part of Australia, is the world's largest source of iron ore.

Australia's three main iron ore ports, Port Hedland, Dampier and Cape Lambert, were closed on Monday. Offshore oil and gas fields have also been shut down.

Australia's biggest iron ore miner Rio Tinto plans shipments of 260 million tonnes of ore through Dampier and Cape Lambert this year.

Australian & New Zealand Bank estimates iron ore shipments with a total value of A$500 million ($510.58 million) have so far been sidelined due to port closures.

Rusty early on Wednesday strengthened to a category four storm -- on a scale of one-to five. The bureau predicts the storm will come ashore just to the east of Port Hedland.

"This is a large tropical cyclone and its slow movement is likely to result in an extended period of destructive winds near the track, with rainfall that is heavier than that associated with a typical system," the weather office said.

BHP, Fortescue and Atlas Iron are forecast to ship more than 275 million tonnes of iron ore this year, or 750,000 tonnes per day, through Port Hedland.

Iron ore prices stood at $151.90 a tonne, down slightly from $158.90 last Wednesday.

Rusty is the fourth cyclone to form during Australia's 2012-13 "cyclone season" which runs November to end April. There are typically 11 cyclones per season off Australia northwest and northeast coasts.

The weather bureau said the cyclone was mostly stationary overnight about 100 km (60 miles) off the coast, but was expected to track south during the day.

"This is a very long, drawn-out slow nightmare," Port Hedland town councilor Bill Dziombak told the Australian Associated Press.

Port Hedland is the largest town in the Pilbara, population 14,000, with the northwest outback on its doorstep and summer temperatures regularly around 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

Residents have been warned to expect dangerously high storm tides and high waves along the coast. Those in low lying coastal areas had been evacuated, with local media reporting a run on emergency supplies such as water, batteries and flashlights.

Outback aboriginal communities were evacuated and isolated schools closed.

The Department of Fire and Emergency Services advised people to remain in the strongest part of their house.

"There'll be buildings that may be damaged, there may be loose tin, flying objects. Power may be down and there may be airborne hazards from asbestos or skeptics," said spokesman Phil Cribb.

A weaker category one system which passed the Pilbara in January forced the shutdown of all three iron ore export terminals, contributing to a nine percent drop in exports for the month and a 5.2 percent rise in spot prices.

(Additional reporting by Rebekah Kebede in PERTH, writing by James Regan in SYDNEY; Editing by Michael Perry)

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Large shark kills man in New Zealand; beach closed

AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AP) — A shark has killed a man off a New Zealand beach that was closed after the rare attack there.

Police said the man was found dead in the water Wednesday afternoon after being "bitten by a large shark." Police and surf lifesavers recovered the man's body. The police statement said Muriwai Beach near the city of Auckland has been closed.

Witness Stef McCallum told Fairfax Media that about 200 people were at the beach at the time, during the Southern Hemisphere summer. She said she saw a police officer go out in a surf lifesaving boat and fire multiple shots into the water at the shark.

Fatal shark attacks are relatively rare in New Zealand. Fairfax reports 14 deaths since record-keeping began in the 1830s.

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Canada December budget gap up slightly; fiscal year-to-date down

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's federal budget gap widened slightly in December from a year earlier, but the deficit for the first nine months of the fiscal year was still down 19 percent, the finance department said on Friday.

The monthly Fiscal Monitor said the government spent C$572 million ($561 million) more in December than it took in. The gap in December 2011 was C$538 million .

For the period April to December, the deficit shrank to C$12.99 billion from C$16.06 billion in the same period in 2011. This amounts to a fraction of the budget deficits in other leading Western countries after adjusting for the size of the economies.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says he plans to balance the budget by 2015, although he has conceded the heavily discounted price for Canadian crude oil is hurting government revenues.

Government revenues rose in December from a year earlier, but the 2.8 percent increase was smaller than the 3.8 percent rise in program expenses.

In his November fiscal update, Flaherty projected a deficit for the 2012-13 fiscal year of C$26.0 billion, including an adjustment for risk. For the year that will start April 2013, he forecast a deficit of C$16.5 billion.

(Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson; and Peter Galloway)

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Motor racing-Ferrari doubt they will be fastest in Australia

LONDON, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Ferrari are unlikely to have the fastest car when the Formula One season starts in Australia next month but they hope to be close enough for Fernando Alonso to make the difference, according to team principal Stefano Domenicali.

"The situation at the moment seems to be alright, alright with the programme that we have," the Italian told Reuters at a Motor Sport magazine Hall of Fame event in London late on Monday.

"The target is to be close together with the leading cars...I would be very surprised if it was the quickest (car) at the first race. But if we are all close together in a couple of tenths, then the season is really long and everything is possible."

Ferrari started last season with a car that was tricky to drive and some way off the pace but Alonso kept them in the hunt with some remarkable drives while the team pulled out all the stops to narrow the performance gap.

By mid-season, the Spaniard had a comfortable lead in the championship that was then eroded in the latter half by a resurgent Sebastian Vettel who reeled off a string of wins for Red Bull.

The end result was Vettel's third successive title but the German and Alonso were still fighting for it all the way to the final race in Brazil.

Domenicali said the situation was very different from February last year, when Brazilian Felipe Massa first tested the F2012 and rang Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo to tell him the bad news.

"It's another world," said Domenicali. "It's a totally different situation but we cannot underestimate that everyone is doing a good job, and as far as we can see from the tests I don't see a lot of changes in respect of what we saw at the end (of last year)."

Eight drivers from four teams - Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Lotus - have been fastest over the eight days of testing so far although the Red Bull drivers have also sounded happy with their car's performance.

Domenicali said the biggest challenge all teams faced in the first few races would be the new-version Pirelli tyres, designed to degrade quicker and create more pitstops.

"We need to make sure that we are close to the best car and then the team and drivers have to make the difference," he added. "In Australia it is not the end of the championship, it's just the start. We need to be careful and stay cool."

The season starts in Melbourne on March 17. (Editing by Clare Fallon)

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Bank of Canada's Carney reiterates need for eventual rate hike

LONDON, Ontario (Reuters) - The head of the Bank of Canada reiterated on Monday that the next move in the country's interest rates is likely to be higher, even as he acknowledged growth in the last quarter of 2012 might have been softer than predicted.

Governor Mark Carney noted that the central bank only last month said there's ultimately a need for some withdrawal of monetary policy stimulus, though the prospect was "was less imminent."

"Obviously we stand by that assessment," he told reporters after a speech in London, Ontario.

Some economists last week pushed their forecasts for the timing of the next Canadian rate hike further into the future after data showed the economy registered its lowest inflation in more than three years last month and retail sales sank in December.

Canadian interest rates are at a near-record low 1 percent. The Bank of Canada has said since early last year its next move is likely to be a rate increase, making it the only Group of Seven central bank with a tightening bias.

The weak data prompted some speculation the central bank could drop the tightening bias. But Carney's comments seemed to suggest the bank favors the status quo for now, said Benjamin Reitzes, a senior economist and foreign exchange strategist at Bank of Montreal

"He still said that rates will still eventually have to go higher ... there's no reason to believe they're going to change things materially at this point," said Reitzes.

The bank last month slashed its fourth-quarter annualized growth forecast to 1.0 percent from 2.5 percent. But Carney said on Monday this might now also be too optimistic, citing the emergence of downside risks the bank had identified.

"I don't want to overemphasize shorter-term data, but there is a bit of that bias and I would say that, particularly around the fourth quarter of 2012, we'll find out shortly, but it might be slightly softer than we had forecast," he said.

Statistics Canada will release figures for fourth quarter growth this Friday.

Carney said one reason for the likely lower growth was an unexpectedly weak export sector, which is suffering from what he called a "competitiveness element."

Exporters are struggling to cope with a strong Canadian dollar and soft demand, particularly from the United States.

(With additional reporting by Solarina Ho; Writing by David Ljunggren; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson and James Dalgleish)

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Suicide bomber attacks Afghan army bus; 7 wounded

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan officials say a suicide bomber has attacked a bus carrying Afghan soldiers to work in the capital, wounding seven people.

The Kabul police chief's office says in a statement that the early morning blast in western Kabul came from a man on foot wearing a suicide vest who detonated his explosives as he approached the bus. Six of those wounded were soldiers and the seventh was a civilian. Spokesmen for the Defense Ministry and the Interior Ministry said no one was killed in the blast.

