WASHINGTON | Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:30pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. environmental regulators will likely delay finalizing rules to limit carbon emissions from new power plants, a measure that has been one of President Barack Obama's top strategies to fight climate change, the Washington Post reported on Friday.

The rules were proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) nearly a year ago. They are expected to be revised to set a separate standard for coal-fired plants, as opposed to natural-gas-fired plants, the newspaper said.

The administration had been expected to tackle emissions from existing power plants, which are responsible for a much larger volume of U.S. emissions, up to 40 percent, after finalizing the rules on new plants.

An administration official said the report was not accurate because the EPA was still working on the rule. The official did say that sifting through the massive volume of comments was time-consuming.

According to the EPA's regulatory tracker, the so-called greenhouse gas "New Source Performance Standard" for new power plants was projected to be finalized by the end of this month.

But EPA Administrator nominee Gina McCarthy, who was in charge of EPA rules as assistant administrator for the agency's office for air and radiation, hinted last month that finalizing the proposal may take extra time since it had received nearly 2 million comments on the rules.

McCarthy will face a Senate confirmation hearing in April, Capitol Hill sources said, and is expected to get pushback from lawmakers from states that are heavily reliant on coal.

The EPA proposal says new plants can emit no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour, a standard that effectively blocks construction of new coal-fired plants.

David Doniger, policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's climate and air program, said he has no evidence that the EPA plans to weaken the current proposal but warned that a deadline to finalize the rule is less than one month away.

"If they don't meet the deadline, environmental organizations will start taking the legal steps to get a court to force the deadline," he said.

He added that the EPA holds regular, informal consultations with various stakeholders including green groups and electric utilities to hear proposals for setting an emissions standard from existing power plants.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner and Valerie Volcovici; Editing by John Wallace and Dale Hudson)

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The grave of Ben Zygier (R), the Australian whom local media have identified as the man who died in an Israeli prison in 2010 and who may have been recruited by Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, is pictured at a Jewish cemetery in Melbourne February 14, 2013.

CANBERRA | Mon Feb 18, 2013 6:17am EST

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A suspected Mossad agent who died in an Israeli jail in 2010 was arrested by his spymasters who believed he may have told Australian intelligence about his work with the Israeli spy agency, Australian media reported on Monday.

The Australian Broadcasting Corp said dual Australian-Israeli citizen Ben Zygier, 34, had met officers from Australia's domestic spy agency ASIO and had given details of a number of Mossad operations.

Quoting undefined sources, the ABC, which broke the initial story about Zygier's secret arrest and death in prison, said on one of his four trips to Australia, Zygier had also applied for a work visa to Italy.

But Mossad became concerned when it discovered Zygier had contact with the Australian spy agency, the ABC reported, adding it was worried he might pass on information about a major operation planned for Italy.

It said Zygier was one of three Australians who changed their names several times and took out new Australian passports for travel in the Middle East and Europe for their work with Mossad.

The closely guarded case has raised questions in Australia and Israel about the suspected use by Mossad of dual Australian-Israeli nationals.

Israeli lawmakers on Sunday announced plans to investigate Zygier's death, which a judge has ruled was suicide. Australia's Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, has initiated an inquiry into his department's handling of the case.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday sought to reduce media attention on the case and said he "absolutely trusts" Israel's security services and what he described as the independent legal monitoring system under which they operated.

Australia's Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, who is in charge of ASIO, on Monday said he would not comment on intelligence matters or suggestions ASIO had exposed Zygier's identity.

He also said he saw no need for a review of how the intelligence agencies handled the case.

"I haven't seen any need either, for any such review to take place within the Attorney General's Department," he told reporters.

(Reporting by James Grubel; Editing by Ron Popeski)

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A woman walks past a grocery store in Loughborough, central England, January 10, 2013.

LONDON | Thu Jan 10, 2013 1:04pm EST

LONDON (Reuters) - Up to half of all the food produced worldwide ends up going to waste due to poor harvesting, storage and transport methods as well as irresponsible retailer and consumer behavior, a report said on Thursday.

The world produces about four billion metric tons of food a year but 1.2 to 2 billion metric tons is not eaten, the study by the London-based Institution of Mechanical Engineers said.

"This level of wastage is a tragedy that cannot continue if we are to succeed in the challenge of sustainably meeting our future food demands," said.

In developed countries, like Britain, efficient farming methods, transport and storage mean that most of the wastage occurs through retail and customer behavior.

