Italy delays new solar plan again industry disturbed

MILAN Wed Feb 24, 2010 10:43am EST

MILAN (Reuters) - The Italian government has delayed again a long-awaited unveiling of a new incentive plan for the booming solar energy sector, government officials said on Wednesday, fuelling concerns among market operators.

A new date for presentation of the plan is yet to be set, the officials said.

The presentation had been widely expected on February 25 when a state body which should approve the plan before it goes for signing by economic development and environment ministers was expected to be convened.

"The unified conference of state and regions has not been called for tomorrow. The new date is yet to be called," said an official at the state body that oversees relations between the central government and regions.

Two other government spokesmen also said the new incentive plan would not be presented on Thursday.

Aiming to bring incentives in line with falling sector costs, Rome plans to cut the current scheme that is among the most generous in Europe and has given a boost to Italy"s photovoltaic (PV) market since it was adopted in 2007.

INVESTORS CONCERNED

Investors and other solar energy market operators say the new plan has suffered delays because of the regional elections in Italy, due at the end of March, and that was preventing them from drafting their strategies for Italy"s booming solar market.

"We have made investment plans ... for the next few years hoping that there will be a new incentive plan and that it will be sustainable," Gianni Chianetta, Chief Executive of BP Solar Italia, part of British oil major BP.

"But many of the planned initiatives in terms of investments and new job creation have been put on hold awaiting clarity. Further delays would create distrust in Italy and divert the group"s investments to other countries," he said in a statement.

However, PV market operators were relieved that the government had softened cuts it planned to make to a key part of the incentive scheme in 2011.

"If the feed-in tariff is approved in a way we"ve learned from the media, we expect a stable and sustainable market under the new incentive scheme," said Vincenzo Quintani, head of Suntech Italy, a unit of Suntech Power Holdings Co Ltd.

"2010 will be a peak year for Italy"s solar market," Quintani told reporters on the sidelines of a solar energy conference in Milan.

Italy is Europe"s third-biggest photovoltaic market which uses PV panels to turn sunlight into power.

With an estimated PV capacity of above 900 megawatts at the end of 2009, Italy lags behind Germany with an estimated total capacity of between 8,508 MW and 9,108 MW and Spain with 3,283-3,323 MW, according to the European industry body EPIA.

Italy"s current support scheme is set to expire in 2010 when the capacity covered by the incentives hits a 1,200 MW cap.

(Reporting by Svetlana Kovalyova and Stephen Jewkes)

Darling in a on all sides to fool around the economy card

David Wighton: Business Editors Commentary & , : {}

Today, Alistair Darling is widely expected to unveil a Budget for jobs the jobs of Gordon Brown and the rest of the Labour Government. Budgets are always highly political. This one comes just six weeks before a likely general election.

But Mr Darling is odds-on to lose his job after that election, even if Labour wins. That has put him in a strong position to deliver a Budget for economic rather than political recovery.

His position has been strengthened further by the slight improvement in the still dire outlook for the public finances this year. That will allow him to use some of the improvement to fund modest giveaways sorry, targeted investments and show prudence by banking the rest.

He will make great play of plans to put money into green energy and infrastructure projects and to set up a National Investment Corporation. But the sums involved will be trivial in relation to the scale of the problems. There is likely to be other modest help for business. He may even spike the Tories guns by cutting corporation tax, perhaps funded by reductions in allowances. Further increases in personal tax for the wealthy are not impossible, but changes to capital gains tax seem unlikely.

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What the voters really deserve and what the financial markets really crave is more detail on how a re-elected Labour Government would meet its deficit reduction plan. This plan requires very significant cuts in public spending, in areas other than schools and hospitals which have been ringfenced.

Mr Darling needs to flesh out these plans so there can be a proper debate in the election campaign about the tough choices facing the country. If he does that today, Mr Darling may preserve his reputation, if not his job.

Another lesson for Prudential

The unspoken message in Legal & Generals cheering results yesterday is that it is perfectly possible to make decent returns in the pensions and investments market without embarking on a costly, ambitious Asian adventure. Just as with Standard Life the other day, the message was: Up yours, Prudential!

Instead of tapping shareholders for oodles of loot, like the Pru, L&G is paying it back out, lifting the interim dividend by a hefty 33 per cent.

L&Gs policy of adjusting the product mix to those with quicker payback times and cutting costs is paying off. It beat its target for cost reduction by 19 million and its target for cash generation by 250 million.

