www.nytimes.com PEAPACK, N.J., Jan. 23 (Bloomberg News) By BLOOMBERG NEWS

EAPACK, N.J., Jan. 23 (Bloomberg News) — The Pharmacia Corporation said today that it would test a program to give its patents to generic-drug producers to help people in poor countries receive better access to medicine.

A vice president at Pharmacia, Michael Friedman, is expected to announce the proposal on Friday in Davos, Switzerland.

A Pharmacia spokeswoman, Debra Charlesworth, said: "We see this as something to address a disease prevalent in the developing world. We're piloting a specific medicine for a specific disease."

Ms. Charlesworth said drug makers have been under pressure to give or discount medicines to treat the H.I.V. and AIDS in Africa.

Pharmacia does not sell any treatments for H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, according to a list of products on its Web site. Ms. Charlesworth declined to disclose the drug involved in the program.

Pharmacia has been working with Harvard University and the International Dispensary Foundation, the world's largest nonprofit supplier of drugs.

Mr. Friedman, with Amir Attaran of Harvard and Henk den Besten of the foundation, wrote an article in The Lancet, the British medical journal, arguing that drug makers should hand over patent rights to generic producers to help meet needs in poor countries.

The authors said giving away patent rights would not harm drug makers because the developing world accounts for only 5.1 percent of the global market.

"In appropriate circumstances, pharmaceutical patent holders should award voluntary licenses to generic manufacturers who agree to manufacture and supply medicines to poor, developing countries," the group wrote. In that category, 78 countries and 3.8 billion people.

The United States was alone in blocking a World Trade Organization accord last month aimed at letting developing countries without a drug industry violate patents. The plan would have allowed countries to import generic copies from makers in Brazil, India and elsewhere.

The proposal was tailored for medicines to treat AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria or other epidemics. The United States opposed the measure, saying it might lead to generic companies bypassing patents on other medicines.

www.charlotte.com Posted on Sat, Jan. 25, 2003 TRUDY RUBIN KNIGHT RIDDER

DAVOS, Switzerland - The annual gathering of the world's top economic and political leaders at the World Economic Forum in this Alpine village mirrors the mood of the powerful.

To say they view the future with foreboding would be an understatement.

In the late '90s, Americans were giddy over the soaring stock market and Europeans over the introduction of the euro. They grew high anticipating the miracles of a dot-com economy. With a brief blip of concern over the Asian financial crash of 1997, most years were upbeat -- until the dot-com crash decimated the markets and al-Qaeda destroyed the twin towers.

But even last year, when the conference moved temporarily to New York City, the mood was optimistic. The revelations about Enron cast a shadow, but the we-will-rise-again aura was encapsulated by a gala soiree on the stock market floor a couple of blocks from ground zero.

This year is different. During 2002 one corporation after another was tarnished by scandal, the U.S. economy has barely recovered, and an Iraq war looms. The tone of this year's Davos is somber.

The theme of this year's meeting is "Building Trust," trust in business and politics and even religion. A recent global public opinion survey conducted by the forum showed 48 percent of those surveyed in 15 countries had little or no trust in global companies and 51 percent felt the same about their parliaments or congresses.

So this year's Davos includes such mea culpa panels as "Understanding the Loss of Political Trust" and "The Dot-com Boom: How Did We Get It So Wrong?"

What's most striking about Davos 2003, however, is that there are no bright spots. In years past Davos leaders would at least have trusted the U.S. economy to pull the world out of its economic doldrums, as it did during the Asian crisis.

This year there are no star countries or regions. The United States is still the 800-pound economic guerrilla.

But leading economists here are uneasy about the economic impact of an Iraq war, at a time of growing U.S. trade and fiscal deficits.

Once upon a time, Davos delegates waited for Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton's treasury secretary, to take the stage as if he were the leader of a rock band. This year, they are waiting for Secretary of State Colin Powell with trepidation, looking for hints about whether there will be an Iraq war. (Bill C. himself, who's coming as a private citizen, will probably get a warm welcome.)

Europeans, meanwhile, are sulking, as Germans and Italians wrestle with no-growth economies (ditto for Japan). No top European leaders even came to Davos this year. Perhaps the French and Germans didn't want to spread discord at Davos by publicly airing their grievances with the Bush team over Iraq.

There always has been friendly rivalry here between Europeans and Americans, even some sniping. But this year, European public opinion is so hostile to American policies that hours of Davos sessions are devoted to how to bridge the continental divide and how to deal with "American omnipotence."

In this conference of mega-capitalists, the world leaders getting biggest billing at Davos are the new leftist leader of Brazil, "Lula" da Silva, and the new neo-Islamist leaders of Turkey. The economy that is getting the most compliments is the People's Republic of China.

There is a palpable sense that the world is heading toward great uncertainty. In past years, Davos always prided itself on holding sessions that brought warring parties together in highly publicized peace efforts -- Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres in the old days, Balkan leaders during the Bosnia crisis.

Peres is back, but is meeting only with a minister of the Palestinian Authority, which Israel's government has virtually dismantled. Eight Iraqi opposition leaders are being given a total of 35 minutes to explain how they could bring democracy to post-Saddam Iraq.

No one is certain whom to trust, not George W. Bush, not European leaders, not international institutions like the United Nations that don't have real power. So the subject matter at Davos this year is right on the money.

It reflects a world whose economic and political leaders are groping in the dark.

Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Readers may write to her at: Philadelphia Inquirer, P.O. Box 8263, Philadelphia, Pa. 19101, or by e-mail at trubinphillynews.com.

www.agi.it

FAZIO: CRISIS "OVERCOME" IN LATIN AMERICA, BACKS LULA (AGI) - Agrigento, Italy, Jan 25 - The crisis in Latin America is of great concern to the governor of the Bank of Italy, Antonio Fazio. During his speech at the Forex convention in Agrigento he expressed some optimism, saying that Argentina had "got over the critical phase" and endorsed the new Brazilian leader, Ignacio Lula da Silva.