Retailers produce 1.6 million metric tons of food waste a year because they reject crops of edible fruit and vegetables because they do not meet exacting size and appearance criteria, the report by the engineering society said.

"Thirty percent of what is harvested from the field never actually reaches the marketplace (primarily the supermarket) due to trimming, quality selection and failure to conform to purely cosmetic criteria," it said.

Of the food which does reach supermarket shelves, 30-50 percent of what is bought in developed countries is thrown away by customers, often due to poor understanding of "best before" and "use by" dates.

A "use by" date is when there is a health risk associated with using food after that date. A "best before" date is more about quality - when it expires it does not necessarily mean food is harmful but it may lose some flavor and texture.

However, many consumers do not know the difference between the labels and bin food after "best before" dates.

Promotional offers and bulk discounts also encourage shoppers to buy large quantities in excess of their needs.

RISING POPULATION

In Britain, about 10.2 billion pounds' ($16.3 billion) worth of food is thrown away from homes every year, with one billion pounds' worth being perfectly edible, the report found.

By contrast, in less developed countries, such as in sub-Saharan Africa or South East Asia, wastage mostly happens due to inefficient harvesting and poor handling and storage.

In South-East Asian countries, for example, losses of rice range from 37 to 80 percent of their entire production, totaling about 180 million metric tons per year, the report said.

The United Nations predicts global population will peak at around 9.5 billion people by 2075, meaning there will be an additional 2.5 billion people to feed.

The rising population, together with improved nutrition and shifting diets will put pressure for increases in global food supply over the coming decades.

Rising food and commodity prices will drive the need to reduce waste, making the practice of discarding edible fruit and vegetables on cosmetic grounds less economically viable.

However, governments should not wait for food pricing to trigger action on this wasteful practice, but produce policies that change consumer behavior and dissuade retailers from operating in this way, the study said.

Rapidly developing countries like China and Brazil have developed infrastructure to transport crops, gain access to export markets and improve storage facilities but they need to avoid the mistakes made by developed nations and make sure they are efficient and well-maintained.

Poorer countries require significant investment to improve their infrastructure, the report said. For example, Ethiopia is considering developing a national network of grain storage facilities which is expected to cost at least $1 billion.

"This scale of investment will be required for multiple commodities and in numerous countries, and co-ordinated efforts are going to be essential," the report said. ($1 = 0.6247 British pounds)

(Reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by Pravin Char)

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Apple's iPhone 5 is seen on display at the Apple store in Manhasset, New York September 21, 2012.

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Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney answers a question during the second U.S. presidential debate in Hempstead, New York, October 16, 2012.

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LONDON | Fri Dec 14, 2012 11:20am EST

LONDON (Reuters) - International climate scientists are more certain than ever that humans are responsible for global warming, rising sea levels and extreme weather events, according to a leaked draft report by an influential panel of experts.

The early draft, which is still subject to change before a final version is released in late 2013, showed that a rise in global average temperatures since pre-industrial times was set to exceed 2 degrees Celsius by 2100, and may reach 4.8 Celsius.

"It is extremely likely that human activities have caused more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperatures since the 1950s," the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) draft report said.

"Extremely likely" in the IPCC's language means a level of certainty of at least 95 percent. The next level is "virtually certain", or 99 percent, the greatest possible certainty for the scientists.

The IPCC's previous report, in 2007, said it was at least 90 percent certain that human activities, led by burning fossil fuels, were the cause of rising temperatures.

The draft was shown on a climate change skeptic blog.

The IPCC said the unauthorized, premature posting of the draft may lead to confusion because the report was still work in progress and was likely to change before it is released.

A United Nations conference last week aimed at curbing emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warning yielded no progress and three countries - Canada, Russia and Japan - have abandoned the Kyoto Protocol limiting the emissions.

The United States never ratified it in the first place, and it excludes developing countries where emissions are growing most quickly.

Countries agreed to extend Kyoto to 2020, but only those covering less than 15 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions signed up. Developing nations said they would push next year for a radical U.N. mechanism to compensate them for the impact of climate change.

The IPCC said it had "high confidence" that human activity had caused large-scale changes in oceans, in ice sheets or mountain glaciers, and in sea levels in the second half of the twentieth century, according to the draft.

It said some extreme weather events had also changed due to human influences.

