A pilot study, to be conducted next week, will expose a small area of skin on volunteers’ arms to cellphone radiation for the duration of a long phone call, or for one hour, research professor Dariusz Leszczynski said on Friday.

Researchers will then take a skin sample to study and compare with one taken before the radiation exposure, he told Reuters.

Cell samples used in previous laboratory tests by the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority were all from women, and to keep consistency in the data, 10 female volunteers will be used in the new study — all of them employees at the watchdog.

In previous tests, Leszczynski’s group found evidence of mobile phone radiation causing cell-level changes such as shrinkage, but he said it was still impossible to say if that had significant health effects.

"Cells function in a different way when they are in the body than in laboratory surroundings. Now we want to confirm whether radiation causes cell level changes in humans as well," he said.

The results of the study are due by the end of the year, and Leszczynski’s team hopes to show if radiation has any impact on the body’s natural barrier that prevents toxins and other dangerous proteins that might be in the bloodstream from reaching brain cells.

Some researchers suspect brain cancer has become more common as a result of cellphone use, but there is no clear evi?ence to support that, Leszczynski said.

"If harmful proteins get through to the brain, it could have an indirect link with cancer, but this is pure speculation," he added.

Finland, home to top global mobile maker Nokia, has one of the most mature telecom markets in the world, with almost everyone having a mobile handset.

In many cases road and rail building, dam construction and irrigation schemes partly or totally financed by the EU’s executive Commission contradict conservation programmes promoted by?the 25-nation Union itself, a new WWF report asserted.

"Europe has to take responsibility for its own species, but at present the European Union is using its funds both to support biodiversity and undermine it," said Stefanie Lang of the WWF European Policy Office in Brussels.

According to the report, entitled "Conflicting EU Funds", a new highway from Toledo to Cordoba across central- southern Spain will seriously damage a prime lynx area that is protected under the Union’s own Natura 2000 network.

The report said only about 100 of the lynx — the world’s most endangered cat species — survive, including only 25 breeding females, out of a population that totalled 600 as late as 1995.

Roads, dams, rail lines and other projects are not only destroying the animal’s habitat but also creating barriers between different groups and preventing interbreeding, essential for maintaining healthy populations.

A similar picture can be seen in north-eastern Poland, according to the WWF, where a Helsinki-Warsaw road, the Via Baltica, linking Finland to south and western Europe is slicing through migration corridors for lynx and wolves.

In Greece, while the EU’s environmental directorate is supporting a project protecting brown bears, its regional development counterpart is funding the Egnatia highway through the Pindos mountains where many bears live, the report said.

It also cited EU funds used in Portugal for agricultural subsidies, which had led to the mismanagement and decline of cork oak forests, and cash from Brussels used to overfish Bluefin Tuna in the Mediterranean.

The WWF, formerly known as the World Wide Fund for Nature but now using only its initials, called on the EU to withdraw funds for member countries’ infrastructure projects that conflict with its own nature protection rules.

"If we are to preserve the remaining national heritage of Europe, which is essential for long-term economic prosperity, the EU cannot afford to continue funding the destruction of habitats," said Gerald Dick of the WWF Global Species Programme.

"We will analyse the conclusions (of inspectors) … and may start lifting restrictions from Apr. 1," Sergei Dankvert told Reuters.

"This does not mean that the ban from all firms will definitely be lifted. Concrete decisions will be taken on concrete firms," he added.

Russia introduced the ban on fresh Norwegian salmon imports on Jan.1, saying the fish contained unacceptably high levels of toxic metals. Moscow also said Norway’s monitoring standards were inadequate.

Norway’s authorities have said various national checks had shown contents of cadmium and lead in fish were far below levels permitted by the European Union.

Last month Russia’s Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev said Moscow and Oslo were close to a deal to lift the ban.

Dankvert said Norway had agreed to accept Russian inspectors to check the Norwegian system of food safety monitoring, of fish farms, fishing fleet and fish processing facilities in the middle of March.

He said that Russia was also examining with the European Union the possibility of creating an electronic system of monitoring sales of fish caught by Russian fishermen in the Norwegian economic zone to prevent illegal fishing.

The salmon ban followed an incident in October when the captain of a Russian trawler fled to Russian waters taking two Norwegian coastguard inspectors, who had boarded it on suspicion of illegal fishing.

The incident off the Svalbard islands north of the Arctic circle on Oct. 15 sparked a diplomatic row between Moscow and Oslo over the Arctic fishing rights — an issue of bitter disputes for decades.