An Associated Press reporter at the site saw the bus damaged on one side. It appeared that the bomber had not entered the bus but blew himself up next to the vehicle.

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$200 Promo Code on Air New Zealand

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Florida (Reuters) - American Keegan Bradley says he is sick of being called a 'cheat' by fans for using a long putter, as the controversy intensifies over the rules on anchoring the shortest club in the bag. Bradley was the first player to win a major using a belly putter, at the 2011 U.S. PGA Championship, but has since been followed by fellow countryman Webb Simpson at last year's U.S. Open and South African Ernie Els at the 2012 British Open. ...

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Head of Mexico's powerful teachers' union detained

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Federal officials say the head of Mexico's powerful teachers' union has been detained for alleged embezzlement.

Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam says Elba Esther Gordillo was detained at an airport in Toluca outside Mexico city on Tuesday on charges that she embezzled about 2 billion pesos ($156 million) from union funds.

He said in a press conference that Gordillo allegedly used the funds to pay for plastic surgery, her credit card bill from Neiman Marcus, purchase a private airplane and buy a house in San Diego.

Gordillo has led the 1.5 million-member National Union of Education Workers for 23 years. She was elected to another six-year term as union leader in October. She was the only candidate and there was not a single dissenting vote.

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Gunmen kill Pakistani officer escorting polio team

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Police say gunmen have shot dead a police officer protecting a team of polio workers during a U.N.-backed vaccination campaign in northwestern Pakistan.

Police officer Fazal Wahid says no polio workers were wounded in Tuesday's attack in the districts of Mardan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. In December, gunmen killed nine polio workers in similar attacks across Pakistan.

Some militant groups in Pakistan oppose the vaccination campaign, accusing health workers of acting as spies for the United States and claim the polio vaccine is intended to make children sterile.

Pakistan is one of the few remaining places where polio is rampant. As many as 56 polio cases were reported in Pakistan during 2012, down from 190 in 2011.

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Ferrari doubt they will be fastest in Australia

LONDON (Reuters) - Ferrari are unlikely to have the fastest car when the Formula One season starts in Australia next month but they hope to be close enough for Fernando Alonso to make the difference, according to team principal Stefano Domenicali.

"The situation at the moment seems to be alright, alright with the programme that we have," the Italian told Reuters at a Motor Sport magazine Hall of Fame event in London late on Monday.

"The target is to be close together with the leading cars...I would be very surprised if it was the quickest (car) at the first race. But if we are all close together in a couple of tenths, then the season is really long and everything is possible."

Ferrari started last season with a car that was tricky to drive and some way off the pace but Alonso kept them in the hunt with some remarkable drives while the team pulled out all the stops to narrow the performance gap.

By mid-season, the Spaniard had a comfortable lead in the championship that was then eroded in the latter half by a resurgent Sebastian Vettel who reeled off a string of wins for Red Bull.

The end result was Vettel's third successive title but the German and Alonso were still fighting for it all the way to the final race in Brazil.

Domenicali said the situation was very different from February last year, when Brazilian Felipe Massa first tested the F2012 and rang Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo to tell him the bad news.

"It's another world," said Domenicali. "It's a totally different situation but we cannot underestimate that everyone is doing a good job, and as far as we can see from the tests I don't see a lot of changes in respect of what we saw at the end (of last year)."

Eight drivers from four teams - Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Lotus - have been fastest over the eight days of testing so far although the Red Bull drivers have also sounded happy with their car's performance.

Domenicali said the biggest challenge all teams faced in the first few races would be the new-version Pirelli tyres, designed to degrade quicker and create more pitstops.

"We need to make sure that we are close to the best car and then the team and drivers have to make the difference," he added. "In Australia it is not the end of the championship, it's just the start. We need to be careful and stay cool."

The season starts in Melbourne on March 17.

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French in tough fight in northern Mali

PARIS (AP) — France's defense minister said Tuesday that French troops are involved in "very violent fighting" in the mountains of northern Mali and that it's too early to talk about a quick pullout from the West African country, despite the growing cost of the intervention.

