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The Kenyan government said Tuesday it will boost spending on agriculture next year by allocating eight percent of the national budget to the industry to increase food production.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki said the East African nation’s increase of its budgetary allocation to the agriculture sector is aimed at transforming the sector into a commercially viable business.

Kenya will become the grain basket for the East African region, said Kibaki, noting that the allocation will be raised from 4.5 percent.

“We have the potential to become the grain basket for this region and beyond. Our farmers are capable of doubling productivity so that we have food security for our people and a surplus for export,” Kibaki told an agriculture conference in Nairobi.

“And more importantly, there is an urgent need to assist farmers to form co-operatives that will enable them to engage in agro-processing in order to add value to their products and expand their income base.”

Kibaki who did not disclose how much will be allocated to the agriculture sector underscored the achievements his government has made in the agriculture sector since 2003 when he came into power. He said the government is still committed to ensuring that production is enhanced for the country’s food security.

“Our farmers are capable of doubling productivity so that we have food security for our people and a surplus for export,” he said.

He told farmers that they must also be prepared to adopt modern technology and also faulted some farmers for failing to embrace modern technology to improve their farming despite getting all the supports from the government.

“I am aware of the emerging challenges such as the high food prices caused by escalating prices of fuel and fertilizers internationally. As a result, the local prices of cereals, especially maize and wheat have increased significantly,” he said.

“We cannot allow this trend to continue because a majority of the low income earners are now spending most of their daily earnings on food,” said President Kibaki.

He said the Kenya will invest 4.3 billion shillings (about 56 million U.S. dollars) over the next five years to develop small-scale irrigation projects. Part of the money has been provided by the Tunis-based African Development Bank and Rome’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

“With support from the African Development Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, we will be investing 4.3 billion shillings over the next five years to develop small- scale irrigation projects and marketing infrastructure for horticultural crops,” he said. “I urge farmers to take advantage of this investment and grow more high-value crops such as flowers, soya beans, French beans, fruits, herbs and spices for sale at the regional and international markets.”

He said the IFAD and the Kenyan government have already established eight small irrigation projects covering a total of 397 hectares.

Agriculture Minister William Ruto said about 3.5 million people are currently in need of food aid and noted that to keep in line with the Maputo Declaration, the government must increase its budgetary allocation to 10 percent of the country’s total budget.

This was the commitment made by Heads of States and Government from the African continent during a meeting in Maputo in Mozambique in 2003.

Ruto said the sector, which produces 60 percent of the country’s foreign exchange, is allocated only 4.5 percent of the total budget.

The country is a net importer of rice and wheat and it is the world’s biggest exporter of black tea and the source of some of the best-quality coffee.

Ruto stressed that the economy of the country largely depends on agriculture, adding that, “we need to finance the sector which has the goose that lays the golden eggs.”

“Kenya is at the threshold of moving into the next level. We have all the resources. Our people are innovative, they are hard-working and we have good climatic conditions. We can move this country,” Ruto said.

The European Commission (EC) unveiled on Wednesday a significant economic stimulus package worth 200 billion euros (260 billion U.S. dollars) in a bid to steer the European Union (EU) economy from a deep recession.

“Only through a significant stimulus package can Europe counter the expected downward trend in demand,” the Commission said.

The sum amounts to 1.5 percent of the EU’s gross domestic product (GDP), with 1.2 percent coming from EU governments and the rest from EU funding, which was higher than the 130 billion euros (169 billion dollars) previously suggested by the Commission.

“Exceptional times call for exceptional measures. The jobs and well-being of our citizens are at stake. Europe needs to extend to the real economy its unprecedented coordination over financial markets,” said Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

He called the recovery plan “big and bold, yet strategic and sustainable.”

Barroso said the plan does not mean EU countries should react in a uniform fashion, but provides a framework to coordinate national measures of different member states.

“Every member state is called upon to take major measures good for its own citizens and good for the rest of Europe,” the Commission said.

