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He may not be comfortable discussing unrest in East Timor, or pronouncing the name of the leaders of Turkmenistan, but President-elect George W. Bush considers the rest of the Western Hemisphere "our backyard" and will have several opportunities in his first year in office to make Latin America a trade and foreign policy priority.

Some 700 representatives of the central trade unions of the members of South America's leading trade bloc, the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) - Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay - called on their governments to submit an eventual continent-wide free trade treaty to national plebiscites.

President Fernando de la Rua's most pressing problem is a cash crunch, in large part a result of interest payments coming due on $144 billion in foreign debt. Investors are concerned that the $280 billion economy cannot grow enough to stay solvent.

BP says it's a leader in moving the world "Beyond Petroleum" to protect the environment. A closer look shows that their ad campaign is Beyond Belief.

Bush briefly outlined a number of issues he plans to address as president, including public education, social security, prescription drug coverage for seniors, tax relief, and strengthening the military. He made no mention of the environment.

After a week of deliberations to ban the world's most toxic chemicals, delegates have reached an agreement, which ''constitutes a declaration of war on persistent organic pollutants,'' said conference chairman John Buccini.

This paper, ''Partnerships for Development or Privatization of the Multilateral System?'' was presented at a seminar organised by the North-South Coalition in Oslo, Norway.

Kenyan human rights activists are adding their voices to those already opposed to the World Bank driven land reforms, which they say, seek to make land "just another commodity" to be subjected to the whims of market forces, at the expense of millions of landless peasants.

U.S.-based Williams Cos. Inc. has dropped its bid to build a heavy crude pipeline in Ecuador, a company spokesman said on Thursday.

Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are corporations; only 49 are countries (based on a comparison of corporate sales and country GDPs).