Both Moscow and Oslo have denied any relationship between the incident and the salmon ban.

The four groups are led by Energias de Portugal (EDP), local energy company Galp Energia, Spain’s Iberdrola and Gamesa and Italy’s Enel.

"Four groups of companies presented proposals," said Manuela Fonseca, an official at the economy ministry’s geology and energy department.

The two-phase project should generate 1,500 megawatts of wind power.

EDP estimated it would invest 1.3 billion euros ($1.55 billion) in an industrial plant if it wins the government auction for the wind power project.

"We are talking about an investment of about 1.3 billion euros that would create about 1,200 new jobs," an EDP spokesman said. EDP and its partners would create an industrial site in northern Portugal which would make equipment for the windmills, such as turbines, the spokesman said.

Galp Energia promised 1.035 billion euros in investments, it said in a statement. Galp’s consortium includes Enersis, a wind power company bought by Australian investment group Babcock & Brown last year.

Bidders had until 5 p.m. (1700 GMT) on Wednesday to present their bids to Portugal’s government, which should decide the winner by the summer.

750,000 HOMES
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The project will provide enough power for about 750,000 homes and is equal to about a quarter of the wind energy capacity installed last year in the 25-nation European Union, according to figures from the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA).

The nation of 10 million people imports about 86 percent of its power, one of the highest levels in Europe, and is aiming to harness winds off the Atlantic Ocean and other renewable sources to counter rising fuel costs.

Portugal is also looking to wind to help meet its goals under the United Nations’ Kyoto Protocol, which aims to cut output of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that are blamed for global warming.

Portugal’s emissions surged almost 37 percent from 1990 to 2003, the third-highest increase in the world, according to UN figures.

The project calls for a first phase of 1,000 megawatts of capacity and a second of 500 megawatts. The winner is expected to be announced during the summer.

Putin’s powerful call put energy security firmly at the centre of the agenda for Russia’s presidency this year of the Group of Eight industrialised nations.

It also served to deflect Western criticism of Russia’s democratic record and offset damaging publicity linked to January’s dispute with Ukraine over the price of Russian gas, which disrupted supplies to Europe.

"Instability in hydrocarbon markets poses today a real threat to global energy supply. The gap between supply and demand is widening," Putin said in a 1,700-word text issued by the Kremlin.

"We will strive to form a system of energy security which will take into account the interests of the whole world."

Striking a statesmanlike note, Putin warned that world leaders had a duty to work out a strategy to end instability over energy supplies or else generations to come would suffer.

A stable energy policy should reflect broad international interests, not just those of wealthy nations, he argued.

"Energy egotism is the road to nowhere," Putin said. "We are duty bound to leave for those who follow us a world energy ‘architecture’ which will protect them from conflicts, from unconstructive forms of struggle over energy supply."

Putin will host US President George W Bush and other G8 leaders at a summit in his home town of St. Petersburg in July to crown Russia’s first stint chairing the rich nations’ group.

Russia took over the rotating presidency of the club, which includes the United States, Japan,?Canada, Germany, France, Britain and Italy, at the start of the year.

It was formally invited to join the grouping in 1998 to cement its transition from communism to democracy.

Some other G8 members still do not consider Russia an equal, however, pointing to what they see as flaws in its record on democracy. Despite its oil and gas riches, Russia also went to the brink of financial ruin and debt default in the late 1990s.

STRONG MESSAGE

Putin’s strong message, widely aired in Russian media and carried by several newspapers in the West, underscored Russia’s role as an energy superpower.

Russia is the second largest oil exporter and has the biggest reserves of gas in the world, supplying about 25 percent of Europe’s gas needs.

But it was criticised by other G8 countries early this year when a row with Ukraine led it to shut off gas supplies to its neighbour.

Since the bulk of Russian gas supplies to Europe are carried across Ukraine, the dispute prompted questions within the European Union over Moscow’s reliability as a supplier, although few real alternatives exist.

Kremlin officials see the G8 presidency as an affirmation of Russia’s renewed geopolitical clout after the chaos of the 1990s and the fall of the Soviet Union.

The president himself has said critics must accept that Russia, flush with oil cash and undergoing an economic boom, is a dynamic player in the world economy.

Putin, who must step down in 2008 at the end of his second four-year term in office, is keen to play the global statesman and underline that Russia is still at the top table of world politics on questions of energy.

