Paris - French President Nicolas Sarkozy and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have agreed that the United Nations will host an international summit on reforming the global financial system in December, the French daily Le Figaro reported Saturday on its website.

It remains unclear who is to participate at the meeting, which Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown have said should be "a new Bretton Woods."

New York, Oct. 18 : United Nations climate chief Yvo de Boer has said that the present meltdown on Wall Street should be seen as an opportunity to create and enforce policy which stimulates private competition to fund clean industry.

Talking to reporters here, de Boer said the chance to grow a greener world economy will come this December in Poznan, Poland, where governments will begin to formulate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol to combat global warming.

The deadline for a final agreement is December 2009.

De Boer pointed out that global demand for energy is expected to surge by 50 per cent by 2030, so investment in clean technologies must start now.

Nairobi/Abuja - The Nigerian government decided in a special session late Friday to introduce drastic cuts to the national budget following a series of rebel attacks in the country.

Finance Minister Shamsuddeen Usman did not give any immediate details of the cuts, according to media reports on Saturday.

Rebels in the resource-rich Niger Delta have been attacking the facilities of oil companies and pipelines for months.

Montreal - Canada and the European Union are committed to forging a comprehensive economic partnership, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Friday.

The unfolding global financial crisis makes liberalizing trade between Canada and the EU even more crucial, Harper said after a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso at the annual Canada-EU Summit in Quebec City.

Montreal - The ongoing global financial crisis tops the agenda of talks between Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and European Union leaders, as they meet Friday to launch a process that might eventually lead to an "economic partnership" between Canada and the EU.

The meeting in Quebec City between Harper, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, was initially supposed to focus on a possible free trade deal between Canada and the EU.

Vienna - After years of roaring growth, eastern Europe's economies look increasingly fragile as the global financial crisis spreads.

European Central Bank action Thursday to ease a credit crunch in Hungary was a warning that the area from the Baltics to Bulgaria is ripe for spillover. Now analysts are speculating which country might be next to come under attack.