A bee collects nectar from a sunflower on a field near the northern Swiss town Leibstadt July 9, 2012.

BRUSSELS | Fri Mar 15, 2013 1:50pm EDT

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU governments failed to agree a ban on three widely used pesticides linked to the decline of honeybees on Friday, but the European Commission could force one through by the summer unless member states agree a compromise.

A sharp fall in bee populations around the world, partly due to a phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder, has fuelled concerns over the impact of widespread use of pesticides, notably the neonicotinoids class.

Syngeta and Bayer, leading global producers of neonicotinoids, say the harmful effects on bees is unproven and that a ban would cost the EU economy billions.

But campaign groups and some scientists accuse governments of caving into pressure from the agribusiness lobby.

Under EU rules, member states now have two months to reach a compromise or the Commission will be free to adopt the proposal.

"Forcing through the ban is one of the options available to us but first we need to reflect politically on the best way to proceed," said EU health spokesman Frederic Vincent.

The Commission, which could also try to get a majority for a compromise proposal, put forward the restrictions in January after the EU's food safety watchdog EFSA said neonicotinoids posed an acute risk to honeybee health.

However, the survey found no link between use of the pesticides and the specific problem of colony collapse.

Bees and other insects are crucial in pollinating most crops in Europe but neonicotinoids are used on more than 8 million hectares to boost yields of rapeseed, wheat and other staples.

The proposal would ban neonicotinoids on all crops except winter cereals and plants not attractive to bees, such as sugar beet. It would apply from July 1, 2013, ensuring this spring's maize sowing is unaffected, with a review after two years.

BEE-KILLERS

Sources close to the discussions said 13 EU governments favored a ban and nine voted against. Britain, Germany and three other states abstained.

"We are pleased that EU member states did not support the European Commission's shamefully political proposal," said John Atkin, chief operating officer for Swiss firm Syngeta.

"Restricting the use of this vital crop protection technology will do nothing to help improve bee health," his statement added.

While few deny that neonicotinoids can be harmful to bees, there are conflicting scientific opinions on the actual threat they pose under normal growing conditions.

"Of course they can kill bees, they are insecticides; but whether they actually do this, or whether sub-lethal effects occur and damage the colonies on any important scale, has not been proven," said Lin Field, head of biological chemistry at Britain's Rothamsted Research centre.

Some point to habitat decline and disease-carrying parasites such as the Varroa mite as the chief cause of bee deaths.

But David Goulson, professor of biological sciences at the University of Stirling in Scotland, said there was clear evidence feeding on treated crops was likely to cause bees significant harm.

"Yet politicians choose to ignore all of this. Presumably their opinions were swayed by the spurious claims that restricting use of these insecticides will cause vast economic losses to farming," he said.

A Syngenta and Bayer funded study showed a blanket ban on treating seeds with neonicotinoids would cut EU net wheat exports by 16 percent and lead to a 57 percent rise in maize imports, costing the EU economy 4.5 billion euros per year.

Separately, researchers have put the financial contribution of insect pollinators to the EU farming sector at 22 billion euros ($28.5 billion) a year, and 153 billion euros globally.

Campaign group Avaaz, which has collected more than 2.5 million signatures on a petition for the European Union to ban the products, accused governments of ignoring public opinion.

"Today, Germany and Britain have caved in to the industry lobby and refused to ban bee-killing pesticides," Avaaz campaigner Iain Keith said in a statement.

(Additional reporting by Mike Hogan in Hamburg, Katharina Bart in Zurich and Kate Kelland in London; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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Manatee rehab team members take a blood sample from a rescued manatee, exposed to Red Tide in Southwest Florida, during treatment at the David A. Straz Jr. Manatee Hospital at Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo, Florida, March 13, 2013.

TAMPA, Florida | Thu Mar 14, 2013 2:59pm EDT

TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) - Virginia Edmonds, standing in shallow water, used her legs to slowly nudge an ailing young manatee to one side of a treatment pool. A half dozen other female members of a manatee rehabilitation team hovered close by - one with a syringe - waiting for the signal.