THREAT TO CITIES

The draft's scenarios forecast a rise in temperatures of between 0.2 and 4.8 Celsius this century - a narrower band than in 2007. But in almost all of the scenarios, the rise would exceed 2 degrees Celsius.

Governments pledged in 2010 to try to stop global temperatures rising by more than 2 degrees, a threshold seen by scientists as the maximum to avoid more extreme weather, droughts, floods, and other climate change impacts.

Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere were the highest in 800,000 years, according to the draft report.

The draft also said that sea levels were likely to rise by between 29 and 82 centimeters by the end of the century - compared to 18-59 centimeters projected in the 2007 report.

Rising sea levels are a threat to people living in low-lying areas, from Bangladesh to the cities of New York, London and Buenos Aires. They open up the risk of storm surges, coastal erosion and, in the worst case scenario, the complete swamping of large areas of land.

The IPCC carries weight because it brings together all scientific research on climate change and informs policymakers.

Many countries want to study the final IPCC report before signing up to a new global pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The draft included a possible future acceleration of ice loss from Antarctica and Greenland, which was omitted in 2007. It stopped short of including some research carried out since 2007 that suggested seas may rise by up to 2 meters by 2100.

(Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

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NEW YORK | Mon Oct 8, 2012 3:41pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. hedge funds and other clients of Wall Street investment firms raised their level of borrowed money in August, a sign they may be more confident in the markets, data published Monday showed.

Leverage rose to $286.6 billion last month, according to New York Stock Exchange margin debt data, up 5.4 percent since August last year. It is the first time in nine months that margin debt has increased on a year-over-year basis, analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch showed in their Hedge Fund Monitor report.

Leverage levels "can be used as a sentiment indicator" so the increase could mean investors have regained some confidence in the market, the report said.

While the level of leverage recorded in August is a 3.2 percent rise on July levels, it still lags the amount of borrowed cash that investors were using to make bets in the stock market before Lehman Brothers collapsed, according to NYSE data.

Hedge funds have gained about 5 percent this year through September, according to hedge fund tracking firms, but still trail the broader stock market. The S&P 500 index rose more than 16 percent through September.

August's rise in leverage could be an indication that hedge funds and large investors, reassured by rallying stock markets, are willing to use more borrowed money try and amplify their returns, though another month of data would be needed to confirm this, Bank of America analyst Mary Ann Bartels said in an email.

Before the financial crisis, hedge funds, particularly those focused on bets in credit markets, used leverage in different forms boost returns, such as increasing exposure to inherently levered products like derivatives, or by using margin or borrowed money from Wall Street.

In 2007, NYSE margin debt rose above $317 billion and stayed there for the remainder of the year, hitting a peak of more than $381 billion that July.

Investors reduced their leverage in 2009 and 2010 to levels as low as $173 billion and then began to borrow more money again through July of 2011. Spooked by whipsawing markets last summer, which devastated the portfolios of some of the country's savviest investors, money managers took off leverage again in the second half of the year.

Through August, NYSE margin debt is down about 4 percent from its 2012 peak of $298.5 billion, recorded in April. Beginning in May risk-averse investors reduced leverage, pulling back from global financial markets riled by fears that Greece would exit the deeply troubled euro zone.

Margin debt remains down roughly 10.6 percent from its post-2008 peak of $320.7 billion, which it reached in April last year.

NYSE member organizations are required to report monthly the total amount of money borrowed by customers to purchase securities.

While hedge funds have yet to ratchet up to pre-crisis levels, or even to the highs of 2011, Bank of America analysts said the fact that investors increased leverage last month is a positive sign.

Margin debt is one way to measure how much risk hedge funds and other large investors are taking by using borrowed cash, but it fails to address or measure the exposure those firms have to 'embedded' or 'hidden' leverage, which they can obtain by investing in structured products like collateralized loan obligations or asset-backed-securities, which are more highly levered in themselves. Some hedge funds have been eyeing those riskier, more exotic assets in their hunt for yield.

Data published Friday by BarclayHedge and TrimTabs showed that hedge fund managers "are strongly inclined to maintain current levels of leverage," and "plans to lever up fell slightly in September while plans to reduce leverage climbed by a small margin."

(Reporting By Katya Wachtel)

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Ronnie Wood of the The Rolling Stones walks away after posing at the opening of the exhibition ''Rolling Stones: 50'' at Somerset House in London July 12, 2012.

