US President-elect Barack Obama has unveiled a US$ 700 billion construction plan for the nation`s infrastructure, education and energy sectors. The plan aims to create 2.5 million jobs by 2011, and is the biggest public works programme since then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt`s New Deal, which helped pull the US economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. 

European Union to Cap Airline Emissions The European Union reached a landmark agreement to cap emissions from aircraft, raising the stakes in an increasingly ferocious battle with the United States over how to regulate global greenhouse gases. 

Bush Votes Down Climate Bill President Bush weighed against a Senate bill that would require dramatic cuts in climate-changing greenhouse pollution, cautioning senators "to be very careful about running up enormous costs for future generations of Americans. 

Biofuel Agreement The European member states are to set tougher sustainability criteria for biofuels made from agricultural crops in a bid to avert negative environmental side-effects linked to their mass production.  

Russia Joins International Motor Insurance Certificate Green Card System Russia may enter the International Motor Insurance Certificate Green Card system at the beginning of next year. Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov signed an order naming the Russian Union of Auto Insurers the national insurance bureau for the international system to send the appropriate application to the UN Economic Commission for Europe and the international green card bureau.