The package includes extensive action at the national and EU level to help households and industry and concentrate support on the most vulnerable. It also puts forward concrete steps to promote entrepreneurship, research and innovation, including in the auto and construction industries.

Member states will be encouraged to increase spending with a priority on the preservation and creation of jobs while accelerating the transition toward a knowledge-based and low-carbon economy. Education and training, infrastructure, energy efficiency, and clean cars were singled out as top areas for EU and national investments.

EU countries were also given a free hand in reducing taxes to support consumption. The package makes a number of suggestions for tax cuts, including reduced social charges on lower incomes to promote the employability of less skilled workers.

The British government announced Monday that it would cut the country’s value-added tax (VAT) on consumer goods from 17.5 percent to 15 percent until the end of 2009. Germany and France, however, have said they were not ready to follow.

The Commission said it was up to member states to decide on the measures or mix of measures they wish to implement in line with their particular situations.

Meanwhile, the Commission emphasized that the measures should be timely, temporary, targeted and coordinated and be conducted within EU fiscal rules.

The EU’s stability and growth pact requires member states to keep their budgetary deficit below 3 percent of their national GDP. Higher spending and lower taxes, however, are stepping up pressure on EU governments to control their deficits.

Hours before the Commission unveiled its EU-wide stimulus package, leaders from Germany and France made an untied call for a relaxation of EU rules.

“We are experiencing the worst financial crisis in the last 70 years,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel wrote in a joint newspaper column for Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the French daily Le Figaro on Wednesday.

And given the “exceptional times,” countries should not be punished for exceeding the pact’s tough fiscal rules, which limit budget deficits to three percent of their GDP, the two leaders said.

EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia, speaking at the same press conference as Barroso, said the Commission has no intention to change the rules since there is enough flexibility for member states.

The EU’s stability and growth pact allows temporary breaches of the 3-percent ceiling under exceptional circumstances.

The Commission also urged member states to combine their short-term stimulus measures with long-term objectives.

The fiscal stimulus is complemented by proposals to speed up structural reforms, in particular by those who most need to act in order to make their economies more competitive and ensure medium-term budgetary continuity.

The Commission said the priority was to treat the symptoms of the economic crisis and protect jobs and purchasing power in the short term. That’s while also investing in Europe’s long-term economic health.

The package also aims to boost efforts to tackle climate change while simultaneously creating much-needed jobs through, for example, strategic investments in energy-efficient buildings and technologies.

Barroso said he hoped EU leaders could endorse the package at their summit next month.

China has blazed a trail of development suited to its actual conditions since the inauguration of its reform and opening up policy 30 years ago, said Dr. Zhu Jianrong, a professor of humanities at Toyo Gakuen University, in a recent interview with Xinhua.

“During the past 30 years, China has formulated an all-around and open development model on the basis of its national realities,” said Zhu.

“It has managed to avoid going to the extremes of completely copying models of the west or overemphasizing its national conditions to block reform.”

“China’s stable development has contributed a lot to the world’s stability and development,” he added.

“But more importantly, the Chinese model of development provides a brand new development path, which is utterly different from those of the west, for developing countries,” he said.

The year 2008 marks the 30th anniversary of the signing of the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship as well as of China’s adoption of its reform and opening up policy.

On China-Japan relations, the scholar said, “Bilateral ties have entered a stage of substantial development in economic ties from the previous strategic cooperation in the last 30 years, with bilateral economic contacts being gradually expanded and exchanges in various areas deepened.”

“In the past 30 years, China has strived to promote its relations with Japan from the perspective of common economic interests,” he said.

“Economic exchanges with Japan, as it were, are an important component of China’s opening up policy,” the professor said.

Zhu is optimistic about the future of Japan-China ties and believes that the general trend of further growth in bilateral ties will not be reversed.

Chinese shares finished the morning session slightly lower Thursday, after unfavorable economic data announced this week weighed upon investor confidence.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Thursday that the country’s consumer price index (CPI) rose at a slower annual rate of 2.4 percent in November.

