Thu Jan 17, 2013 6:18pm EST

n">(Reuters) - A series of rain showers helped ease drought conditions in parts of the United States over the last week, but drought expanded slightly in parts of the U.S. Plains, according to a report issued Thursday.

Officials in north-central Oklahoma declared a state of emergency due to record low reservoir conditions and public and private interests throughout the central United States hardest hit by drought were examining measures to try to cope with ongoing drought.

Roughly 58.87 percent of the contiguous United States was in at least "moderate" drought as of January 15, an improvement from 60.26 percent a week earlier, according to a "Drought Monitor" report issued Thursday by a consortium of federal and state climatology experts.

But severe drought blanketed 87.25 percent of the High Plains, up from 86.20 percent the week before, and 61.27 percent of the region was classified in extreme drought, up from 60.25 percent.

Fully 100 percent of the land area in Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska and Oklahoma was engulfed in severe drought or worse, according to the Drought Monitor.

While the Plains remained parched, southern portions of the Midwest received heavy rainfall during the past seven days. The Drought Monitor report said substantial precipitation was concentrated over southern Illinois, Indiana, western Kentucky, and southeastern Missouri with totals ranging from two to five inches.

The U.S. drought, considered the worst in 50 years, continues to stress winter-seeded crops such as hard red winter wheat and has caused shipping problems on Midwest rivers for a range of commodities.

Twelve to 18 inches of precipitation, or three to five times more than normal, is needed in the western Corn Belt to ease soil dryness after last summer's drought, according to Don Keeney, a senior agricultural meteorologist with Cropcast weather service.

Last summer's extreme weather locked two-thirds of the U.S. continental land mass in severe drought, cutting production of the biggest crop, corn, by 27 percent from early-season estimates.

(Reporting by Carey Gillam in Kansas City; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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1 of 10. A man carries his son across a flooded area at the business district in Jakarta January 17, 2013.

JAKARTA | Fri Jan 18, 2013 2:29am EST

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Severe floods in Jakarta eased on Friday, a day after unusually heavy monsoon rains swamped parts of the Indonesian capital in waist-deep water and left more than 18,000 people homeless.

However, authorities warned of more rain and disruptions in the city of about 10 million people after Thursday's floods killed six people and turned Jakarta's main thoroughfare into a stream of red mud.

Other main roads were still full of water and choked with traffic on Friday as commuters struggled to return to work and emergency workers tried to clear the mess.

"Many roads will remain flooded for the next two or three days," police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar said. "Jakarta experienced quite a severe impact because 13 rivers flow into it from the south and west."

Large areas of the city were still without electricity after state utility PLN cut power in some places to avoid the risk of electrocution.

Investors however shrugged off the disruption, pushing the Jakarta stock index up 1 percent to a record high.

The central bank said it saw the weather causing disruption to food distribution, which was likely to push up inflation this month. Torrential rain across the main island of Java has not damaged key crops such as rice and palm oil, officials said.

The state palace was inundated and a $700,000 Rolls-Royce was among scores of cars swallowed by the floodwaters on Thursday, witnesses said. Many businesses remained closed.

Soldiers using an excavator struggled to stem the flow after a large section of a canal burst, sending a torrent of dirty water into the heart of the capital. Debris including sofas and dead fish littered the soggy streets and police captured a 3-metre python in the city, wrestling it into a van.

Many parts of Indonesia are regularly inundated during the annual rainy season, bringing already strained transport systems to a halt, although this flood was the worst the capital had suffered since 2007. Jakarta mayor Joko Widowo has declared a 10-day state of emergency.

Widodo, elected last year, is under pressure to improve drainage to prevent regular flooding in the low-lying capital, and to fix Jakarta's notoriously bad traffic. Plans are under way for new toll roads, bus lanes and a metro system.

(Additional reporting by Rieka Rahadiana, Janeman Latul and Adriana Nina Kusuma; Editing by Neil Chatterjee and Paul Tait)

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Drivers sit in traffic during morning rush hour as they enter Madrid on highway A-6 February 8, 2011.

BRUSSELS | Fri Jan 18, 2013 10:05am EST

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union politicians are sharply divided between those keen for ambitious green car standards they say are needed to keep up with U.S. goals and those trying to limit the impact on makers of big luxury cars, draft reports show.

The European Parliament next week debates Commission plans to enforce lower emissions standards for cars and vans as part of efforts to thrash out new EU law.

Ireland, holder of the six-month rotating EU presidency until the end of June, said it believed the proposal was likely to be watered down, as German politicians, reflecting the views of Germany's car industry, were steering parliamentary debate.