"OK!" Edmonds called, as the others jumped in and threw a mat over the manatee to try and hold it still.

The 545-pound (247-kg) mammal bucked, thrashed, rolled and tossed the women off before they could inject an antibiotic; just one minor challenge in an effort to rescue and treat members of this endangered species that are dying in record numbers from an algae bloom.

The so-called Red Tide algae bloom has killed a total of 181 manatees so far this year, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

That figure already surpasses the highest number of Red Tide manatee deaths on record - 151 in 1996 - and experts expect the number to keep rising through the spring.

"We'll probably have Red Tide victims several more months," said Dr. Larry Killmar, head of animal science and conservation at Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo, which is home to the manatee rehab team.

So far 12 rescued manatees have been brought in for treatment from Red Tide poisoning.

"We're not even getting a chance to work on many of them," Killmar said of the large number of deaths. "If we can get them early enough, we can save them."

TOXINS IN THE WATER

The problem, Killmar and other experts note, was Florida's warm winter, which appears to have sparked an earlier-than- normal algae bloom in the Gulf of Mexico along a 70-mile (112-km) swath of southwest Florida's coast, home to a large share of the state's estimated 5,000 manatees.

The naturally occurring algae that blooms into Red Tide carries toxins that are usually inhaled by manatees when they come up for air, typically every 20 minutes. But now they animals are also ingesting the toxins when they eat, after the Red Tide saturated sea grasses the manatees graze on, Killmar said.

The toxins spark seizures and paralyze the manatees, which struggle to breathe or surface for air - causing them to drown.

Most of the victims have been found in coastal rivers in the area of Fort Myers.

"Most are passed out when they come in," said Edmonds, the animal care manager of Florida mammals at Lowry Park Zoo. After they are brought in by a rescue team from the wildlife conservation commission, the manatees immediately receive an injection of the anti-toxin atropine and the first of three possible antibiotic injections.

For the past few weeks, staff members in the zoo's manatee hospital stood in shallow pool waters around the clock to help keep the manatees' heads above water.

"One woke up in 15 minutes," Edmonds said. Others take hours, possibly depending on the length of time they were exposed to Red Tide.

To make room for more critical care patients, two recovered manatees were sent to Sea World last week and three other Red Tide survivors are headed to Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park this week.

The animals cannot be released back into the wild until the Red Tide dissipates because they will migrate back to the same area and become sick once again.

Meanwhile, the others will stay at the zoo's manatee hospital with several other resident patients recovering from a mixture of ailments, including boat strikes, which are one of the biggest killers of manatees.

HELPING HANDS

They manatees will be monitored and continue to get follow-up antibiotic injections like the one Edmonds and her team were trying to administer to a feisty 2-year-old male manatee on Wednesday.

About 20 zoo spectators had gathered to watch the unexpected display, holding up cameras and placing toddlers on their shoulders to see.

"I want to help," 9-year-old Ben Arnett of Englewood, Florida, whispered to his brother, 11-year-old Josh, an aspiring marine biologist.

Normally it is against state law to touch, chase, harass and - in one recent notorious case that unleashed public outrage and brought criminal charges - to ride manatees. But now fast-thinking residents are playing a critical role in saving them - holding their heads above the water until rescuers arrive.

The state released a hotline number for residents to call if they see a distressed manatee. "If they didn't have people in the public trying to help," said Lee Ann Rottman, the zoo's animal curator, "those manatees wouldn't make it."

(Editing by David Adams, Eric Walsh and Dan Grebler)

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Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center Bjorn Lomborg addresses the APEC CEO Summit in Singapore November 14, 2009.

NEW YORK | Thu Mar 14, 2013 6:58pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Danish economist who gained fame as a skeptic of risks posed by global warming but now calls for international efforts to deal with it said the European Union should not approve a proposal to boost the price of carbon permits because that would not reduce emissions globally.