The inflation figure was the latest among a slew of figures announced this week as fresh indicators of slowdown in the country’s economy and slumping external demand.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.31 percent, or 6.42 points, to 2,072.69 at noon. The smaller Shenzhen index, however, rose 28.38 points, or 0.38 percent, to close at 7,518.66.

But the aviation sector bucked the trend on announcement of capital injection plans.

China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines, both major state-owned carriers in the country, rose by the daily limit of nearly 10 percent in the morning, after the two firms unveiled plans late Wednesday to receive three billion yuan of capital injection each from government.

China Southern rose 9.91 percent to 3.66 yuan, and China Eastern was up 9.92 percent to finish at 4.32 yuan.

The Chinese government said on Wednesday that exports dropped 2.2 percent year-on-year in November, the first monthly decline since June 2001, while foreign direct investment plunged 36.52 percent year-on-year.

China’s producer price index, a measure of inflation at the factory level, decelerated sharply to an annual rise of 2 percent in November. The latest CPI and PPI figures had prompted worries over deflation risks.

However, the three-day Central Economic Conference that ended Wednesday had pledged to maintain stable, healthy growth next yearth rough domestic demand expansion and economic restructuring.

The conference that gathered the country’s top leaders also vowed to maintain the “stable and healthy” development of the market.

When Kansas State University sent researchers into nursing homes to find out how the topic of sex was being addressed, they initially found silence.

“Nobody was talking about it; it was a really hush-hush subject,” said Gayle Doll, director of the university’s Center on Aging. “I guess it’s hard enough for people to think about their parents having sex, let alone their grandparents.”

In response, the researchers have produced seminars and training aids to encourage nursing home caregivers to discuss and accommodate sexual desires.

The effort brings Kansas into a national discussion that advocates say will only grow as baby boomers age and take their beliefs about sexual freedom and civil rights into the nation’s nursing homes.

One of the first Kansas seminars was held at Schowalter Villa in Hesston, where many staff first reacted with, “We’re going to talk about WHAT?” said Lillian Claassen, vice president of health services at the villa.

Claassen said residents’ sexuality had always been a difficult subject for nursing homes and the Kansas State training affirmed her earlier efforts to address the topic.

“It wasn’t like we hadn’t cared for these needs in the past, but it was liberating to some folks to have an open discussion with university researchers,” Claassen said. “It empowered people to think about how they could help folks.”

Doll said the training focuses on explaining what sexuality means for older adults, identifying barriers to fulfilling the sexual needs, finding strategies to help residents and how to discern appropriate from inappropriate sexual behaviors.

Solutions can be as simple as providing “do not disturb” signs or making sure staffers don’t barge into residents’ rooms without knocking. Claassen said her nursing home provides a discreet room for residents and has staff work through possible scenarios they may encounter.

Sometimes, it’s as simple as arranging a bed for someone who needs physical therapy in a way that also allows that patient to be with his or her companion, she said.

“My greatest interest is to promote dignity in a situation that can be very challenging,” Claassen said. “We all need touch, kindness and companionship. We try to enable that in this setting, which can be very public but where there is still a need for privacy.”

Sexuality doesn’t always mean intercourse. Many lonely or depressed residents are simply looking for ways to relieve loneliness and depression, Doll said.

For example, she told of one resident who had asked for pornography but dropped the request when the staff started spending more time with him.

“The staff can help with the loneliness and need for connection that residents often have,” Doll said. “Some sexual expressions that might be seen as inappropriate will go away when they simply get the attention they deserve.”

When the need does include sexual activity, the issue becomes more difficult if one of the residents is suffering from dementia, advocates say. That can manifest itself in a resident making passes at a staff member.

Claassen said her staff is trained to respond politely and to understand that the impaired resident may be mistaking the staff member for a spouse or reacting as he or she has in the past, which is often more vivid than the present for those suffering from dementia.