It had some luck. The blowout in corporate bond spreads last year enabled it to lock into investments at supremely favourable prices which produced a one-off 100 million boost for its annuities business. The dramatic bounce in equities has been good news, too.

The dividend rise is less spectacular than it looks, however. L&G cut the final dividend last year by 50 per cent and the interim payment six months ago by 45 per cent.

The total for 2009 is still down on 2008, which is down on the year before. The decision to cut so sharply now looks to have been too cautious, but understandable, given the fear and loathing at the time.

L&G is not without international ambition. It has struck some serviceable joint ventures with foreign banks its preferred channel for selling its savings products. And it is not averse to starting from scratch small experimental ventures overseas. But a Pru-style land grab is out.

In share-price terms, theres not been much to separate the two companies: neither has made any progress since 1997. Given their divergent strategies, however, it is highly unlikely that they will travel the same path in the next 13 years.

L&G chief executive Tim Breedons apparent success from sticking to the knitting will not make it any easier for the Prus Tidjane Thiam, as he prepares to sell his very different strategy to a still sceptical City.

Finances out of this world

If Britain is serious about diversifying its economy away from financial services and creating high-tech manufacturing jobs, the space industry is an obvious place to start.

As I have said before, space is an unsung champion of the British economy, contributing about 7 billion a year and supporting more than 68,000 jobs. But it could be so much more. A recent government-sponsored report forecast that space could be worth 40 billion a year to the UK by 2025 if steps are taken now to fire up the engines. So we should applaud Lord Mandelsons move yesterday to establish a standalone agency to manage all of the Governments civilian space efforts. The Government has also set up working groups to look at how it spends money on space projects.

The big uncertainty is what the Conservatives will make of it all. The Tories might want to spike a Labour project if they get into office, but a better strategy would be to grab the map that has been laid out for space and take the credit when the mission is accomplished.

Protests as Lord Adonis reveals plans for 30bn high-speed railway network

Philip Pank, Transport Correspondent, and Mary Bowers & , : {}

Across the Chiltern escarpment and the fields of Warwickshire and in to the extrinsic constituencies of the West Midlands, the lines were drawn yesterday for a formulation conflict over Britains high-speed rail network.

Indeed, daggers had been already drawn prior to Lord Adonis, the Transport Secretary, told Parliament of plans for a thirty billion Y-shaped railway from London to Manchester and Leeds around the Midlands.

The initial phase, 128 miles of lane from the collateral to Birmingham, will if finished as programmed by 2026 cut tour times in in between Britains dual greatest cities to in in between thirty and 50 minutes. By 2032, the Government hopes that the network will be complete, putting Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield inside of 75 mins of London and in the future slicing tour times to Edinburgh to 3 hours.

In so doing, genius on the swarming West Coast Main Line would be trebled, 10,000 jobs created, and informal and inhabitant economies boosted. Business leaders and the traffic unions have praised the scheme.

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The Conservatives are heading the protests. The partys ride group says that Labour has tricked the prophesy of high-speed rail that would magnify the length of the country, receiving in Heathrow and the cities to the North. Electoral governing body are at play, with the line set to run by the Buckinghamshire Tory heartlands and contested seats in the Midlands. So as well is Conservative antithesis to Heathrow expansion, that is firm to the high-speed plans.

If internal criticism groups are disturbed about blight, regions abandoned by the network fright that they will be left behind. Road user groups contend that the immeasurable cost will good comparatively couple of passengers.

Transport campaigners fright that the plan will come at the shortcoming of paltry works, such as stuffing in potholes and mending the existent railway. We entirely admit the shortcoming to assistance those influenced by the scheme, Lord Adonis said.

Local authorities and debate groups would be called from currently to voice their concerns prior to a grave six-month open conference duration starts in the autumn, he said.

The Government will afterwards list a hybrid formulation Bill that contingency pass by both Houses of Parliament and their committees. So there are mixed opportunities for those influenced by this track to have their voices heard, he added.

Already, the people of Great Missenden, in Buckinghamshire, were scheming to have their voices heard. We were meditative of station for Parliament, pronounced Chris Russell, a businessman. Its so Tory, I could probably win on the rail ticket.

Sir John Johnson, authority of the Chiltern Conservation Board, said: This is directed towards as one of the countrys excellent landscapes. There are beechwoods, grasslands, marker streams. It will cut a swath by the lot. We will see the drop of very old rights of way.

