LIMA - The Peruvian government signed an agreement with Canadian Commercial Corporation, a governmental entity, to build three sewage treatment plants in the capital for a cost of 350 million dollars.

A mere five percent of wastewater in Lima, home to eight million people, is treated before being dumped into the sea. The result is highly polluted ecosystems at the dump points.

The initiative is to begin with the construction of the San Bartolo sewage plant, which alone will boost the capital's wastewater treatment coverage to 23 percent.

NEW DELHI - North-South tensions heightened once again during an international conference on climate change, where the developing countries members of the Group of 77, plus China, insisted that they should not have to make the same commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions -- the cause of global warming -- as industrialized countries.

The prime minister of India, the host country to the 8th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which ended Nov 1, said developing countries "produce just a small fraction" of the greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, and have more urgent problems to resolve first, such as poverty and hunger.

But the European Union insisted that the developing world should begin to discuss measures for reducing emissions before 2005, as is stipulated in the Kyoto Protocol of the Convention. "Time is running out," said Steen Gade, the Danish national who was head of the European delegation to the meet.

According to the Kyoto Protocol, which has yet to enter into force and is opposed by the United States, the industrialized world must curb emissions by 2012 to 5.2 percent below its 1990 levels. And although the document does not set reduction targets for developing countries, it does stipulate discussion of the matter.

BUENOS AIRES - Argentina's social tragedy is deepening, evidenced by the fact that extreme poverty now affects nine million people, more than a quarter of the population of 35.2 million, according to a new study by the Economy Ministry.

The Argentine government defines as indigent a four-person family whose income is below 90 dollars, the monthly cost of the "basic food basket", the minimum considered necessary to cover nutritional needs.

In Buenos Aires and surrounding areas, home to more than 12 million Argentines, the critically indigent -- those who live on less than 63 dollars a month -- make up 73 percent of the extremely poor population.

TEGUCIGALPA - The Honduran Congress has begun a broad consultation process with various sectors of society, with sights on passing a forestry law by the end of the year.

Through its 171 articles, the legislative bill would regulate the use, management and protection of the forest's natural resources and give environmental groups a greater role in decision-making.

Official figures indicate that Honduras loses 80,000 hectares of forest annually. Three-quarters of the nation's territory is naturally conducive to forests, while the remaining quarter is used for agriculture.

Environmentalists are demanding that the new forestry law be adopted as a priority government policy.

SAN SALVADOR - Salvadoran engineer René Núñez-Suárez received in New Delhi the individual prize of the Climate Technology Initiative (CTI) for the "turbo-oven", a process of low-temperature combustion that reduces greenhouse gas emissions, like carbon dioxide, associated with the burning of fuels.

The design entails a stainless steel cylinder with 10 air injectors, an internal ventilator and an air-regulating plate. With electricity and five 10-cm pieces of wood, it generates enough heat to cook meals three times a day.

The "turbo-oven" demonstrated a significant reduction in the consumption of wood compared to the traditional ovens based on fire alone.