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Mandelson: No further offers from EU for farm tariff cuts
Brussels: EU's trade chief, Peter Mandelson on Wednesday rebuffed demands by the United States and emerging countries for further EU farm tariff cuts, saying that the European Union will make no further cuts to improve access to European markets in world trade talks.

He informed the European Parliament that the EU was prepared though to negotiate on the number of items that get special protection. The Trade Commissioner said that the EU would be ready to discuss which goods should be classified as "sensitive products" and thus subject to lesser import tariff cuts than the rest.

The EU wants to keep eight per cent of tariff lines as sensitive, including beef and dairy produce.

"All these things are for negotiation, for discussion with our partners," Mandelson told Parliament's international trade committee.
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Arcelor makes hostile bid for Canadian steel maker Dofasco
Paris: Arcelor, the world's second largest steel maker, said Wednesday that it planned a hostile bid for Dofasco that valued the company at US$3.7bn. The bid would enable Arcelor to compete with Mittal Steel in supplying steel to auto producers in North America.

Under the deal, worth US$3.7bn, Arcelor, based in Luxembourg, will offer 56 Canadian dollars in cash for each Dofasco share, a 27 percent premium over Tuesday's closing price in Toronto.

Dofasco, based in Hamilton, Ontario, is Canada's largest-selling steel producer. Dofasco sells more than a third of its steel to U.S. automakers, including Ford Motor. Dofasco posted a net profit of US$377mn last year, three times more than the year before. The steel maker produced 4.4 million tons of steel last year.

Arcelor is seeking to wrest market share from its rival Mittal, which is based in Rotterdam. In April, Mittal bought International Steel Group, based in Richfield, Ohio, for US$4.5bn.

Arcelor and Difasco have already held takeover talks "on several occasions," including in the first half of this year, and were unable to reach an agreement, Arcelor said.
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Placer Dome board rejects Barrick's hostile bid
New York: Placer Dome's board has urged shareholders to reject a hostile takeover bid from Barrick Gold, calling the US$9.2bn offer "financially inadequate."

Barrick had made a bid for the Vancouver-based gold miner Placer Dome Inc. on Oct. 31, offering to acquire Placer Dome's shares for US$20.50 each, in cash or stock.

At the time, Barrick's bid represented a premium of roughly 24% for the stock, but Placer Dome's shares closed Tuesday at US$21.90, with gold prices nearing the US$500-an-ounce mark earlier this week.

Placer Dome based its opinion on reports from its financial advisors -- CIBC World Markets Inc., Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Morgan Stanley & Co., in which they determined the financial considerations of the deal were insufficient for a number of reasons.

"We believe Barrick's offer is financially inadequate, opportunistic, and fails to recognize the value of Placer Dome's assets and long-term growth profile," said Robert Franklin, chairman of the Placer Dome board and head of its special committee of directors.

Placer Dome laid out a number of specific reasons for the determination, saying that its gold production is expected to increase by 2010, while Barrick's is expected to decrease; that the offer is "opportunistic and disadvantageous" for its shareholders; that it doesn't provide an adequate control premium; and that the offer is uncertain due to its dependence on the value of Barrick's shares.
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Venezuela to provide cheap heating oil for US poor
Quincy, USA: Thousands of poor residents in the US State of Massachusetts will receive cheaper home heating oil this winter under an agreement signed Tuesday with Venezuela. Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's flamboyant ruler is a political adversary of the Bush administration.

Under the agreement, a US subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company will supply oil at 40 percent below market prices, which will be distributed in Massachusetts by two nonprofit organizations, Citizens Energy Corp. and the Mass Energy Consumer Alliance.

The agreement causes a certain amount of embarrassment to the US as it comes at a time when U.S. oil companies have been reluctant to provide any assistance to poor people in their country, with the prospects of a harsh winter looming. The US Congress has also failed to expand aid to the country's poor in response to rising oil prices.

U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, (D-Mass.), met with Chavez in August and helped broker the deal. He said his constituents' needs for heating assistance were more important than any political points the Chavez administration could score.

Citgo is the Houston-based subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company and has about 13,500 independently owned U.S. gas stations. It will offer Massachusetts more than 12 million gallons of discounted heating oil over the next four months, starting in December.

The two nonprofit organizations will screen recipients and cooperate with oil distributors that will make discounted deliveries to qualifying homes and institutions, such as homeless shelters and hospitals.

Chavez has become one of Latin America's most vocal critics of U.S.-style capitalism, which he calls a major cause of poverty. U.S. officials in turn accuse Chavez of endangering Venezuelan democracy by assuming ever-greater powers. During a short-lived 2002 coup against Chavez, the U.S. government promptly recognized the new leaders, who were soon driven out amid a popular uprising.
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Verizon Wireless files suit against phone spammers
New York: Verizon Wireless said on Wednesday it has filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction against a firm in the US State of Florida that it charges with sending thousands of unsolicited text messages to Verizon customers' mobile phones.

The wireless venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group Plc said it filed the suit after 98,000 spam messages were sent on behalf of Ormond Beach, Florida, firm Passport Holidays telling Verizon customers they had won cruises to the Bahamas.

While cases of illegal spamming to mobile phones in the U.S., have not been widely prevalent, all of U.S. wireless operators are being more vigilant about such incidents, which have the potential to cost users and carriers dearly.

Verizon Wireless, which has already filed several privacy-related lawsuits this year, accused Passport of illegally using automatic dialing equipment to send large numbers of spam text messages to sequential phone numbers in a short space of time. Verizon also said that the spammers had tried to avoid Verizon's spam filters and hide their identities.

Verizon said wireless operators need to be even more careful than Internet service providers because the stakes are higher. Though annoying spam in ones e-mail account costs nothing, whereas on a wireless phone it can cost the customer up to 10 cents a message.
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