"The Commission proposal is extremely well-balanced," a representative of the Irish presidency said. "There are two German rapporteurs, so it could be diluted through flexibility mechanisms."

Thomas Ulmer, a German Christian Democrat member of the European Parliament, is leading parliamentary discussion on the proposal to enforce a 2020 limit of 95 grams of CO2 per kilometer as an average across the EU car fleet. Another German politician is also leading a separate vans proposal.

Ulmer's report to a parliamentary committee said it was important to meet what he described as "a very ambitious value."

"As, however, it is larger vehicles that generally play a pioneering role in vehicle technology, the rapporteur feels compelled to propose a realistic system of incentives, which will promote the development and use of new, less environmentally-damaging propulsion concepts," said the report, seen by Reuters.

German manufacturers, including Daimler AG, are among those calling for "super-credits" as incentives. Those allow manufacturers to produce more cars that exceed the EU target if they also make very low emission cars, such as electric or hybrid vehicles.

U.S. LOOKS BEYOND 2020

A separate text, also to be debated by politicians, called on the EU to match U.S. regulation that stretches out to 2025, allowing for long business-planning cycles.

"A weakness of the Commission's proposal is the lack of a post-2020 vision," the draft opinion from British Liberal Democrat member of the European Parliament Fiona Hall said.

The United States - famous for gas guzzling - had set a target requiring carmakers to cut fuel consumption in cars sold between 2011 and 2025, she said, urging an EU target of 70 g/km for 2025.

"Because the EU should remain at the forefront of the global race for cleaner vehicles, it should adopt an equally ambitious pace for development," she added.

Hall said while supercredits encouraged ultra-low emission vehicles, they allowed carmakers to make more polluting cars.

Franziska Achterberg, a campaigner at Greenpeace, said Ulmer's proposal on supercredits would "allow manufacturers to exceed their carbon reduction targets massively.

"It is even doubtful that this supposed incentive would lead to more electric cars on the road. What it would certainly do is allow carmakers to continue producing high-emission conventional cars," she said.

Consumer groups say supercredits mean higher fuel costs.

"Meeting the 95 g CO2/km standard in 2020 would give new car buyers in Europe fuel savings of 344 to 465 euros ($460-$620) each year, recouping the potential increase in manufacturing costs in less than three years," Monique Goyens, director-general of the European consumers' organization BEUC, said.

"BEUC is against weakening the target as supercredits would do, as it would undermine the financial benefits for the average consumer." ($1 = 0.7486 euros)

(Editing by James Jukwey)

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Thu Jan 17, 2013 2:26pm EST

n">(Reuters) - The drought that crippled many communities across the nation last year shows little sign of retreating, and the threat of persistent water scarcity is spurring efforts to preserve every drop.

As the drought of 2012 creeps into 2013, experts say the slow-spreading catastrophe presents near-term problems for a key U.S. agricultural region and potential long-term challenges for millions of Americans.

"Everyone is wondering whether this dry weather is the new norm ... or an anomaly that will soon pass," said Barney Austin, director of hydraulic services for INTERA Inc, an Austin, Texas-based geoscience and engineering consulting firm. "We all hope for the latter, but it's hard to tell."

The signs of distress and the search for answers are most prevalent in the Plains, where historic drought blankets much of Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and parts of Texas.

This month the small Oklahoma farming town of Wapanucka lost water completely when the spring-fed wells the community relies on ran dry. Officials closed schools and residents had to do without tap water until the town could run a line to a neighboring water district.

In Texas, state lawmakers are pushing for a $2 billion fund to finance water infrastructure projects as numerous communities face their own shortages. But it won't be soon enough to help rice farmers, who were told this month that there is not likely to be enough water to irrigate their fields this spring.

Meanwhile, in the big wheat-growing state of Kansas, penalties for exceeding water use limits for irrigation were doubled this month and Governor Sam Brownback has launched a task force to come up with strategies to counter statewide shortages.

"It's going to be dry again this year," said Lane Letourneau, water appropriations manager for the Kansas Agriculture Department. "We consider this a really big deal."

SEARCHING FOR SOLUTIONS

Water use is already tightly curtailed in many states. Years of low rainfall and high heat - last year was the hottest on record for the United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - have diminished surface waters even as population and water demand expand.

As well, agricultural and oil and gas interests are pumping the precious commodity from underground aquifers at a pace that often cannot be matched by natural replenishment.

"Water has been viewed as a basic commodity, a basic right," said Les Lampe, a water expert with consultancy Black & Veatch. "You turn on the tap and water comes out and you don't pay very much for it. That has to change."

Farmers are feeling the pain of water shortages most acutely. After multibillion-dollar crop and livestock losses tied to last year's drought, they fear more losses are coming.

