World rice output is expected to hit a record high this year, but growing demand and export curbs should keep prices high, at least in the short term, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Monday. Rice prices have been surging as governments and importers rush to stock up, spurred by growing fears the food staple will be in short supply. "World paddy production in 2008 could grow by about 2.3 percent, reaching a new record level of 666 million tonnes, according to our preliminary forecasts," FAO rice expert Concepcion Calpe said in a statement on Monday.

The European Commission is taking Italy to court for failing to effectively resolve the waste crisis that has plagued Naples and the surrounding region of Campania. Piles of rubbish were left uncollected in the streets in spring 2007 and again in the winter, leading some frustrated residents to set fire to the waste. Although the crisis has eased since the appointment of a Waste Emergency Commissioner for the region, EU chiefs said the measures taken so far will not solve the crisis in the long term.

After years of warnings, and a spell of hot weather that did nothing to improve the stink of tons of uncollected trash around Naples, the European Commission filed suit against Italy on Tuesday, charging that it had failed to meet its obligation to collect and dispose of its rubbish.

Maybe there is. How about a fresh, ripe tomato grown with seawater? Italian researchers report that the nutritional content of tomatoes

China's emerging carmakers are often the butt of jokes in industry circles abroad, where they have a reputation for building shoddy cars with knocked-off designs and eccentric model names such as Cool Bear, Tiggo or Dingle. But the derision is dying down as Chinese carmakers begin to produce better-looking and higher-quality cars in a drive to capture local market share and enter foreign markets.

DENILIQUIN, Australia: Lindsay Renwick, the mayor of this dusty southern Australian town, remembers the constant whir of the rice mill. "It was our little heartbeat out there, tickety-tick-tickety," he said, imitating the giant fans that dried the rice, "and now it has stopped." The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere, once processed enough grain to satisfy the daily needs of 20 million people. But six long years of drought have taken a toll, reducing Australia's rice crop by 98 percent and leading to the mothballing of the mill last December.

Environmental campaign group WWF has denounced the latest round of the EU's Emissions Trading System, saying its heart is in the right place but 'design faults' mean it rewards those burning the most coal. The scheme, designed to cut the continent's carbon emissions, will perversely provide a windfall for the biggest emitters, says the WWF. The conservation charity asked carbon market analysts Point Carbon to estimate the windfall profits in five European countries - the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy and Poland - over the current five year phase of the scheme.

Italy will achieve its greenhouse gas-cutting targets under the Kyoto protocol by buying carbon credits from Russia, under a deal announced yesterday that could cost the government billions of euros. Italy is expected to miss its Kyoto targets by a total of about 400m to 500m tonnes of carbon dioxide, and will therefore have to make up the shortfall with carbon credits issued by the United Nations. But the government did not say how many credits it would buy under a deal with Carbon Trade and Finance, a joint venture between Russia's Gazprombank and Dresdner Bank.