Detailed formulation work for the stretched network will right away proceed and should be finished by late subsequent year. Public conference on routes to Manchester and Leeds would proceed in 2012, Lord Adonis said.

hair wig

Chile trembler kills 122 and triggers tsunami

Robin Henry & , : {}

A large trembler has strike the seashore of Chile, murdering some-more than 100 people, flattening buildings and triggering a tsunami.

The 8.8-magnitude upheaval shook the nation for a notation and half at 3:34am (6:34am GMT) today.

A tsunami notice has been lengthened opposite 53 countries, together with majority of Central and South America and as far as Australia and Antarctica.

The call has already caused critical repairs to the frugally populated Juan Fernandez islands, off the Santiago coast, and is right away travelling opposite the sea at multiform hundred km per hour.

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People in the Galapagos and on Easter Island have already taken refuge, whilst the US has proposed evacuating the shoreline communities of Hawaii.

At slightest 122 have been killed in the quake, according to Chiles inhabitant puncture office.

President Michelle Bachelet has spoken a state of disaster in the country. Calling for ease from an puncture reply centre, the effusive boss said: We have had a outrageous earthquake, with a little aftershocks.

Despite this, the complement is functioning. People should sojourn calm. Were you do all we can with all the forces we have. Any report we will share immediately.

The upheaval strike nearby the locale of Maule, 200 miles southwest of Santiago, at a abyss of twenty-two miles underground.

The epicentre was only 70 miles from Concepcion, Chiles second-largest city, where some-more than 200,000 people live along the Bio Bio river.

TV Chile reported that a 15-storey construction collapsed in the city, whilst alternative buildings held glow and large cracks non-stop up in the streets and bridges.

Cars incited upside down lay sparse opposite one shop-worn bridge.

Dozens of people were seen in motion by the streets, a little wheeling suitcases at the back of them and others entertainment around open fires to keep warm.

Many are shocked by the absolute aftershocks and are desperately perplexing to call friends and family.

The write and energy lines are down in most of executive Chile, creation it formidable to consider the full border of the repairs close to the epicentre.

Chile is the worlds tip copper producing nation and the upheaval halted operations at dual vital mines.

Never in my hold up have I experienced a upheaval similar to this, the similar to the finish of the world, one man told internal air call from the city of Temuco, where the quake

forced staff to leave the informal hospital.

Santiago airfield has been close down and will sojourn sealed for at slightest the subsequent twenty-four hours after the newcomer depot suffered vital damage.

In Talca, only 65 miles, from the epicentre, neighbours pulled at slightest five people from the rubble whilst puncture workers, themselves disoriented, asked for report from reporters.

The Foreign Office has updated the transport report for people formulation to go to Chile, saying: The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is in strike with the embassy in Santiago in sequence to settle the contribution on the ground.

Communications are sporadic. We will refurbish this recommendation over the subsequent couple of hours.

The Chilean ambassador, Rafael Moreno, pronounced he was perplexing to assistance disturbed British-based kin have strike with their family groups in the country.

In the coastal city of Vina del Mar, the trembler struck only as people were withdrawal a disco, Julio Alvarez told a internal air call station. It was really bad, people were screaming, a little people were running, others appeared paralyzed. I was one of them.

Several big aftershocks after strike the south-central region, together with ones measuring 6.9, 6.2 and 5.6.

The trembler was caused by the building of the Pacific being pushed next South American land mass.

This remarkable jerking of the sea-floor replaced H2O and triggered a tsunami, that is right away channel the sea at a speed of a jet plane.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center released a notice for Chile and Peru, and a less-urgent tsunami watch for Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica and Antarctica.

A orator said: "Sea turn readings prove a tsunami was generated.

"It might have been mortal along coasts nearby the trembler epicentre and could additionally be a hazard to some-more faraway coasts."

All Pacific islands together with the Hawaii and the Easter Islands have additionally perceived warnings.

US Civil Defense officials in Hawaii pronounced they were scheming to begin evacuations from shoreline communities.

The Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Center additionally warned of a intensity tsunami hazard to New South Wales state, Queensland state, Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island".

Any intensity call would not strike Australia until Sunday sunrise internal time, it added.

On the Easter Islands people are right away looking higher belligerent prior to the call strikes.

Earthquakes are comparatively usual in Chile, that is piece of the peaceable ring-of-fire tectonic-plate boundary, and most buildings are built to ward off tremors.

The largest trembler ever available struck the same segment on May 22, 1960. The magnitude-9.5 upheaval killed 1,655 people and left dual million homeless.