If a resident with dementia becomes involved with another resident, the issue becomes determining if the sexual activity is consensual, said Robin Dessel, a national expert on dementia who is the director of memory care at Hebrew Home in Riverdale, N.Y.

Dessel said people with dementia, even those who can no longer speak, have wants and desires and the ability to express them. It takes a trained and educated staff to recognize if a sexual overture or relationship involves abuse or is borne of real need, she said.

Dessel said she has seen a growing awareness that the aging do not forfeit their rights as they become infirm, and that includes the right to express sexuality. She expects that trend to increase as baby boomers, with more liberal attitudes toward sex than their parents, continue to age.

“No matter what we see, even if someone needs total care or is incontinent, they still feel,” Dessel said. “If there’s a bonding with someone else, I think it’s a time of celebration at that point that there’s something left, something good and pleasurable for that person.”

To meet that challenge, clinicians and providers need some standardized parameters to use to assess patients’ consent, Dessel said.

The Kansas State researchers say federal guidelines should be developed to help nursing homes deal with sexuality in a positive way.

“Nursing homes are the second most regulated industry in the country, behind nuclear power plants,” Doll said. “But none of those regulations address sexuality. So, consequently, no one knows how to handle it.”

Bangladesh and India are set to sign two agreements on bilateral trade and investment promotion and protection soon, the Indian high commissioner in Dhaka said on Wednesday.

After meetings with Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister Dipu Moni and State Minister Hassan Mahmud, Indian High Commissioner Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty told reporters here that the agreements are likely to be signed during Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s visit to Dhaka on Feb. 8-9.

Pinak said the three-year bilateral trade agreement between the two countries will expire in March this year and it would be renewed.

Secondly, he said the investment promotion and protection agreement would be required since there is a trend that the investment flow will take place from either side.

Pinak also said the Indian side expects greater cooperation with Bangladesh in security matter to jointly tackle terrorism and insurgency.

Besides, he said trade and economic issues would figure at the talks as the Indian minister will call on Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and hold a meeting with his counterpart.

He said trade facilitation; development of infrastructure for increased volume of trade and measures to reduce the trade imbalance would be discussed.

Presently, Bangladesh faces trade deficit of more than 4 billion U.S. dollars with neighboring India.

Japan’s bank lending expanded 4.0 percent year-on-year to 408.41 trillion yen (4.44 trillion U.S. dollars), the Bank of Japan (BOJ) said Monday.

The average daily balance of bank lending, excluding that of “shinkin” credit banks, saw a 36th consecutive monthly rise, which the BOJ attributed to a continuing trend for companies to get funds from banks rather than from corporate debt markets.

The combined balance of bank lending, including that of shinkin banks, grew at the fastest pace since January 2001 when the central bank started releasing comparable figures, jumping by 3.7 percent to 472.11 trillion yen (5.13 trillion dollars).

The Sri Lankan government has commenced negotiations to seek support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a 1.9-billion U.S. dollar facility, the central bank here said Wednesday.

It came as a response to an offer of the IMF to support Sri Lanka during the current global financial crisis, the bank said in a statement.

The government told the IMF that global financial crises started in September 2008 had adversely impacted the favorable trends in several economic indicators, particularly those relating to the external sector.

And it was in immediate need for a large quantum of external financing in order to continue with the resettlement, rehabilitation and reconstruction work in the Northern Province, and the continued rapid development of the Eastern Province, the statement said.

Sri Lanka’s government troops said they are on the verge of completely crushing the Tamil Tiger rebels ending the three-decade old separatist war.

The troops managed to capture almost all of the territories controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the Northernand Eastern provinces in a military offensive starting in July 2006.

Hong Kong International Airport(HKIA) handled 3.4 million passenger trips and moved 198,000 tons of cargo in February, representing decreases of 13.7 percent and 19.7 percent from the same month of 2008 respectively. Year-on- year, aircraft movements declined 10.5 percent to 21,235, said the HKIA in a press released Sunday.

