Kyoto Treaty Ratified By Russia's Parliament
MOSCOW -- The Kyoto Protocol on global warming overcame its final legislative hurdle in Russia when the upper house of parliament ratified the pact Wednesday and sent it to President Vladimir Putin for his signature, setting the stage for the agreement to come into force next year.
The Kremlin has given no indication of when Putin will sign the pact, which seeks to slow global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Russia's adoption is the final step needed among major industrial countries for the pact to take effect. It will apply only to nations that ratify it. The United States, which in 1990 accounted for 36 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, has rejected the treaty, saying it would harm the U.S. economy and favors developing nations such as China and India that are big polluters.
Putin vowed in May to speed up ratification in return for the European Union's support of Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization.
EUROPE
• DUBLIN -- The city of Cork and several towns were severely flooded as the strongest Atlantic storm this year arrived with heavy rain and gusts of more than 70 mph. No deaths or injuries were reported.
The River Lee burst its banks and flooded the main roads in Ireland's second-largest city with up to 9 1/2 feet of water. Records indicated it was the worst such flood since 1962.
The surging tide caught shop workers and commuters by surprise. Beer kegs bobbed from pub cellars as shop owners scrambled in vain to erect barriers.
• BUDAPEST -- Hungary banned the sale of paprika, its signature spice, and told people not to use whatever supplies they had at home after more than a pinch of moldy toxin was found in products sold by three companies.
The ban will last until tests determine how much paprika has been affected by aflatoxin, which is produced by mold, Health Minister Jeno Racz said.
Aflatoxin could be dangerous to people if they consume more than a pound of paprika a week, Racz said. The average Hungarian consumes about that much in a year.
THE AMERICAS
• PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Police raided a building in a slum of Haiti's capital and killed at least 10 people, most of them students, a human rights lawyer said. The raid came on the second day of an ineffective strike called by loyalists who want the return of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
The lawyer, Judy Delacruz, said she saw trails of blood where neighbors told her police had dragged the bodies of those killed along an alley in the Fort National neighborhood of Port-au-Prince.