With oil prices at more than $60 a barrel, oil traders are riding the biggest bull market since prices soared to records, in real terms, after the 1979 Iranian revolution.

That is a concern for major oil consumers, such the United States, China, the European Union and Japan, though it boosts revenues for top exporters Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Other items on the G8 2006 agenda fixed by Russia are fighting infectious diseases and education.

Putin said Russia would press for an operational plan to fight avian flu and "avert a new pandemic of human influenza."

Yet the company can count itself lucky.

Even with further project delays and cost increases possible, it is making steady progress on Sakhalin 2, one of only two developments underway in a region officials say holds more crude oil and natural gas than Europe’s North Sea.

A jetty stretching into the icy waters off Russia’s far east coast looks forlorn but is a footstep of progress made by Shell, as it tries to challenge nature to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) to countries enamoured with the clean fuel.

By summer 2008, LNG will start flowing from the jetty on tankers heading around the Pacific, relieving energy markets stretched by surging gas demand for residential and industrial use from Asian and US consumers.

The Anglo-Dutch oil major and its partners, Japan’s Mitsui & Co and Mitsubishi Corp, missed an initial November 2007 target for the first LNG shipment from Sakhalin 2 by six months because of ecological obstacles and repeated postponements by Russian authorities over expenditure.

Project costs have doubled to $20 billion.

And there may still be a risk of further delays, though the world’s largest LNG project is progressing at the quickest pace out of nine energy projects in Sakhalin.

"The project is just over 60 percent complete at the moment," Sakhalin Energy’s chief executive Ian Craig said.

Shell plans to start year-round crude oil production in 2007, Craig said. Its oil production is now suspended for about six months in the year because of drift ice shutting ports.

Sakhalin 2 consists of gigantic offshore platforms, oil and gas pipelines with a total length of 800 kilometres (497 miles), as well as terminals with two LNG trains that chill natural gas to a liquid form for transport.

FROZEN BEAUTY

Sakhalin, an island about the size of Scotland, has a population of around 53,000 and holds an estimated 45 billion barrels equivalent of recoverable oil and gas reserves.

But the biggest challenge is the island’s harsh if beautiful natural environment.

In addition to frigid weather that sees temperatures plunge to minus 30 degrees Celsius on winter nights, the land has numerous seismic faults as part of the Pacific’s rim of fire.

Pipeline crossing points at active faults at the southern part were still under design, engineer Samar Slim told Reuters.

He has to use the costly technique of horizontal drilling to avoid damaging rivers where salmon come to lay eggs in summer.

"It is a lot more expensive than normal methods (to build pipelines). In my understanding, 10 times more," Slim said.

The dark waters of the Sea of Okhotsk provide a rich marine environment, harbouring feeding grounds for the endangered Western Grey Whale environmentalists fear has been disrupted by the project.

Shell says it is working to safeguard the species, with Sakhalin Energy spending about $7 million on whale research from 1997 to 2005 and agreeing last year to reroute offshore pipelines.

Humans are also an endangered species on Sakhalin.

Construction workers at Sakhalin 2′s Prigorodnoye terminal in the south, where the two giant LNG trains reside, are bundled up in padded clothes like skiers to protect their bodies from heavy snow, only their frost-crusted eyes visible from outside.

The workers have to warm up machinery parts?in tents – not to mention themselves – before putting them into action, a practice hardly necessary in warmer energy producers such as Saudi Arabia, and one adding to the project’s time and cost.

"Usually, it takes about 36 months to complete construction works of this kind of facility. But here in Sakhalin, the first train takes 51 months," said Frank Fletcher, project manager at the plant.

The jetty, chilled by wind from Aniva Bay and still not connected to land like England’s fire-wrecked old Brighton pier, is still waiting for spring and the return of more workers, whose numbers rise from 6,000 in winter to 8,000 in summer.

Up to 5,000 construction workers live in a camp just next to the plant. The main office’s walls are full of cautious advice: "Drugs don’t relax you. It kills you… Alcohol doesn’t build friendship, it destroys it… Safe sex, or no sex."

STILL AHEAD

Shell has sold about 75 percent of its planned 9.6 million tonnes a year of LNG from Sakhalin 2 on long-term supply contracts to Japan, South Korea and the US West Coast.

But Sakhalin 2 is only developing about 10 percent of the area’s resources and Shell is not the only one eyeing the riches.

Russia’s gas monopoly Gazprom is negotiating with Shell to take 25 percent of Sakhalin 2.