Texas rice growers who depend on the lower Colorado River valley for survival are eyeing the fluctuating levels of two key lakes used for irrigation when river levels are too low.

State officials said this month that without enough rain by spring, rice farmers could be completely cut off from irrigation, jeopardizing about 2 percent of the U.S. crop and about $1 billion for the Texas economy.

"We've got a shortage of water," said Ronald Gertson, a rice grower and chairman of the Colorado Water Issues Committee. "People are going to be both hungry and thirsty before they wake up to this problem."

Forecasts show drier-than-normal weather likely prevailing in the Plains and western Midwest for the next few months at least. But even normal rainfall levels would not be enough to fully recharge resources.

Three to five times more rain than normal is needed in key corn-growing areas that include Nebraska and Kansas, for instance, to ease soil dryness after last summer's drought, according to Don Keeney, an agricultural meteorologist with Cropcast weather service.

Roughly 60.26 percent of the contiguous United States was in at least moderate drought as of January 8, according to a "Drought Monitor" report issued by a group of federal and state climatology experts. Severe drought still blanketed 86.20 percent of the High Plains.

"This drought certainly has gotten people's attention," said Joe Straus, speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. "Regardless of whether it starts raining now or not, long-term water planning is essential. We need to be responsible."

For some, it's already an emergency. Persistent dry conditions in north-central Oklahoma led officials in Payne County to declare a state of emergency this month as the reservoir providing water to nearly 16,000 residents in seven counties fell to record low levels.

The approximately 500 residents of Wapanucka are talking of higher rates to fund a permanent pipeline to a new water source. But running out of water has shown how harsh doing without water can be, said Julie Wallis, Wapanucka's city water clerk.

"We are not going to be the only ones who this happens to," said Wallis. "It's coming."

(Reporting by Carey Gillam; Editing by Dan Grebler)

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Locals manoeuvre their small vessels along the Mekong river in Phnom Penh November 7, 2012.

BANGKOK | Fri Jan 18, 2013 5:05am EST

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Vietnam urged Laos to halt construction of a $3.5 billion hydropower dam pending further study, environmental activists said on Friday after a meeting of the Mekong River Commission.

The activists said Cambodia, also downriver from the Xayaburi dam, accused Laos during heated discussions on Wednesday and Thursday of failing to consult on the project.

The dam in northern Laos, the first of 11 planned for the lower Mekong river running through Southeast Asia, threatens the livelihood of tens of millions who depend on the river's aquatic resources, activists say.

"Vietnam requested that no further developments on the Mekong mainstream occur until the Mekong mainstream dams study agreed upon at least year's Council Meeting is completed," International Rivers, an NGO devoted to river conservation, said in a statement.

"The Cambodian delegation asserted that Laos had misinterpreted the Mekong Agreement."

Officials from Cambodia and Vietnam were not immediately available for comment.

Ministers from member countries that make up the Mekong River Commission (MRC) overseeing the river's development -- Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand -- met in northern Laos on Wednesday and Thursday.

The MRC is bound by treaty to hold inter-governmental consultations before dams are built. But members have no veto.

"In the absence of an agreement, other countries can disagree if they like but this can't stop Laos," said Jian-hua Meng, a specialist in sustainable hydropower at the World Wildlife Fund.

"The role of the MRC is now being questioned along with the level of investment put in the organization."

TURNING POINT

In December 2011, MRC member states agreed to conduct new environmental impact assessments before construction proceeded, but last August Ch Karnchang PCL, the Thai construction company behind the project, said it had resumed work.

A groundbreaking ceremony in November signaled the formal start of construction, said Meng.

Ch Karnchang's 50 percent-owned subsidiary, Xayaburi Power Co, has received a 29-year concession from the Laotian government to operate the dam's power plant and Thailand is set to buy around 95 percent of the electricity generated.

Milton Osborne of the Lowy Institute, an Australian foreign policy think tank, said Xayaburi marked a turning-point that would enable others to build their own dams, including Cambodia.

He described as a "monstrous disaster" a proposal for a Chinese power company to build a dam at Sambor in northeastern Cambodia, on a tributary of the Mekong.

"It would be so disastrous, blocking one of the main fish migratory systems," he said by telephone.

Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia share the lower stretches of the 4,000-km (2,500-mile) Mekong. Activists say dams could threaten food security in Cambodia and Vietnam.

The river provides up to 80 percent of the animal protein consumed in Cambodia and sediment and changes to river flow threaten the Mekong Delta, which contributes half of Vietnam's agricultural GDP.

Cambodia approved its own hydroelectric dams in November.

A second Cambodian project, the Lower Sesan dam in northern Stung Treng province, is a joint venture between Cambodian, Chinese and Vietnamese companies. Campaigners say it would reduce the fish catch in a country with malnutrition issues.