LONDON | Wed Sep 26, 2012 2:17pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood and his ex-wife Jo Wood disagreed on Wednesday over the ownership of some items due to be sold off in an art and memorabilia auction next month as well as over how the sale was billed.

Both issued statements claiming ownership of items reported to be included in an auction to be held at Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills on October 27 that was described as a "joint sale". The two separated in 2008 and finalised their divorce in 2011.

"Ronnie was asked by Jo some time ago if he wished to add some items to an auction and he said he did not want to participate," an emailed statement from his spokesman said. "He is therefore shocked and disappointed that this auction is being misrepresented as a joint sale. This is not the case."

A spokeswoman for Jo Wood said the former model was given the items as part of the divorce settlement.

"This is Jo's auction, it includes all the items left to her following the divorce," a statement read out to Reuters over the telephone said. "She's had everything in storage for three years and can't keep it any longer. Ronnie has been kept in the loop of the sale."

Ronnie said he was "staggered" that some of the auction items were his personal belongings, which he said did not pass to Jo as part of the divorce proceedings.

"The Tour Clothes being offered belong to the Rolling Stones and are not hers to sell," the statement said.

"Ronnie feels saddened that Jo has taken this course of action and wants the public to know he has NOT teamed up with Jo on this outrageous sale."

Auctioneer Darren Julien, the owner of Julien's Auctions, has pegged the collection's initial value at $300,000 to $500,000 and said the sale would go ahead.

"It is their (Ronnie and Jo's) collection and it is part of their divorce settlement," Julien told Reuters in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

"What we are doing is selling items that have shared ownership. These are items that are clearly owned by both Jo and Ronnie," he added.

DIVORCE

The rocker, 65, and Jo, 57, separated after his widely reported relationship with a young cocktail waitress named Ekaterina Ivanova. Their divorce was finalised in February 2011.

The sale takes place ahead of the release next February of Jo Wood's memoirs that promise to reveal her tales of life as the wife of a Rolling Stone.

Part of the proceeds will go to MusiCares, the Grammys charity that offers help to people in the music industry, the auction company said in a statement.

The collection features memorabilia spanning four decades from the guitarist's work with the Rolling Stones and his earlier association with the band Faces, as well as his solo career.

Items include tour clothing, backstage passes and ephemera from various Rolling Stones tours, such as worn leather jackets and custom painted Fender Stratocasters, one depicting a Rolling Stones recording session, valued at $4,000 to $8,000, Julien's said in a statement.

Portraits of Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, and Bob Dylan, valued at $800 to $1,200 each, are also among the artwork offered by Ronnie Wood, a celebrated visual artist and painter, it said.

Wood has recently been focusing on his visual art career and in April opened a New York City art show entitled, "Faces, Time and Places", featuring portraits of Mick Jagger, Richards, Charlie Watts and other celebrities.

But he is still best known for his music and in April was inducted for a second time into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with other members of Faces, including Rod Stewart and Kenney Jones.

The Rolling Stones, which Wood joined in 1975 after Mick Taylor left the band, were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1989 and this year are celebrating their 50th anniversary.

Also up for sale at the auction are antiques, furniture and art from the Surrey, England countryside estate once shared by the couple, including an Erard harp, pegged at $4,000 to $5,000, and a bronze jockey statue by Dame Elisabeth Frink valued at $65,000 to $85,000, Julien's said on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Paul Casciato; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

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n">Aug 10 (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp has considered buying Research In Motion's enterprise division, Bloomberg reported On Friday, citing two unnamed sources.

IBM made an informal approach for the enterprise business that operates the servers used for supporting BlackBerry email and messaging services, one of the sources said, according to Bloomberg. The report said no talks were currently underway.

Under the leadership of new chief executive, Thorsten Heins, RIM has hired bankers for a strategic review that could include a potential sale and partnerships for its technology.

The Bloomberg report said the BlackBerry maker has not yet received any offers for its phone business or for the whole company.

RIM virtually invented mobile email with its first BlackBerry devices more than a decade ago, but its market share has evaporated as consumers have flocked to Apple Inc's iPhone and devices based on Google Inc's Android system. RIM has lost over 70 percent in market capitalization in the last year alone.

RIM officials declined to comment to Reuters while IBM officials were not immediately available.

On Thursday, South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co said it has not considered acquiring RIM or licensing the embattled BlackBerry phone maker's new mobile operating system, despite an earlier report from an influential analyst floating the idea.

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