4G mobile phone network comes to Scandinavia

At launch the network is only available on laptops

Swedish and Norwegian mobile users could be among the first to use a fourth-generation (4G) mobile network.

Mobile phone firm TeliaSonera has completed work on two 4G networks in Oslo and Stockholm.

The company said that the first customers will be able to start using the networks in early 2010.

Despite the launch of the network, no handsets can yet use 4G. Initially customers will connect via a dongle and a laptop.

Fourth-generation, 4G, networks are based around the Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology and downlink data speeds can hit 100 megabits per second - about ten times quicker than the fastest 3G networks.

The technology has been designed to overlay existing 3G networks and most operators have committed to upgrading to the faster system.

TeliaSonera said it was recruiting customers to pilot the network during the first quarter of 2010.

It has released no information about the cost of connecting to the high-speed network. The dongles for connecting to the LTE network are made by Samsung.

Phone equipment maker Ericsson has put together the network in Stockholm, Sweden and Chinese firm Huawei is behind the one in Oslo, Norway. Both networks cover the central regions of both cities.

TeliaSonera said it expected the boost in speed to drive many novel applications including gaming on the move and much greater viewing of video on laptops.

Handsets that can use LTE are expected in mid-late 2010.

Obama tells US banks to lend more and not oppose reform

President Obama warned banks not to stand in the way of regulatory reform US President Barack Obama has told bankers to increase loans to small and medium-size businesses. The president was speaking after a meeting - which he described as "candid" - with executives of some of America's top banks. President Obama said US banks had received extraordinary assistance and demanded they show extraordinary commitment to rebuild the US economy. He also warned their lobbyists not to block moves for regulatory reform. Monday's meeting with executives from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup, among others, came a day after the president said he had not run for office to help out "a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street". I urged these institutions here today to go back and take a third and fourth look about how they are operating Barack Obama In comments to reporters at the White House after Monday's talks, Mr Obama said: "America's banks received extraordinary assistance from American taxpayers to rebuild their industry, and now that they're back on their feet, we expect an extraordinary commitment from them to help rebuild our economy." He urged bankers to "explore every responsible way" to boost lending and to "take a third and fourth look" at loan applications from small and medium-sized businesses. He said he was "getting too many letters" from creditworthy small businesses saying banks they have had long-term relationships are reluctant to give them loans. Microscope Speaking after the meeting, US Bancorp chief executive Richard Davis said he and his colleagues realised they were "under the microscope" to show they were doing a better job of listening to customers. Many US citizens are angry the banking industry was granted a $700bn (£430bn) bail-out. The Obama administration has said the rescue was needed to stem the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s and head off a potentially greater calamity in the broader economy. The meeting came as Citigroup announced it was ready to pay back an emergency loan of $20bn to the US government earlier than expected. Wells Fargo, another leading bank, said it too had struck a deal to repay $25bn in government aid it received last year. The BBC's Adam Brookes in Washington says this may be a sign of the banking sector's recovery - but also a sign of how the banks want to shed government influence over their affairs. Mr Obama also criticised lobbyists for trying to stall his administration's reform of the financial services sector. He warned if they were "willing to fight common-sense consumer protection, that's a fight I'm willing to have". Last week the US House of Representatives approved its version of the financial regulatory reform legislation. But before the bill can become law, it will also need approval from the Senate. It includes a plan to give regulators the power to dismantle businesses that threaten the economy in a way that ensures shareholders and unsecured creditors, not taxpayers, bear the losses

The president of the UN climate summit has urged delegates to "get to work" after protests from developing nations forced a suspension of several hour

The G77-China bloc is unhappy about moves made by the Danish hosts

The president of the UN climate summit has urged delegates to "get to work" after protests from developing nations forced a suspension of several hours.

Talks resumed late on Monday after the president, Danish minister Connie Hedegaard, addressed some of the developing countries' concerns.

Their key demand - separate talks on the Kyoto Protocol - was met.

Some delegates talked forlornly of the vast amount of negotiating left to be done before the summit concludes.

Earlier, the G77-China bloc, speaking for developing countries, said the Danish hosts had violated democratic process.

THE WEEK AHEAD Tues 15 Dec - Prince Charles delivers a speech on the dangers of deforestation; UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown arrives Weds 16 Dec - Ministerial teams take over negotiations as the high level segment begins Fri 18 Dec - More than 100 world leaders, including Barack Obama, attend closing session

But Ms Hedegaard, who will take up the new post of EU climate commissioner after this meeting, said she had told developing countries repeatedly that the Kyoto Protocol was not being sidelined.