"Propping the price of carbon permits is wrong," said Bjorn Lomborg, director of Copenhagen Consensus Center, a think tank, and an adjunct professor at Copenhagen Business School. He said higher carbon prices would damage the EU economy and would not help to achieve any significant climate goals.

The price of European Union allowances for carbon emissions (EUAs) has tumbled about 60 percent in four months, as slowing industrial activity caused an excess of allowances.

But the benchmark contract rose more than 5 percent on Thursday to 3.70 euros a metric ton (1 metric ton = 1.102 tons), after the European Parliament signaled it favored a plan to prop up the price.

"The carbon price is low because we have had a big economic crisis so actually we are doing what the EU has promised to do, which is cutting the carbon emissions by 20 percent," Lomborg said. "Wanting a higher carbon price is wanting to cut more than 20 percent. It is just pushing the policy goal which seems a little bit arbitrary at best."

Lomborg spoke to Reuters late on Wednesday during an interview in New York during a U.S. trip to testify on climate policy before a Congressional panel. He has been named 'one of the 50 people who could save the world' by UK newspaper the Guardian and one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world.

The EU considers current prices for carbon permits too low to drive investments in clean energy to help cut greenhouse gas emissions. It plans to withdraw allowances from the market temporarily, a move known as backloading.

Lomborg's 2001 best-seller 'The Skeptical Environmentalist' suggested that many warnings about the dangers of global warming were overdone. The book drew praise from industry groups and opponents of greenhouse gas emissions limits, and criticism from many environmental groups and climate scientists.

In a more recent book, "Smart Solutions to Climate Change: Comparing Costs and Benefits," Lomborg called for a global tax on carbon dioxide emissions to fund $100 billion in new investment annually for clean energy development, climate engineering and infrastructure such as sea walls to deal with damage from rising sea levels and other effects of climate change.

The economist, whose Copenhagen Consensus think tank studies ways for governments and philanthropists to spend aid and development money, agreed with economists who put the social cost of carbon at around $5 per metric ton.

"If you want to do it right you should get it at about $5 not 20 euros ($25.96) and also you should recognize it only really makes sense if you get the rest of the world on board," he said.

EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard has said that while the 27-nation bloc is on track to meet its 2020 target to cut greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent below 1990 levels, low carbon prices risk slowing investments needed to help meet the aim of cutting emissions at least 80 percent by 2050.

Last week, Hedegaard said that once the EU has reached agreement on a short-term fix to prop up prices, it is also likely to start work on overhauling the world's biggest carbon market.

A DIFFERENT APPROACH

The benchmark contract for European Union carbon futures surged as much as 20 percent on Thursday, after the European Parliament signaled its intention to back a plan to rescue the emissions trading system. The contract retreated from its session high to post a 5.6 percent daily.

The EU carbon permits system caps the emissions of more than 11,000 power stations, factories and airlines, which collectively are responsible for around 40 percent of the EU's greenhouse gases blamed for warming the planet.

Lomborg says the EU should focus instead on different policies to help solve the environmental issue, because the lack of a global agreement simply moves emissions from regions regulated by a carbon scheme to those which are not subject to such regulation, an effect known as carbon leakage.

Almost 200 countries have pledged to strike a deal at the U.N. to cap emissions from 2020 but admit this falls short of what scientists say is required to prevent more floods, droughts and rising sea levels.

China, the world's biggest emitter, is testing several local carbon markets to rein its greenhouse gas output and expects to have a national scheme ready later this decade.

"All the EU has managed to do is to hurt its own economy a little bit, reduce its own emissions a little bit, shift most of the production to China and elsewhere and virtually no impact on a global level: that's a bad policy all around," Lomborg said, while also criticizing the validity of the proposed Chinese scheme.

He said the solution to climate change lies in boosting investment in research to make green technology cheaper, as this would incentivize everyone to switch from fossil fuels to carbon-free emissions.

"You should also realize that there is a very obvious alternative in the short run which is gas fracking. Through fracking the U.S. has reduced its carbon emissions twice as much as what the rest of the world has managed to do," Lomborg said.

