STILL NO DEAL AS UN CLIMATE TALKS GO INTO EXTRA TIME
DOHA: United Nations climate talks in Doha have yet to produce a deal the day after their scheduled close, with negotiators locked in a stand-off about funding, a delegate said on Saturday.

Negotiators in Doha must extend the greenhouse gas-curbing Kyoto Protocol as an interim measure to rein in climate change and smooth the way to a new, global pact due to take effect in 2020. But the issue of funding to help poor countries deal with the fallout from global warming and convert to planet-friendlier energy sources has hamstrung the haggling by envoys from nearly 200 countries gathered in the Qatari capital.

EIGHT DIE IN CAMBODIA NIGHT MARKET BLAZE
PHNOM PENH: Eight people, including four children, were killed in a fire that tore through a popular night market in the Cambodian tourist town of Siem Reap on Saturday, police said. The children, aged between nine and 14, were sleeping with their families on the upper floor of a building on the premises when the blaze took hold in the early hours. The inferno, which raged for some two hours, was apparently caused by an electrical fault.

MYANMAR APOLOGIZES TO MONKS OVER MINE PROTEST INJURIES
YANGON: Myanmar’s government has apologized to senior Buddhist clerics over injuries sustained in a violent police crackdown on a rally at a Chinese-backed copper mine. Religious Affairs Minister Myint Maung said that the incident at the mine in Monywa, in which at least 99 monks and 11 others suffered wounds was a “great grief” to the government. The dispute centers on allegations of mass evictions and environmental damage caused by the project, a joint venture between Chinese firm Wanbao and military-owned Myanmar Economic Holdings. AFP