The fighting against Islamic extremists in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains has been going on for days. A clash in the area killed 23 soldiers from neighboring Chad on Friday, according to a letter from French President Francois Hollande expressing condolences to his Chadian counterpart.

Soldiers from Chad and a few other African countries have joined the French-led operation to help Mali's weak military push back extremists who had imposed harsh rule on northern Mali and started moving toward the capital last month.

On Tuesday, the Obama administration imposed sanctions on an Islamic rebel leader whose extremist group seized much of northern Mali last year and prompted the French military intervention. The U.S. State Department designated Iyad Ag Ghali, head of the Islamic group Ansar Dine, a global terrorist. The action blocks any assets he holds in the U.S. and prohibits Americans from doing business with him.

The U.N. also added Ag Ghali to its global sanctions list.

Ag Ghali's armed extremists conquered much of northern Mali after a military coup in Mali's capital, aided by al-Qaida's North Africa wing. In Timbuktu, he imposed strict Shariah law and forced thousands to flee; others were tortured and executed. But the French-led intervention in January has turned the tide, forcing back Ag Ghali's rebels to mountainous hideouts near the Algeria border.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on France's RTL radio Tuesday that the French intervention in Mali has cost more than €100 million ($133 million) since it started Jan. 11.

In the first weeks of the campaign, French and Malian forces easily took back cities in northern Mali. But the fighting is rougher now that it has reached more remote terrain in the mountains of the southern Sahara.

"We are now at the heart of the conflict," in protracted fighting in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains, Le Drian said. While some have suggested starting a pullout of the 4,000-strong French force next month, Le Drian said he couldn't talk about a quick withdrawal while the mountain fighting goes on.

Hollande's letter to Chadian President Idriss Deby said the deaths of Chadian soldiers "illustrate the dangers of this mission." It gave no details. The Chadian army had initially said that 13 soldiers and 65 Islamic extremist rebels were killed in the fighting Friday.

At the United Nations in New York, a top U.N. humanitarian official said Tuesday that as security improves in Mali, the world must seize the moment to deliver much-needed humanitarian aid.

John Ging, a senior humanitarian affairs official who just visited Mali, said that country's northern region is stabilizing but needs help re-opening schools, markets and health clinics. The U.N. is appealing for $373 million in aid, but has only received $17 million.

Even before fighting erupted last year among government forces, Taureg rebels and radical Islamists, Ging said Mali was suffering from the severe food crisis that has hit Africa's arid Sahel region.

Ging said more than 430,000 Malians have been displaced.

___

AP correspondent Bradley Klapper contributed from Washington and AP correspondent Ron DePasquale contributed from the United Nations in New York.

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Skier killed in British Columbia avalanche

(Reuters) - A skier was killed in British Columbia on Friday after being caught in an avalanche in an out-of-bounds area near a mountain ski resort, Canadian police said.

The avalanche buried three skiers well outside of the controlled area boundaries of the Revelstoke Mountain Resort, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement. The resort is located in the southeastern part of the Canadian province.

Two of the skiers were rescued uninjured by others in the group, but the third was found dead. Police did not immediately identify the victim.

The statement said that police and search and rescue officials expected to recover the body of the deceased skier on Saturday.

Canada's CTV news said on its website that the skier was in a group of five or six men skiing on the back side of the Revelstoke Mountain Resort.

The Canadian Avalanche Center had upgraded the risk of slides to "high" in alpine and tree line mountain regions throughout most of British Columbia on Friday, CBC reported.

(Reporting by Jeffrey Hodgson in Toronto; Additional reporting by Cynthia Johnston in Las Vegas; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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Tibetan monks self-immolate in anti-China protest

BEIJING (AP) — Two Tibetan monks in their early twenties have set themselves on fire in protest against Chinese rule, near dozens of pilgrims who had gathered for prayers to mark the end of the Tibetan New Year festival.

The Washington, D.C.-based International Campaign for Tibet said one of the monks self-immolated on Monday outside a temple in Luqu county in northwestern Gansu province while the other set himself ablaze Sunday at a monastery in neighboring Qinghai province. Both died.

The latest burning protests bring the total since 2009 to 106.