There are eight other new energy projects, including Sakhalin 1 led by US oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp.

Sakhalin 1 started commercial crude oil production in October, but Exxon has not begun to build gas facilities since it first needs a buyer; unlike Shell it plans to transfer gas from Sakhalin 1 to a single customer, possibly China, via a pipeline.

Exxon had hoped to develop Sakhalin 3, under a previous deal scrapped by the government. The field is expected to be auctioned later this year.

"The rest of the projects just have numbers," an industry official said.

Britain had sought to change its original allocation of pollution rights to allow industry to pump out an additional 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main gas blamed for global warming, in the 2005-2007 period.

The EU emissions trading scheme is its key instrument to fight climate change and meet commitments under the environmental treaty known as the Kyoto Protocol.

Britain’s attempt to allow its industry to pollute more came at the same time as Prime Minister Tony Blair put the fight against climate change at the top of the agenda of Britain’s presidency of the EU and G8 group of rich nations last year.

When the European Commission rejected the changes, Britain went to court. The EU’s Court of First Instance sided with Britain, saying it wa? entitled to revise the plan.

The Commission said it had studied the court’s ruling and decided that Britain had missed a September 30, 2004 deadline to submit any changes.

"Since the UK amendment was notified after this deadline, the Commission has passed today’s decision rejecting the amended plan on the grounds of late submission," it said.

The Commission said it took note of the court’s ruling that it had to consider changes as long as they are notified on time.

Britain said it was studying a range of options in response, including further legal action.

"We are looking at the ruling and considering what to do next, including the case for any legal challenge," a spokesman for Britain’s Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs said. "The legal possibilities exist for a challenge."

The government accused the Commission of hiding "behind procedure" with its ruling.

ENVIRONMENT, INDUSTRY RIFT

The setback for the UK comes as British government departments squabble over the level of CO2 limits it will impose on industry during phase two of the trading scheme (2008-2012).

EU governments must submit their emissions plans for the second trading period by June 30.

Britain’s power industry, which faces the toughest CO2 limits under the EU scheme, said it was disappointed with the Commission’s decision and would look for ways to fight it.

"We are extremely disappointed, we will be considering what steps we might now take," said David Porter, chief executive of the London-based Association of Electricity Producers.

He said the decision could cost the power industry 350 million pounds ($609.8 million) a year as companies would have to buy extra CO2 allowances.

Traders said the Commission’s decision was bullish for the price of CO2 allowances as it meant the market would not receive an extra 20 million tonnes.

"The market firmed up last night and this morning ahead of the decision, but it was widely expected, it has been largely factored into prices already," said a London-based trader.

The UK’s original plan has been in place since last year despite the legal wrangling.

Under the EU scheme companies buy or sell rights to pollute, based on limits set by national governments and approved by the Commission. It covers high-polluting factories like power stations, oil refineries, steel mills and cement plants.

"We intend to be much more active in the wind, power, solar energy, biomass and geothermal areas," Rubenstein said.

"We think it’s an extremely attractive area in which to invest, particularly because many states in the US now require that utilities buy a certain percentage of their energy from solar, biomass, geothermal or wind power sources," he told Reuters at a private equity conference in Frankfurt where he also predicted that some buyout firms would go public within the next several years.

To meet the energy demand, Carlyle, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, is raising a fund that will invest in renewable energy infrastructure, sources familiar with the matter said.

Carlyle declined to comment on the fund. Rubenstein did, however, say the firm was set to launch a hedge fund within the next several weeks after announcing the move last year.

Soaring oil prices have prompted state and federal governments to explore alternative sources.

US President George Bush in his State of the Union address outlined details of a ?ederal initiative to provide a 22 percent increase in clean-energy research. The US government’s 2007 budget includes $44 million for wind energy research, a $5 million increase from the year before.

Investing in the current cycle of renewable energy interest has not taken off, with only a handful of firms actively pursuing opportunities.

J.P. Morgan Partners, the private equity arm of investment bank J.P. Morgan and rival bank Goldman Sachs are among companies investing in the projects.

CREDIT

Rubenstein was speaking at the annual Super Return conference in Germany, where private equity firms came under attack last year from a leading local politician, who branded them "locusts" who buy up companies and cut jobs.

Rubenstein said that charge was unfounded and encouraged German pension funds to invest in private equity funds.

"German political leaders and business leaders should encourage more German private equity firms to get started – don’t wait for the Americans to show up but support and encourage Germans to start their own funds and to do the same kind of things that the Americans are doing," Rubenstein said.

