Warsaw  - The Polish coal mine Konin said on Monday it will take Greenpeace to court, citing some 350,000 zloty (121,000 dollars) in losses after protesters recently blocked production for two hours.

More than 20 Greenpeace activists entered the mine last week, using ropes to descend down to the mine from a nearby escarpment. Nineteen were charged with entering the property without the owner's permission, and face up to a year in jail.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 30  -- The United Nations said Sunday the tribunal that will try those accused of the assassination of a former prime minister of Lebanon will convene in March 2009.

Rafiq Hariri was killed in a Beirut car-bombing in 2005 that U. N. investigators contend had ties to Syrian intelligence agencies.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a written statement that the March 1, 2009, start date for the tribunal was agreed upon Sunday when he and the current Lebanese prime minister, Fouad Siniora, met at a U. N. conference in Qatar.

Poznan, Poland  - A UN climate conference opens Monday with the world economic crisis casting a dark shadow over plans for a new deal to combat global warming within a year.

As negotiators from some 190 countries gathered in Poznan, Poland, talks were further complicated by a dispute within the European Union over how to distribute fresh cuts in emissions that scientists say are warming Earth.

The two-week conference is meant to put rich and poorer countries on track for an agreement that leaders can approve in December 2009 in Denmark, replacing the Kyoto Protocol, which covered only developed nations and expires in 2012.

Poznan, Poland  - Negotiators from nearly 200 countries are seeking a new push to combat global warming at a UN climate change conference due to start Monday, overshadowed by the world's economic downturn and rising greenhouse-gas emissions in rich and emerging nations.

The two-week UN climate conference in Poznan, Poland, is meant to put governments on track for a new global deal to save the climate that leaders can approve in Denmark in a year's time.

"The need for real progress on tackling climate change has never been more urgent," said Yvo de Boer, the UN's top climate official. "The effects of climate change that science has identified are already weighing upon those most vulnerable."

Doha - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon on Saturday urged leading industrialized nations to not let efforts to control terrorism allow them to neglect the war on poverty.

Ban told delegates to the United Nations' International Conference on Financing for Development that the battle against poverty is just as important as the battle on terror. The conference is underway in Doha and set to conclude Tuesday.

He said he regretted that many world leaders had opted out of the convention, citing the need to focus on the effects of the financial crisis back home.

New York  - The United Nations programme on HIV and AIDS said Friday that governments and healthcare services should study new patterns of HIV infections in order to make preventive programmes more effective.

UNAIDS said that as the pattern of an epidemic can change over time, analyses of its spread should be undertaken at regular intervals.

"Not only will this approach help prevent the next 1,000 infections in each community, but it will also make money for AIDS work more effective and help put forward a long-term and sustainable AIDS response," said UNAIDS director Peter Piot.

The realignment of HIV prevention programmes would be based on understanding why new infections occurred, he said.