The tsunami that it caused killed people in Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines and caused repairs to the US West Coast.

hair wig

First womanlike British infantryman to die in Afghanistan was unlawfully killed UK headlines

Corporal Sarah Bryant, who was the initial British womanlike infantryman to be killed in Afghanistan. Photograph: Ministry of Defence/AFP/Getty Images

The coroner at the inquisition in to the genocide of the initial womanlike British infantryman to die in Afghanistan has pronounced she and 3 colleagues were unlawfully killed.

The Wiltshire and Swindon coroner, David Masters, pronounced the precision of infantry was "inadequate" at the time of the deaths and there had been a "general necessity of vehicles accessible during that period". He pronounced he would be essay to the Ministry of Defence about issues lifted by the hearing.

Corporal Sarah Bryant and SAS reservists Corporal Sean Robert Reeve, 28, Lance Corporal Richard Larkin, 39, and Private Paul Stout, 31, were killed when their Snatch Land Rover was strike by a large makeshift bomb device (IED) on seventeen Jun 2008.

During the six-day inquisition the justice was told that the commander in chief of the 4 soldiers had requested a deputy for their Snatch Land Rover but this was refused due to apparatus shortages.

Summing up at Trowbridge locale hall, Masters highlighted the stipulations of the vehicles. "We listened ... that they had singular manoeuvrability, being complicated in soft belligerent and farming areas, that they were top-heavy and inconstant ... that they were comparatively light armoured," pronounced Masters. "There was singular visibility. These concerns were lifted by the autocratic military officer Colonel A."

He pronounced Colonel A, who was not declared for security reasons, had requested a Pathfinder WMIK car to reinstate the Snatch.

"There was a singular pool of vehicles available, a ubiquitous necessity of vehicles accessible during that period," pronounced Masters. "He longed for WMIKs since of the inlet of the territory. He put in a ask and fit it but he didn"t get them. That necessity meant that they were taken to him. There was usually a calculable supply of vehicles to be allocated opposite the total brigade."

Masters pronounced a WMIK would have suffered the same turn of "devastation" in the blast.

Last week the inquisition listened justification from soldiers that the armed forces was pang shortages of critical apparatus and a miss of training.

Bryant, Reeve, Larkin and Stout were assisting to coach Afghan military when headlines pennyless that Taliban prisoners had transient from a prison in Kandahar. Their section was systematic to assistance internal military recapture the prisoners, and set off for the encampment of Miralzi. On the approach there, their Snatch Land Rover triggered an IED containing up to 100kg of bomb when the back wheels rolled over the device.

Giving justification last week, a infantryman identified usually as "O" described how the car "crumpled inwards". O pronounced that during pre-deployment precision there was "disbelief by probably everybody" that Snatch Land Rovers were to be used, since they were so easily armoured.

He pronounced the vehicles were brought in to operation to be used in Northern Ireland, and were at large deliberate unsuited for the sort of work they would be you do in Afghanistan. "It wasn"t fit to do the job," he said. "The car wouldn"t strengthen you, the car is unstable, top-heavy."

The drawn out make make use of of of Snatch Land Rovers by frontline infantry has prolonged been a quarrelsome issue. The budding minister, Gordon Brown, was forced to urge the make make use of of of the vehicles last week when he gave justification to the Iraq inquiry. He said: "Once these new vehicles were asked for, they were offering and the income was paid, I think inside of months."

Brian Kennedy cuts short ski outing to assistance stop Sale"s thrust downhill Sport The Guardian

Supporters of Sale Sharks have been pang this winter. Photograph: Paul Thomas/Action Images

The Sale owner, Brian Kennedy, has cut short his skiing legal holiday in the United States to lapse to Manchester and residence a decrease that has seen the Sharks, the Premiership champions 4 years ago, slip to one place off the bottom of the table, on tip of Leeds on try equate only.

Sale"s 47-3 better at Gloucester on Saturday was their fifth in 6 Premiership matches. They perform title-chasing Northampton on Sunday and five of their last eight fixtures are opposite teams in the tip half of the table. The Sharks, one of the Premiership clubs strike hardest by the mercantile downturn, lost a series of high-profile players at the finish of last season, together with Luke McAlister, Sébastien Chabal and Sébastien Bruno, whilst their England and Lions prop, Andrew Sheridan, has not played given pang a shoulder repairs last Oct and is doubtful to underline again this campaign.