"They should also take a look at the facts about what is actually happening in the German economy as opposed to criticising private equity people," Rubenstein said.

"We don’t deserve all the credit for the German economy, clearly, but I think private equity people deserve some credit for trying to help get the German economy into the 21st century."

IPOS ON THE HORIZON

The buyout pioneer also predicted some private equity firms would look to go public within the next five years.

"Private equity firms are being beseiged by investment banks all the time to go public," he said, although he stressed that Carlyle would not be seeking a listing.

Others may be bought by an investment bank, he said.

He also warned that the current ripe conditions for buyouts – huge funds, mountains of cheap debt, low interest rates and strong economic growth – might not last forever.

"Right now we’re operating as if the music’s not going to stop playing and the music is going to stop. I am more concerned about this than any other issue," Rubenstein said.

He also cautioned about the rush of private equity funds to do ever-larger club style deals, where up to five or six firms get together to buy assets, piling on billions of dollars in debt as part of the process.

"It might be easy to buy into these … when things are going good. I worry these deals don’t look so smart when economies turn down," Rubenstein said.

Representatives of green groups, in interviews this week, said a ban on GMO?s should have come into force well before Romania joins the European Union either next year or in 2008.

An earlier ban would have given farmers enough time to switch to conventional crops and authorities more time to develop a monitoring system for biotech produce, they said.

"We welcome the government’s decision (to ban GMO?s) but I don’t see how it is possible to have totally clean fields and crops next year," Ana Maria Bogdan of Greenpeace told Reuters.

Earlier this month, the Black Sea state’s government passed legislation banning cultivation of gene-spliced soy starting Jan. 1, 2007 to bring it in line with EU norms, as debate heats up worldwide on safety of such crops to health and environment.

"The ban should have been imposed this year. Time is too short to stop uncontrolled seeding… that will end up in contaminating traditional crops beyond entry date," Bogdan said.

Europe’s biggest soy grower until 1989, Romania brought GMO seeds a decade ago from US biotech giants Monsanto Co and Pioneer, who say their technology helps fight hunger and poverty.

Europe’s shoppers are known for their wariness towards GMO?s, often dubbed as "Frankenstein foods", but Romania’s 22 million population seems to have no problem with them.

GMO soy is the only genetically modified crop grown locally on 88,000 ha (217,500 acres), or 0.6 percent of Romania’s farml?nd. It accounts for two thirds of overall soy output.

Environmentalists say there is no way to stop GMO crops from spreading because of crossbreeding, cross-pollination and illegal trade.

"God only knows when we’ll be free of (genetically) modified soy. It’s chaos…farmers sell seeds without documents and this might create consumer suspicion in the (European) Union," Ion Scurteli, chief of the grain wholesalers association, said.

Uncontrolled seed trading is common in Romania whose farmland has been a patchwork of plots whose ownership is contested since Stalinist collectivisation was scrapped after the 1989 fall of communism.

ADDITIONAL NORMS

In a bid to prepare farmers for the shift, the government said it was drafting additional norms to ban sowing of GMO seeds from the previous years’ crops in 2006.

However, it has yet to establish how it will destroy stocks of GMO seeds to prevent blending with conventional crops in the future or if any compensation would be granted to farmers.

"If there is any need for financial compensation the ministry might consider discussing the matter," Agriculture Ministry spokesman Adrian Tibu said.

The ministry said it was eager to explain to farmers the benefits of shifting to organic crops including getting badly needed Brussels aid and teach them how to tap the EU’s market.

Farmers, who shifted to GMO crops a decade ago in a bid to give up using costly herbicides, see it differently. They said the shift would inevitably imply production losses.

Constantin Necsulescu, 63, who grows GMO soy on his 500 ha farm near the Danube Rriver on the border with Bulgaria, accepts the changes but fears possible damages.

"What should I do? I must comply with the ban," he told Reuters.

"I ordered 1,000 tonnes of (conventional) seeds to build up new stocks. But there’s no secret, I expect to harvest two tonnes of soybeans instead of four… and my costs will rise…I’m not sure if subsidies will cover costs," he added.

Monsanto said the government’s ban was disappointing.

"Monsanto is naturally disappointed by the declaration … The people most affected are the farmers who have managed to double their profits through choosing Roundup Ready soya and transforming the Romanian soya production," Jonathan Ramsay of Monsanto in Brussels told Reuters.