The protests have come despite an intensified crackdown in Tibetan areas by Chinese authorities hoping to stop the self-immolations. Authorities have detained and jailed Tibetans they accuse of helping others self-immolate, an act that Beijing now considers a crime.

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Dennis Rodman worms his way into North Korea

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Flamboyant former NBA star Dennis Rodman is heading to North Korea with VICE media company — tattoos, piercings, bad-boy reputation and all.

The American known as "The Worm" is set to arrive Tuesday in Pyongyang, becoming an unlikely ambassador for sports diplomacy at a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and North Korea.

Rodman, three members of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team, a VICE correspondent and a production crew from the company are visiting North Korea to shoot footage for a new TV show set to air on HBO in early April, VICE told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview before the group's departure from Beijing.

It's the second high-profile American visit this year to North Korea, a country that remains in a state of war with the U.S. It also comes two weeks after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test in defiance of U.N. bans against atomic and missile activity.

Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, made a surprise four-day trip to Pyongyang, where he met with officials and toured computer labs in January, just weeks after North Korea launched a satellite into space on the back of a long-range rocket.

Washington, Tokyo, Seoul and others consider both the rocket launch and the nuclear test provocative acts that threaten regional security.

North Korea characterizes the satellite launch as a peaceful bid to explore space, but says the nuclear test was meant as a deliberate warning to Washington. Pyongyang says it needs to build nuclear weapons to defend itself against the U.S., and is believed to be trying to build an atomic bomb small enough to mount on a missile capable of reaching the mainland U.S.

VICE said the Americans hope to engage in a little "basketball diplomacy" in North Korea by running a basketball camp for children and playing pickup games with locals — and by competing alongside North Korea's top athletes in a scrimmage they hope will be attended by leader Kim Jong Un.

"At a time when tensions between the two countries are running high, it's important to keep lines of cultural communication open, no matter how non-traditional those channels may be," said Shane Smith, the VICE founder who is host of the upcoming TV series. "It's important to show North Koreans that America is not their enemy, and playing a game we both love is a step in the right direction."

VICE, a Brooklyn-based media company known for its sometimes irreverent journalism, has made two previous visits to North Korea, coming out with the "VICE Guide to North Korea." The HBO series, which will air weekly, features documentary-style news reports from around the world.

As part of the trip, the Americans will visit North Korea's national monuments as well as the SEK animation studio and a new skate park in Pyongyang. The show on Rodman's trip to North Korea airs on April 5.

The U.S. State Department hasn't been contacted about travel to North Korea by this group, a senior administration official said, requesting anonymity to comment before any trip had been made public. The official said the department does not vet U.S. citizens' private travel to North Korea and urges US citizens contemplating travel there to review a travel warning on its website.

In a now-defunct U.S.-North Korean agreement in which Washington had planned last year to give food aid to Pyongyang in exchange for nuclear concessions, Washington had said it was prepared to increase people-to-people exchanges with the North, including in the areas of culture, education and sports.

Promoting technology and sports are two major policy priorities of Kim Jong Un, who took power in December 2011 following the death of his father, Kim Jong Il.

But the often over-the-top Rodman, with his maze of tattoos, nose studs and neon-bleached hair, seems like an unlikely diplomat to a country where male fashion rarely ventures beyond military khaki and growing facial hair is forbidden.

During his heyday in the 1990s, Rodman was a poster boy for excess. He called his 1996 autobiography "Bad as I Wanna Be" — and showed up wearing a wedding dress to promote it.

Shown a photo of a snarling Rodman, piercings dangling from his lower lip and two massive tattoos emblazoned on his chest, one North Korean in Pyongyang recoiled and said: "He looks like a monster!"

But Rodman is also a Hall of Fame basketball player and one of the best defenders and rebounders to ever play the game. During a storied, often controversial career, he won five NBA championships — a feat that quickly overshadowed his antics for at least one small North Korean group of basketball fans.

Along with soccer, basketball is enormously popular in North Korea, where it's not uncommon to see basketball hoops set up in hotel parking lots or in schoolyards. It's a game that doesn't require much equipment or upkeep.

The U.S. remains Enemy No. 1 in North Korea, and North Koreans have limited exposure to American pop culture. But they know Michael Jordan, a former teammate of Rodman's when they both played for the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s.