(Additional reporting by Prak Chan Thul in Phnom Penh; Editing by Alan Raybould and Ron Popeski)

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U.S. Representative Stephen Lynch (D-MA) meets with officials at the Iraqi Foreign Ministry during his visit to Baghdad July 26, 2009.

BOSTON | Thu Jan 31, 2013 4:19pm EST

BOSTON (Reuters) - Representative Stephen Lynch, a Massachusetts Democrat who has represented Boston and its surrounding since 2001, on Thursday formally launched a bid for the U.S. Senate, seeking the seat being vacated by John Kerry following his confirmation as the new U.S. secretary of state.

Lynch, a former ironworker, will face off against fellow House of Representatives member Edward Markey in an April 30 primary, ahead of a June 25 special election to choose a permanent successor to Kerry.

Lynch announced his candidacy with a speech in the headquarters of the ironworkers union he once ran - a site chosen to play up his working-class background.

After a series of appearances in Worcester and Framingham, the state's second- and third-most populous cities, Lynch told a crowd of supporters in Boston about his experience losing a job during a mass layoff at a nearby shipyard.

"I know what it's like to stand in an unemployment line. It's something you never forget," Lynch said, according to a text of his prepared remarks. "I learned that in severe economic downturns, that sometimes the only force that can correct that inequity ... is the government."

Lynch faces an uphill battle against Markey, who has held his seat in Congress since 1976, according to recent polls.

In a primary contest, 52 percent of voters would support Markey and just 19 percent Lynch, according to a Public Policy Polling study of 404 likely primary voters released on Wednesday.

No prominent Republicans have said if they will run for the seat, and observers wonder whether former Republican Senator Scott Brown will seek a return to Washington.

Brown stunned the liberal state's Democratic establishment in 2010 when he won a special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat left vacant with the death of Edward Kennedy.

Brown lost a re-election bid last year to Democrat Elizabeth Warren.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, a Democrat, on Wednesday named his former chief of staff, William Cowan, to hold the U.S. Senate seat until a successor is elected.

Cowan told reporters he viewed the appointment as temporary and had no plans to run in the special election.

(Editing by Leslie Adler)

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LONDON | Mon Jan 14, 2013 12:54pm EST

LONDON (Reuters) - The world's two biggest auction houses are predicting a bumper start to 2013, with estimates from key sales in London this February up sharply from last year.

Confident that super-rich collectors and wealthy art institutions will continue their hunt for the very rarest works of art, both Christie's and Sotheby's are looking to improve on already spectacular gains in recent years.

Shrugging off fears of slow economic growth and the impact of countries paying down mountains of debt, Sotheby's announced on Monday it expected to sell art worth 103-149 million pounds ($166-239 million) at an auction on February 5.

That tally from the impressionist, modern and surreal evening sale is well up on the 79-113 million expected from the equivalent auction of 2012, although that fell short of estimates in the end to realize 78.9 million.

Its top lot on the night is expected to be Pablo Picasso's 1932 portrait "Femme assise pres d'une fenetre", depicting his "golden muse" Marie-Therese Walter and estimated at 25-35 million pounds.

Christie's, which holds its equivalent sale on February 6, has similar expectations - 98-147 million pounds versus year-ago estimates of 86-127 million and an actual total of 135 million.

The auction is led by another portrait of an artist's muse, this time "Jeanne Hebuterne (au chapeau)", dated 1919 and painted by Amedeo Modigliani, which the auctioneer expects to fetch 16-22 million pounds.

The sales are part of a series of London auctions in February likely to be worth around 500 million pounds in total, providing an early barometer of the strength of the art market going into 2013.

Fuelled by collectors from traditional markets like Britain and the United States and new buyers from Russia, China and the Middle East, confidence is high that 2013 will again underline art's resilience in the face of broader economic uncertainty.

New galleries and museums opening in the Middle East and elsewhere have further boosted demand for the most coveted paintings and sculptures, although the picture for lesser works is seen as less bullish.

A version of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" became the most valuable work of art sold at auction when it went for $120 million last year, reportedly to U.S. financier Leon Black.

And Qatar snapped up Paul Cezanne's "The Card Players" for more than $250 million in a private sale in 2011 which has been widely reported but not yet confirmed.

"I believe the top end of the art market will continue to perform strongly, particularly in the contemporary, impressionist and modern art sectors," said Georgina Adam, editor-at-large of The Art Newspaper.

"As other investments become less attractive - yields on bonds are minimal, and equities are volatile - it will remain tempting to put at least some of a portfolio into something solid," she wrote in a market analysis last week.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White)

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