"They have been assured all the way," she told BBC News.

"Yesterday I met with 48 delegations, the main part of those coming from G77 countries.

"I consulted with them on the way forward today, and I heard no objections. That's why it's a bit surprising that we had to spend almost one day on these procedural issues."

The G77-China bloc negotiates on behalf of 130 countries - ranging from wealthy nations such as Saudi Arabia, to some of the poorest states - in the UN climate negotiations.

Newspaper charges for mobile app

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Promotional video of the Guardian's paid-for iPhone application

The UK's Guardian newspaper has launched a paid-for news app, charging users a one-off fee of £2.39.

The application, which allows readers to access content via an iPhone, comes as newspapers around the globe grapple with how they offer digital content

Despite charging for the app, the Guardian's website and mobile platform will remain free.

The app will offer news, comment, features, audio and photos but currently no video.

Writing in his blog about the application, The Guardian's mobile product manager Jonathon Moore answered criticism of the decision to charge for it.

"At an early stage we decided to set the bar high, which hopefully means the app has been planned, designed, tested and developed to offer a truly engaging experience," he said.

"The investment involved in this requires us to ask a small fee in return," he said.

Martin Garner, director of mobile internet at research firm CCS Insight sees the app as an "experiment".

"The app provides a better user experience but there are still a lot of substitutes online and via other mobile platforms," he said.

"We will probably see a lot of people move to a more charged-for model over the next few years but whether users will pay or not remains to be seen," he said.

The debate about how newspapers manage their digital content is a hot topic at the moment.

Earlier this month, Google agreed to close the backdoor on users entering subscription-based websites via its search pages by limiting the number of free clicks they could make.

British Airways cabin crew vote for Christmas strike

A strike would be the first by BA cabin crew since 1997

British Airways cabin crew have voted in favour of a strike over job cuts and changes to staff contracts.

The strikes are set to begin on 22 December and run until 2 January, and are expected to cause significant disruption over the Christmas period.

Cabin crew voted overwhelmingly in favour of the strike action.

They follow a long dispute between the unions and BA, which is intent on cutting costs in order to survive a collapse in passenger numbers.

Announcing the outcome of the vote, Len McCluskey, assistant general secretary of Unite, said they took the decision to strike with "a heavy heart".

He stressed that the union was still keen to avoid the strikes though further negotiation with British Airways.

The British Airlines Stewards and Stewardesses Association, a section of Unite, echoed those sentiments in a statement.

"We are deeply saddened to have reached the point where we must take industrial action to get our voices heard, but feel that we have been left with no other choice," it said.

"We do not want to cause inconvenience, so even at this late stage we offer an opportunity for disruption not to occur."

Cuba and Venezuela criticise US at Alba trade summit

Leaders from the nine member Alba bloc are at the conference

Cuba's President Raul Castro and Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez have criticised the US during a key alternative trade summit in Havana.

Mr Castro accused the US of treating Latin America as its "backyard" and denounced a deal giving US armed forces access to Colombian military bases.

Meanwhile Mr Chavez said US criticism about Latin America's relationship with Iran was an "imperial offensive".

Both were speaking at the opening of the left-wing Alba summit in Havana.

A regional political and economic bloc, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of America (Alba), was founded five years ago as a radical alternative to America's free trade policies in the region.

The BBC's correspondent in Havana Michael Voss says Mr Castro's harsh rhetoric was reminiscent of the Cold War.

It could be a signal that ties between Cuba and the US might be taking a turn for the worse.

Raul Castro and Hugo Chavez both criticised the US

Mr Castro said: "On the one side, there's an exploitative model of dependence subordinated to the interests of the empire, on the other, the advance of revolutionary and progressive forces, representing the disposed."

Mr Castro said President Obama had carried out a hegemonic offensive with the Colombia deal.

He also criticised Washington for presiding over what he described as "an electoral farce" in Honduras.

He said the country's people "have been deprived of their constitutional rights and there has been imposed, with the support of the US administration and a coup-led government (in Honduras), an electoral farce".

Shortly afterwards Mr Chavez openly rejected a warning made by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday that Latin American countries needed to "think twice" about fostering a relationship with Iran.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month visited Brazil, Venezuela and Bolivia which voiced support for Iran's right to a nuclear programme.

But the US is concerned about what the consequences of the stepped up diplomatic efforts could mean.

'Acidifying oceans' threaten food supply, UK warns

Acidification of the oceans affects marine life

Acidification of the oceans is a major threat to marine life and humanity's food supply, Hilary Benn is to warn as the UN climate summit resumes.