"And where Europe is paying for it, the US consumers are making billion of dollars in cheaper gas prices."

U.S. natural gas production has soared and prices have fallen on the back of technological advances in fracking, which involves injecting water and chemicals to fracture rock formations and unlock deposits that are untappable by conventional means.

Switching from coal to natural gas has been one of the main reasons for a big drop in America's carbon emissions from energy in the last few years but some environmental groups have taken a hard line against fracking, saying it has the potential to pollute drinking water supplies. ($1 = 0.7704 euros)

(Editing by David Gregorio)

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1 of 3. Police block the traffic at M1-M7 highway outside of Budapest March 15, 2013, as heavy snow hits Hungary.

BUDAPEST | Fri Mar 15, 2013 2:43pm EDT

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary deployed tanks to reach thousands of motorists trapped in heavy snow on Friday in a sudden cold snap and high winds which also struck parts of the Balkans, Slovakia and Poland and have left at least four people dead.

Snow stranded people in cars, buses and trains through the night and conspired with strong winds to cut off dozens of towns and villages in Hungary. The situation was critical on the M1 motorway linking Budapest and Vienna where hundreds of cars and trucks got stranded in the snow, most of them for over 20 hours.

By 1730 GMT disaster units had rescued most people stranded in the snow, putting up 12,000 in temporary shelters until the weather improved, Prime Minister Viktor Orban told a news conference.

He said 155 people were still out on the roads waiting for help, including one transplant patient in an ambulance whose life was in danger.

"The situation is particularly difficult and serious on the M1 motorway near the town of Babolna where there is a wall of snow, spanning 12 km (7 miles) with some gaps, and due to the strong winds even the deployment of helicopters is difficult," Orban said on his return from an EU meeting in Brussels.

A Reuters photographer travelling with a rescue convoy said high winds had caused snowdrifts on the motorway up to a meter (3 feet) high, with some cars totally buried.

Two people were killed in an accident on another Hungarian motorway on Thursday when dozens of cars collided. Tens of thousands of people were without power in the northeast of the country.

Government spokesman Andras Giro-Szasz got stranded in snow on a road overnight until a rescuer pulled his car out at 4.a.m, he told local Inforadio.

Many people took to Facebook to appeal for help.

NO ELECTRICITY

The government said it had sent out tanks and other military vehicles with caterpillar tracks to reach otherwise inaccessible areas and to pull vehicles out of snow drifts.

The weekend's premier league and second tier football fixtures were cancelled, with night-time temperatures expected to hit -5 to -15 degrees Celsius (23 to 5 Fahrenheit).

After a relatively mild winter for much of the region, almost 200,000 people in Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia were left shivering without electricity on Friday. Heavy rain hit parts of Serbia and Bosnia.

In Bulgaria, one woman was killed when scaffolding collapsed in high winds in the central town of Gabrovo, and a school was evacuated in the southern town of Krichim when wind tore off the roof.

To the south, in Kosovo, a 10-year-old girl drowned when a river burst its banks in heavy rain in the northern town of Skenderaj. Dozens of homes were flooded in the west of the country, a Reuters reporter said.

"The situation is alarming," Klina municipality spokeswoman Samije Gjergjaj told Reuters. She said some 300 people were stranded by 3-metre high floodwater.

"There's just one small boat evacuating these people," said Gjergjaj. "We're waiting for the state emergency services to help out."

Heavy snow also paralyzed parts of southeastern Poland, where police banned heavy lorries from entering the city of Rzeszow for fear they would get stuck.

In eastern Slovakia, snow stranded about 40 lorries on a highway in the High Tatras region. The army deployed hundreds of soldiers to help out and authorities appealed to people to avoid venturing out by car.

(Additional reporting by Fatos Bytyci in Pristina, Chris Borowski in Warsaw, Sam Cage in Sofia, Martin Santa in Bratislava, Daria Sito-Sucic and Maja Zuvela in Sarajevo; Writing by Matt Robinson in Belgrade; Editing by Pravin Char)

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Sergei Filin, artistic director of Russia's Bolshoi Ballet, speaks to journalists as he leaves a hospital accompanied by his wife Maria (L) in Moscow February 4, 2013.