During a historic visit to North Korea in 2000, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright presented Kim Jong Il, famously an NBA fan, with a basketball signed by Jordan that later went on display in the huge cave at Mount Myohyang that holds gifts to the leaders.

North Korea even had its own Jordan wannabe: Ri Myong Hun, a 7-foot-9 star player who is said to have renamed himself "Michael" after his favorite player and moved to Canada for a few years in the 1990s in hopes of making it into the NBA.

Even today, Jordan remains well-loved here. At the Mansudae Art Studio, which produces the country's top art, a portrait of Jordan spotted last week, complete with a replica of his signature and "NBA" painted in one corner, seemed an odd inclusion among the propaganda posters and celadon vases on display.

An informal poll of North Koreans revealed that "The Worm" isn't quite as much a household name in Pyongyang.

But Kim Jong Un, also said to be a basketball fanatic, would have been an adolescent when Rodman, now 51, was with the Bulls, and when the Harlem Globetrotters, an exhibition basketball team, kept up a frenetic travel schedule worldwide.

The notoriously unpredictable and irrepressible Rodman said he has no special antics up his sleeve for making his mark on one of the world's most regimented and militarized societies, a place where order and conformity are enforced with Stalinist fervor.

But he said he isn't leaving any of his piercings behind.

__

Follow AP's bureau chief for Pyongyang and Seoul at www.twitter.com/newsjean . AP writer Matthew Pennington contributed to this report from Washington.

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Canada to end biofuel subsidy in 2017: report

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - The Canadian government plans to end its subsidy for production of biofuels when its current program ends in 2017, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

The Globe and Mail quoted a letter from Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver to the biofuels industry on Thursday explaining that Ottawa needed to cut spending to tame its deficit.

Oliver said that the ethanol industry now produces the necessary volume of renewable fuel for Canada to meet its target of 5 percent ethanol in the country's gasoline supply, the newspaper reported.

But the minister also noted that the Canadian biodiesel industry had been unable to produce enough of that fuel, forcing some refiners to import to meet a 2 percent biodiesel target.

The production of fuel from feed stocks such as corn, wheat, canola and animal fat has been lauded as a way for Canada to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

However, ethanol and biodiesel fuel producers have required government subsidies and some critics complain that demand for fuel production has driven up the price of grain.

The government's ecoENERGY for Biofuels program was originally to have spent C$1.5 billion ($1.47 billion) supporting the industry between 2008 and 2017. It has actually committed only C$1 billion and stopped taking new applications for support in 2010, the newspaper said.

Ottawa plans to keep its existing commitments but wind down the program in 2017, the paper said.

According to the program's website, it has committed funding to about two dozen projects, including some owned by Suncor Energy Inc, Husky Energy Inc, Maple Leaf Foods Inc and BIOX Corp.

Plans have also been announced for new plants, notably a biodiesel plant that U.S. agrifood giant Archer Daniels Midland Co plans to build in Alberta.

The Globe and Mail quoted Scott Thurlow, president of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, as saying that new biodiesel plants could go forward if the government continued its subsidy.

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg; Editing by David Brunnstrom)

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Mexico reverses foreign investment flows

MEXICO CITY (AP) — After decades of depending on inflows of foreign capital to develop its economy, Mexico has turned a corner and become a net exporter of direct investment capital in 2012.

Mexico's central bank announced Monday that Mexican corporations invested about $25.6 billion last year in buying up foreign plants and companies, more than twice the $12.7 foreigners invested directly in Mexican firms.

For a country that still has one foot planted firmly in the developing world, that news worried some analysts and delighted others.

An official confirmed that was the first time in recent memory that outflows exceeded inflows.

Last year was marked by big purchases of European telecom assets by Mexican magnate Carlos Slim, considered the world's richest man.

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2 killed as Bangladesh police, protesters clash

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Police across Bangladesh clashed Friday with protesters from Islamic political parties denouncing war crimes trials linked to the country's 1971 independence war, killing two demonstrators and injuring dozens of people, police and witnesses said.

The nationwide protests were held separately by Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's largest Islamic party, and an alliance of 12 other smaller Islamic parties. Jamaat called the demonstrations to denounce the war crimes trials of its top leaders.