The UK environment secretary will say that acidification provides a "powerful incentive" to cut carbon emissions.

Ocean chemistry is changing because water absorbs extra CO2 from the air.

Some believe this could be as big an impact of rising CO2 levels as climatic change, though it is rarely discussed within the UN climate convention.

The UN summit in Copenhagen, which started a week ago, is scheduled to conclude on Friday, when more than 100 world leaders will attend in an effort to agree a new global treaty on climate change.

'Really important'

OCEAN ACIDIFICATION Up to 50% of the CO2 released by burning fossil fuels over the past 200 years has been absorbed by the world's oceans This has lowered the pH value of seawater - the measure of acidity and alkalinity - by 0.1 The vast majority of liquids lie between pH 0 (very acidic) and pH 14 (very alkaline); 7 is neutral Seawater is mildly alkaline with a "natural" pH of about 8.2 The IPCC forecasts that ocean pH will fall by "between 0.14 and 0.35 units over the 21st Century, adding to the present fall of 0.1 units since pre-industrial times" Natural lab shows sea's acid path What is ocean acidification? 'Coral lab' offers acidity insight

The science has come to prominence only within the last five or six years, and most of the details were not available when the convention was signed in 1992.

"We know that the increasing concentration of CO2 [in the air] is making the oceans more acidic," Mr Benn told BBC News.

"It affects marine life, it affects coral, and that in turn could affect the amount of fish in the sea - and a billion people in the world depend on fish for their principal source of protein.

"It doesn't get as much attention as the other problems; it is really important."

In September, the UN-backed study into The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (Teeb) concluded that the widely-endorsed target of trying to stabilise atmospheric concentrations of CO2 or their equivalent to around 450 parts per million (ppm) would prove lethal to much of the world's coral.

UN Climate Delegates Meet Informally on Conference Day Off

UN Climate Delegates Meet Informally on Conference Day Off

Delegates to the 12-day UN climate conference in Copenhagen took a day off Sunday, although several environment ministers met for informal talks on greenhouse emissions cuts and financing to assist poor nations to deal with climate change.

VOA News 13 December 2009

Photo: AP

Danish riot police guards detained demonstrators lined up on a street in Copenhagen Saturday 12 Dec. 2009

pledges on emissions cuts so far are short of the minimum proposed in a draft agreement, stoking fears that the outcome of the conference will be a disappointment.

The early draft of the treaty calls for countries to reduce their emissions by 50 to 95 percent by 2050, with rich countries taking the lead. But so far, industrialized nations have agreed to far less ambitious targets.

The draft treaty circulated Friday would require industrialized countries to cut emissions to below-1990 levels. Developing nations would be expected to keep their emissions from rising much further.

On Saturday, tens of thousands of activists marched through the Danish capital and in cities around the world to demand strong international commitments on climate change.

An estimated crowd of 30,000 people carried banners and shouted slogans, as they walked to the heavily-guarded conference center, where world powers are struggling to hammer out a deal to combat global warming.

The march was mostly peaceful but riot police moved in when a group of youths threw bottles and smashed windows. Police detained 968 people.

Similar protests were also held in Australia, China, Taiwan, the Philippines and other countries.

More than 100 heads of state and government are due to attend the final days of the conference, which ends Friday.

Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP .

US House of Representatives backs financial reform bill

President Obama welcomed the passing of the bill

The US House of Representatives has approved the most sweeping changes to the country's financial sector since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The 223 to 202 vote is a victory for President Obama who has made financial reform one of his main goals.

The bill aims to create a new agency to monitor consumer banking transactions and give the government powers to break up companies that threaten the economy.

The US Senate will have to pass the bill before the president can sign it.

The legislation would give regulators the power to dismantle the companies in a way which ensures shareholders and unsecured creditors, not taxpayers, bear the losses.

It also hopes to strengthen the powers of the Securities and Exchange Commission to detect irregularities that could provide an early warning of fraudulent investment schemes.

Plans to regulate the vast $600 trillion market in products called derivatives are also included.

The Federal Reserve would be given powers to oversee large firms at risk of collapse.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of the US Congress, would also be given more power over the Federal Reserve.

President Obama welcomed the outcome of the vote, calling it "another important step closer to necessary, comprehensive financial reform that will create a more stable financial system."

He called on the Senate to pass the legislation as quickly as possible.

The president has blamed Wall Street and government failures for the financial crisis.

He said reforms should promote sound investment, encourage competition and innovation and prevent a crisis from recurring.

All of the chamber's Republicans along with 27 Democrats voted against the bill.