MOSCOW | Thu Mar 14, 2013 6:54am EDT

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said on Wednesday that an acid attack that severely injured the Bolshoi Ballet's artistic director would not ruin the theatre's reputation.

Putin has not spoken publicly about the January 17 attack, which shocked many Russians, revealed discord in the theatre and left doctors fighting to save victim Sergei Filin's eyesight.

The Bolshoi "is an element of Russian culture. It is a social, cultural and simply Russian brand and this can hardly damage it", Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"The Bolshoi Theatre is a group of people, a mini-society," he said. Such problems can arise in any other society," he told journalists who asked about the attack and its aftermath.

"This is not about the Bolshoi Theatre, it's about people."

A masked assailant splashed acid in the face of Filin, 42, as re returned home from the Bolshoi, causing severe burns and damaging his eyes.

A top dancer at the Bolshoi, Pavel Dmitrichenko, has been charged along with two alleged accomplices, and all three are being held in custody while the investigation continues.

Dmitrichenko, 29, confessed in a police video to organizing the attack but said in court that he did not intend Filin's assailant to use acid.

But about 300 performers at the Bolshoi wrote a letter urging Putin to order a new inquiry, saying they believe Dmitrichenko confessed due to police pressure.

Longtime Bolshoi Theatre director Anatoly Iksanov, meanwhile, has aired suspicions that Dmitrichenko was part of a wider conspiracy.

Some Russians have expressed shock over the attack on a senior figure at Russia's premiere cultural institution, but for others it only reinforced a negative impression of the theatre.

One of Filin's predecessors, Alexei Ratmansky, called the Bolshoi a "sewer" plagued by hangers-on, ticket scalpers and "half-crazed fans" in a Facebook posting after the attack.

Peskov said the Kremlin had not received the letter from the Bolshoi performers, but he suggested it would not be appropriate for the president to get involved.

"Putin is following the investigation, like everyone else, but ... this is not the prerogative of the president, it is the prerogative of the law enforcement organs, and they are working on it," he said.

Police released a statement on Wednesday saying that "the investigators are doing their work honestly."

"The Moscow police have deep respect for the work of the artists of the Bolshoi Theatre, respect their opinion and assure them that those who work in the police are also professionals in their field," it said.

(Reporting by Alexei Anishchuk; Writing by Steve Gutterman; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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KANSAS CITY, Missouri | Fri Mar 15, 2013 10:13pm EDT

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - Conservation officials in Missouri on Friday welcomed the federal charges filed this week against eight people accused of poaching paddlefish and selling their eggs as caviar.

A multi-year investigation into the poaching of the protected species culminated on Thursday in the indictment of eight people on charges they trafficked in fish and fish eggs taken illegally from Missouri lakes and streams, according to the federal complaint.

Missouri state law prohibits the transportation of paddlefish eggs that have been removed or extracted from a paddlefish carcass.

State law also prohibits the sale or purchase, or offer of sale or purchase, of paddlefish eggs and restricts the purchase of whole paddlefish.

The American paddlefish, also known as the "spoonbill," is one of the largest species of freshwater fish in North America, and has suffered severe population declines over the past century. Many states now list it as endangered, threatened or a species of special concern.

"It's a unique resource and we need to protect it," conservation department regional supervisor Nick Laposha said on Friday.

"The national and international popularity of Missouri paddlefish eggs as a source of caviar has grown dramatically in recent years," Larry Yamnitz, resource protection chief for the conservation department, said in a news release.

The eight men indicted were charged with violating the Lacey Act, a federal statute that prohibits trade in wildlife, fish and plants that have been taken and transported or sold in violation of state law.

The defendants face penalties of up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000 per count if convicted. They were charged in four separate indictments for offenses said to have occurred in 2011 and 2012.

(Editing by James B. Kelleher and Peter Cooney)

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