Earlier this month, a special tribunal convicted Jamaat's assistant secretary, Abdul Quader Mollah, of mass killings during the independence war against Pakistan and sentenced him to life in prison. Another eight leaders of the party are on trial on charges of atrocities during the nine-month war.

The alliance of 12 parties accuses the government of plotting to ban Islamic parties, an allegation denied by the government.

Even though the alliance does not back Jamaat, protesters from both sides mingled Friday in the capital, Dhaka, according to an Associated Press reporter and photographer at the scene.

In Jhenaidah town, 128 kilometers (80 miles) west of Dhaka, clashes between Jamaat activists and police killed one protester, said local police official Hasan-uz Zaman. He provided no further details.

Another protester was killed in Sylhet city, 192 kilometers (120 miles) northeast of Dhaka, when police opened fire on several hundred activists from the Islamic party alliance, a policeman said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to speak to the media. Dulal Chandra, a doctor at the state-run Sylhet Medical College Hospital, said a man arrived there dead from the scene of the violence.

In central Dhaka, police fired tear gas when about 2,000 stone-throwing members and supporters of Jamaat-e-Islami took to the streets and tried to overrun police barricades, witnesses said.

About 40 people, including 12 journalists, were injured in the Dhaka clashes, private television station Ekattor TV and ATN News reported.

The alliance of Islamic parties called a nationwide general strike for Sunday, accusing police of foiling their protests.

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Victims of Kenya's last election still in limbo

GWA KUNGU, Kenya (AP) — Alex Ndungu is the latest victim of the harsh mountain winds that blow through the rows of straw huts in Gwa Kungu, a village where those displaced by Kenya's election violence five years ago remain, in limbo. Alex died of complications resulting from pneumonia and anemia. He was 9 months old.

The 624 people living at Hope Camp are an illustration of one of the many lingering effects of the tribe-on-tribe violence that rocked Kenya after its 2007 presidential election. Five years later — and now only days before the country's March 4 presidential election — hundreds of the refugees still have not returned home.

Kenya holds another high-tension election next Monday, and though officials are working to prevent a repeat of violence, there are signs it may again return.

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Bank of Canada's Carney reiterates need for eventual rate hike

LONDON, Ontario (Reuters) - The head of the Bank of Canada reiterated on Monday that the next move in the country's interest rates is likely to be higher, even as he acknowledged growth in the last quarter of 2012 might have been softer than predicted.

Governor Mark Carney noted that the central bank only last month said there's ultimately a need for some withdrawal of monetary policy stimulus, though the prospect was "was less imminent."

"Obviously we stand by that assessment," he told reporters after a speech in London, Ontario.

Some economists last week pushed their forecasts for the timing of the next Canadian rate hike further into the future after data showed the economy registered its lowest inflation in more than three years last month and retail sales sank in December.

Canadian interest rates are at a near-record low 1 percent. The Bank of Canada has said since early last year its next move is likely to be a rate increase, making it the only Group of Seven central bank with a tightening bias.

The weak data prompted some speculation the central bank could drop the tightening bias. But Carney's comments seemed to suggest the bank favors the status quo for now, said Benjamin Reitzes, a senior economist and foreign exchange strategist at Bank of Montreal

"He still said that rates will still eventually have to go higher ... there's no reason to believe they're going to change things materially at this point," said Reitzes.

The bank last month slashed its fourth-quarter annualized growth forecast to 1.0 percent from 2.5 percent. But Carney said on Monday this might now also be too optimistic, citing the emergence of downside risks the bank had identified.

"I don't want to overemphasize shorter-term data, but there is a bit of that bias and I would say that, particularly around the fourth quarter of 2012, we'll find out shortly, but it might be slightly softer than we had forecast," he said.

Statistics Canada will release figures for fourth quarter growth this Friday.

Carney said one reason for the likely lower growth was an unexpectedly weak export sector, which is suffering from what he called a "competitiveness element."

Exporters are struggling to cope with a strong Canadian dollar and soft demand, particularly from the United States.

(With additional reporting by Solarina Ho; Writing by David Ljunggren; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson and James Dalgleish)

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