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By Eric Lyman, in Poznan, Poland, for ISN Security Watch

 As countries battle to come up with a plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions in 2009, attention will almost surely begin to focus on two main players that hold the fate of the international process in their hands: the US and China.

December’s United Nations negotiations on climate change in Poznan, Poland, concluded with relatively little progress. Delegates voted to activate a fund to help poor countries adapt to the changing climate, for example, but they did not approve a mechanism to put cash in the fund.…

BY BILL CORCORAN

SALES of new vehicles made in South Africa, one of the better performing automobile markets worldwide in recent times, fell by more than 20% last year due to the global economic downturn, and the country’s automakers are trying to crafting a positive response.…

BY MARK ROWE

INDONESIA’S paint industry appears likely to weather the worst of the global economic downturn. Indeed, Indonesia may be one of the few major countries where sales of paint for industrial and domestic use will rise. In January 2009, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono forecast economic growth of 6.2% for the year in a budget that revealed capital spending plans that were 14.3% up on 2008.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

WITH the Satyam scandal seriously affecting his big four firm’s global goodwill, on Thursday PricewaterhouseCooper’s international CEO Samuel DiPiazza rushed to New Delhi to meet India’s corporate affairs minister Prem Chand Gupta.

The meeting is seen by accounting industry experts as an effort to salvage PWC’s businesses in the country and explain the firm’s position in the billion-dollar fraud in which two of its auditing partners are behind bars.…

BY GEORGE STONE

WHAT a difference a year has made in the African oil industry. With sky rocketing oil prices fuelling an expansion boom in 2007 and 2008, this year will be much tougher for the oil and gas sector in sub-Saharan Africa.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

THE MIDDLE East and North Africa region (that economists like to award the acronym ‘MENA’) consumes 6% of the global vegetable oil market and sucks in 15% of global imports, with strong growth across the board on the back of rising per capita GDP and a burgeoning population.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

"AUDITS are going to become far more stringent [in India] and people will run away from the profession", Amarjeet Chopra, Chairman of Accounting Standards’ Board of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has predicted on the light of the Satyam Computer Systems scandal.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

NEGOTIATORS are close to forging an international agreement that would ban vessels involved in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing from ports worldwide. The United Nations Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has been hosting the talks, and has reported the "general outlines… on ‘port state’ measures that would deny vessels engaged in IUU fishing access to fishing ports are largely in place."…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD and KEITH NUTHALL

THE TRI-BORDER area between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay in South America is a notorious breeding ground for illicit activity, and the tobacco industry suffers more than most. Contraband goods of every description pass through Paraguay’s trading hub, Ciudad del Este – CD’s and DVD’s, fake designer clothing, sunglasses and watches, sports shoes, games and electronics, and of course one of the world’s most smuggled and lucrative legal substances: cigarettes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE FIRST major effort to limit the overexploitation of western and central Pacific yellowfin and bigeye tuna stocks has been made. The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) has approved a 30% reduction over three years of bigeye tuna catches and also a two month ban on floating platforms used to attract both species, which will be extended to three months in 2010.…