Global Notebook

RIO DE JANEIRO – Drivers in Brazil are fighting rising gasoline prices by turning to "flexible fuel" cars that use more alcohol. In fact, alcohol made from sugar cane is becoming the fuel of choice, so much so that global sugar prices have hit a seven-year high, reports the Christian Science Monitor.

Flex cars are already outselling traditional gasoline models. In August, 62 percent of new cars sold in Brazil were flex, according to industry numbers. "Demand has been unbelievable," said Barry Engle, the new president of Ford Brazil. "I am hard-pressed to think of any other technology that has been such a success so quickly." read more

BAGHDAD – A top editor for Reuters news service has charged that the treatment of journalists in Iraq by U.S. troops is "spiraling out of control" and preventing full coverage of the war from reaching the public.

In a letter to Sen. John Warner, R-VA, head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Reuters Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger charges that the detention and accidental shootings of journalists is severely limiting how reporters can operate. He referred to "a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by U.S. forces in Iraq." read more

WASHINGTON – The senior Democrat on the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee says that if ethnic and religious factions in Iraq fail to reach a genuine political settlement before the end of the year, the United States should put withdrawal on its agenda.

The comments by Sen. Carl Levin, D-MI, suggest a shift in the position of mainstream Democrats. Most members of the party’s congressional delegation have so far accused Pres. Bush and his team of failing to come up with a viable strategy to win the war, but have stopped short of calling for a pullout timetable. read more

LONDON – British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) has owned Westinghouse since 1999. But now three heavyweight Japanese and South Korean companies are bidding to take it over amid U.S. concerns that foreign ownership of a major nuclear energy company could threaten national security. As a result, pressure is mounting on the British government, which owns BNFL, to sell the company to a U.S. business, according to the U.K.‘s Independent newspaper.

Among the contenders are Japan‘s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a long-time business partner of Westinghouse, and Toshiba, as well South Korea‘s Doosan Heavy Industries. But the most likely winner is apt to be General Electric, which has teamed up with the New York-based hedge fund Cerberus and Louisiana-based Shaw. read more

GENEVA – A growing number of nations are calling for UN oversight of the main computers that direct traffic on the Internet, arguing that no single country should be the ultimate authority over such a vital part of the global economy. To the surprise of the United States, even European Union negotiators have proposed “stripping the Americans of their effective control of the Internet,” as the International Herald Tribune put it.

The European decision to back the rest of the world in demanding the creation of a new international body to govern the Internet caught the U.S. negotiating team off balance and left them largely isolated at talks designed to come up with a new way of regulating the digital traffic of the 21st century. read more

SAKHALIN, Russia – Gazprom, the world’s largest gas firm, is eager to participate in the construction of a $7.4 billion Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline that would bring gas from the gigantic South Pars fields in Iran to the two South Asian countries, the Press Trust of India reports.

The Russian energy giant has previously held talks with authorities in Iran and India to become involved in a consortium, to include also Indian Oil Corp and Gail (India) Ltd. that would lay the 2,000-mile pipeline. read more