Prague  - Czech President Vaclav Klaus, one of the most prominent climate change doubters, is about to get a new platform: the European Union presidency.

Klaus has called man-made global warming a myth and questioned sanity of Al Gore, the former US vice president who received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for turning a spotlight on climate change.

Most recently, Klaus expressed hopes the EU would give up its ambitious plan to spearhead the global struggle against climate change in the face of the global financial crisis.

From his vantage point in Prague's Hradcany castle, Klaus could be involved in negotiating a new set of EU climate laws while the Czech Republic chairs the EU in the first half of 2009.

Goldman Sachs expressed concerns over the slowdown in Indian reality sector following global slowdown. It has stressed the need to cut reality prices by 30% to increase demand. However, it can affect the annual economic growth rate but the price reduction would increase affordability of people.

Copenhagen  - The challenge of saving the world from global warming has not fallen to a revolutionary or a visionary, but a down-to-earth conservative politician and mother of two.

Connie Hedegaard, Denmark's climate and energy minister, will host next year's crucial UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, meant to find a successor to the Kyoto protocol on global emission levels.

In this exclusive interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, the 48-year-old former journalist explains how to win over the sceptics and singles out a global price on carbon and a cap-and-trade system as the most efficient way of delivering greenhouse gas cuts.

dpa: Ms Hedegaard, why do we need a deal in Copenhagen?

Santiago  - Extreme rainfall and spreading drought are signalling rapid climate change in Latin America, prompting concern that wrenching changes like migration will worsen social equality.

A greater concentration of land ownership, changes in water supplies and an expansion of deserts are the likely consequences as temperatures rise, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says.

Vienna  - When UN talks on a new climate-saving pact resume in Poland next week, the global economic crisis will loom large.

Resistance to the cost of fighting global warming has grown, notably in Europe, which has traditionally set the pace in international efforts to cut fossil fuel use.

Now, countries like Italy and Poland say ambitious EU plans are too expensive.

London, Nov 26: Parents of Hanna Foster, a 17-year-old girl who was raped and murdered by a driver of India origin in 2003, have said that the convict, Maninder Pal Singh Kohli (41), should have been sentenced to life imprisonment.

The Winchester Crown Court had yesterday awarded a 24-year jail sentence to Kohli after finding him guilty of rape and murder.