Both local resident and visitor traffic were weak during the month. The number of local travelers declined over 20 percent from February 2008, mainly because the Chinese New Year travel peak fell in January this year whereas the corresponding peak was in February last year. Visitor traffic also reported double-digit decreases.

On the cargo front, most of HKIA’s major markets continued to record double-digit decreases during the month. However, as manufacturing activities started to resume after the Chinese New Year holidays, the magnitude of the declines was smaller compared to January.

Stanley Hui Hon-chung, CEO of the Airport Authority, said “Both February’s statistics and the combined figures for the last two months show that air traffic volumes continue to suffer from the global economic downturn. It is unlikely that this downward trend will reverse in the short term when the world’s major economies remain in recession,”

“While decline in the total cargo volumes of January and February was less severe than the previous months, it is too early to suggest that the air cargo market has stabilized.” he added.

On a rolling 12-month basis, cargo throughput decreased 7.5 percent year-on-year to 3.5 million tons. While passenger volume dropped slightly by 1.0 percent to 48 million, air traffic movements rose marginally by 0.1 percent, to 298,190.

Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister, Tuesday witnessed British cyclists setting a historic record for his nation at the Laoshan Velodrome, by pocketing the last two golds in cycling track at the Beijing Olympic Games.

Chris Hoy, a cycling talent, finished his hat trick at the Beijing Olympics, bagging his third personal gold and the seventh for Britain here Tuesday, beating his teammate Jason Kenny 2-0 in the final of men’s sprint.

The 32-year-old cyclist became the first Briton in 100 years to win three golds at the same Olympics, after clinching men’s keirin gold and led the British team to win men’s team sprint title.

“A year ago, I couldn’t have believed it. It’s such an achievement,” said Hoy who claimed himself to be a wreck as he let his emotion come out at the end. “It could be the hardest race in my life probably.”

Twenty minutes earlier, his compatriot Victoria Pentelon took the gold of the women’s sprint, beating Anna Meares from Australia 2-0 in the final.

Since finishing ninth in the event at the Athens Games, the 28-year-old cyclist has won world championship titles in 2005, 2007 and 2008, and finished runner-up in 2006.

In the event, China’s hopeful Guo Shuang failed to make a breakthrough for China due to a crash and a relegation in the semi-final against Meares.

Falling off her bike in the deciding race in the semi-final, Guo bravely stood up to compete. She almost saw the chance to enter the final after beating the Australian, but the Chinese illegally maneuvered Meares out of the way and was thus relegated into the bronze medal contest.

In the bronze medal race, She beat Willy Kanis from the Netherlands 2-0 to stand on the medals podium, living up to her expectation to win the first cycling medal for the host at the Games.

Britain’s gold haul at the Laoshan Velodrome, however, was stopped by two Argentines, who clinched the gold in the men’s madison race.

Juan Esteban Curuchet and Walter Fernando Perez burst into ecstatic tears after winning the first cycling gold for Argentina in the exhausting 50-kilometer race and held their national flag along the track, where they achieved the most glamorous glory in their career.

“I’ve been in the Olympics since 1984, and this is the best moment of my life,” said 43-year-old Curuchet in emotion. “After 20 minutes in the race, I was sick. I was extremely tired.”

While his partner Perez dedicated the gold medal to his mother who died last year.

“It’s unbelievable. It’s a dream come true,” said Perez. “I want to thank my wife and children. This gold medal is a gift for them.”

Pre-games favorites Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins didn’t continue the gold rush trend of Britain in cycling track, finishing the race at an awkward No.9 place among total 16 teams.

After all the races at the Laoshan Velodrome finished Tuesday, the British cyclists who bagged seven golds out of ten, three silvers and three bronzes, vastly helped their nation to be seated at the third place on overall medal tally with 15 golds.

On the success, Hoy said it had been coming over the years.

“We come here and the whole team has performed at its very best,” he exclaimed. “It’s been perfect.”