Kennedy"s early lapse is an denote of how severely he views the predicament Sale are in. "My players are on the building but I am assured we can spin this round," pronounced Sale"s executive of rugby, Kingsley Jones, who took over from Philippe Saint-André last summer. "My pursuit is not easy in conditions similar to this and it is about how we get behind to where we need to be. It is not as if we have not been in this on all sides before.

"We"ve got a large diversion opposite Northampton on Sunday. We unequivocally need to benefit a small certainty right away and have certain we put things right. Last week [after the home better by Leeds], I was upset. This week I"m endangered a small bit some-more and it is going to be a difficult week for us."

"We"re not alone in worrying. Four alternative Premiership clubs will be really endangered right right away but I hold we"ll be okay. We"ve got eight games left and, whilst nothing of them is a given, I wouldn"t barter the fixtures with any alternative team."

The England close Simon Shaw, meanwhile, faces an concerned wait for to find the astringency of the shoulder repairs he suffered during Saturday"s Six Nations better by Ireland. Shaw saw a dilettante currently and the formula of the examination and a indicate of his left acromio-clavicular corner will be discussed by the England and Wasps healing group tomorrow.

The England government reliable that the full-back Delon Armitage suffered rib cartilage repairs early in the second half but there is no evident timescale for his lapse either. With Shaw and Armitage sidelined, the Leicester close Louis Deacon and Northampton full-back Ben Foden will stick on England"s precision stay at Pennyhill Park tomorrow.

Wales have expelled the scrum-half, Dwayne Peel, and the prop, Eifion Lewis Roberts, for Sale"s strife opposite Northampton. The lock, Deiniol Jones, and the hooker, Gareth Williams, have been ruled out of subsequent week"s compare opposite Ireland in Dublin by injury.

Depressed dog handler forgot about alsatians he left to die in prohibited car

Adam Fresco, Crime Correspondent & , : {}

A military dog handler who caused the genocide of dual alsatians by withdrawal them in a prohibited car should have been treated with colour for depression, a decider pronounced yesterday.

Mark Johnson left the dogs, Jet and Jay-Jay, to humour agonizing suffering but claimed that he had lost about them since he suffered from basin and recurrent compulsive commotion after being the theme of steady investigations.

District Judge Tim Devas gave Johnson a six-month redeeming liberate and systematic him to compensate �2,000 costs but pronounced that the tragedy would not have happened if the deputy had been since the assistance that he needed.

I feel a military military military military officer has been let down, he said. This was a awful blunder of visualisation brought about by an seizure and Personal Computer Johnson should have been since some-more help. It is a terribly unhappy censure on the military force where you have an military military military officer of his station who is as well broke to speak about his illness.

Related LinksPolice dog handler guilty of animal crueltyPolice military military military officer "instinctively" shot co-worker

I cant hold that in the 21st century basin and men great is so offensive to an establishment that zero could be finished about it. Ive no disbelief that had Personal Computer Johnson perceived the assistance he needed, he wouldnt be station prior to me today.

Johnson, 39, one of the countrys heading dog handlers, pronounced that he felt that the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) was out to get him. He was vexed and had sought assistance from his bosses.

Johnson, who has served with Nottinghamshire Police for scarcely eighteen years, pronounced that the complaints opposite him, that were not specified, and the highlight of his pursuit left him severely ill.

He told Nottingham Magistrates Court, where he was convicted of restrictive the dogs in an sourroundings unpropitious to their wellbeing: Complaint after censure came in and they were referred to the IPCC when they shouldnt have been. I was emotional. I was violation down crying. We have this rough, difficult image.

We think we are invincible, so to have an romantic relapse we find embarrassing.

Johnson pronounced that in 2007 he sought assistance and was since cognitive behavioural therapy, though this came to an finish in Mar last year.

When the IPCC proposed questioning an additional complaint, his mental problems became worse. He said: I was a mess. I was withdrawn, crying, arguing with my wife. It was ruin on earth.

He left the dogs in the car on Jun thirty last year and became engrossed by office work at force domicile at Arnold, Nottingham, and afterwards attended meetings. It was one of the hottest days of the summer, with temperatures at 29.3C (84.7F). Jet, 7, and Jay-Jay, eighteen months, died, presumably inside of twenty minutes, from organ disaster brought on by heatstroke.

Paul Taylor, prosecuting for the RSPCA, said: I can find no justification that he harboured any ill will towards his dogs or that he would have wished to mistreat them but he done an blunder that had deadly consequences. His disaster in this box is an misconception of his normal high standards. However, his actions had inauspicious consequen-

ces for the dual dogs in the car.