   "In Brazil the reduction in political and institutional uncertainty has already had a positive effect on the currency and long-term interest rates," he said. "This is making the prospect of the central bank becoming fully independent from the government set-up ever more likely". In Argentina, added the governor, "awareness of a new structure for the central bank could help them find a monetary equilibrium after the bad experience they had with their currency board". Giving the thumbs-down, as always, to anchoring it to the dollar, Fazio explained that "the currency devaluation created conditions for competition on the international market". Furthermore, "the re-worded agreement with the International Monetary Fund shows that the most critical phase is over". (AGI)

ASSOCIATED PRESS Jan. 25 — Traffic on the many parts of the Internet slowed dramatically for hours early Saturday, the apparent effects of a quick-spreading, virus-like infection that overwhelmed the world’s digital pipelines and interfered with Web browsing and delivery of e-mail.

The virus-like attack sought out vulnerable computers on the Internet to infect using a known flaw in popular database software from Microsoft Corp., called ‘SQL Server 2000.’

SITES MONITORING the health of the Internet reported significant slowdowns globally. Experts said the electronic attack bore remarkable similarities to the “Code Red” virus during the summer of 2001 which also ground traffic to a halt on much of the Internet.

It’s not debilitating,” said Howard Schmidt, President Bush’s No. 2 cyber-security adviser. “Everybody seems to be getting it under control.” Schmidt said the FBI’s National Infrastructure Protection Center and private experts at the CERT Coordination Center were monitoring the attacks.

The virus-like attack, which began about 12:30 a.m. ET, sought out vulnerable computers on the Internet to infect using a known flaw in popular database software from Microsoft Corp., called “SQL Server 2000.” But the attacking software code was scanning for victim computers so randomly and so aggressively — sending out thousands of probes each second — that it overwhelmed many Internet data pipelines.

‘LIKE CODE RED ALL OVER AGAIN’ This is like Code Red all over again,” said Marc Maiffret, an executive with eEye Digital Security, whose engineers were among the earliest to study samples of the attack software. “The sheer number of attacks is eating up so much bandwidth that normal operations can’t take place.”

The impact of this worm was huge,” agreed Ben Koshy of W3 International Media Ltd., which operates thousands of Web sites from its computers in Vancouver. “It’s a very significant attack.”

Koshy added that, about six hours after the attack, commercial Web sites that had been overwhelmed were starting to come back online as engineers began effectively blocking the malicious data traffic.

People are recovering from it,” Koshy said.

22,000 SYSTEMS AFFECTED Symantec Corp., an antivirus vendor, estimated that at least 22,000 systems were affected worldwide.

Traffic itself seems to have leveled off a little bit, so likely only so many systems are exposed out there,” said Oliver Friedrichs, senior manager with Symantec Security Response. The attacking software, technically known as a worm, was overwhelming Internet traffic-directing devices known as routers.

The Internet is still usable, but we’re definitely receiving reports from some of our customers who have had it affect their routers specifically,” Friedrichs said.

The attack sought to take advantage of a software flaw discovered by researchers in July 2002 that permits hackers to seize control of corporate database servers. Microsoft deemed the problem “critical” and offered a free repairing patch, but it was impossible to know how many computer administrators applied the fix.

People need to do a better job about fixing vulnerabilities,” Schmidt said.

The latest attack was likely to revive debate within the technology industry about the need for an Internet-wide monitoring center, which the Bush administration has proposed. Some Internet industry executives and lawyers said they would raise serious civil liberties concerns if the U.S. government, not an industry consortium, operated such a powerful monitoring center.

www.cnn.com

grc.com

www.forbes.com Jonathan Fahey

People want powerful engines and big vehicles. But there are those pesky regulations that require a certain, albeit low, fuel economy, not to mention rules capping the emission of smog-causing gases and particulates. And now there's unrest in the Middle East and Venezuela that's sending oil prices skyward.

Then there's the chatter at home about the politics of guzzling a natural resource we don't have much of. On top of that, California regulators may actually toughen environmental rules.

What's an automaker to do?

Find a new engine, apparently. Each company is assuming fuel-cell engines, which run on hydrogen, will be a commercial reality in 15 years or so. In the meantime, companies are also assuming they will need fuel-efficient engines that will not sacrifice power but bridge the gap between today's thirsty vehicles and tomorrow's fuel cells.

Some are looking at diesel engines, which is not exactly new technology at more than 100 years old, but one that has been mostly absent from the car and SUV market in the U.S. for 20 years or so. Diesel can be 30% more fuel efficient than gasoline. Others are looking at gasoline-electric hybrids, which use battery systems combined with traditional internal combustion engines to boost fuel economy 10% to 50%.

Not surprisingly, each carmaker wants the engine they are best at making to be the people's choice, and they are jockeying for position.

Japanese carmakers say hybrid-electric engines are the answer. Why? Because they know how to make them: Japanese environmental policy and driving conditions favor small cars with small hybrid engines, so Toyota (nyse: TM - news - people ) and Honda (nyse: HMC - news - people ) already sell tens of thousands of hybrids, the only makers to do so.

In January, Toyota showed off a hybrid Lexus SUV that uses the battery-powered electric motor like a turbocharger. The gas mileage: Toyota says somewhere in the mid-30-miles-per-gallon range. European makers say the answer is obviously diesel. Why? Because environmental regulations and fuel prices favor diesels in Europe. Nearly one-third of the cars sold there are diesels, and the Europeans make great, peppy, quiet and relatively clean ones.

Next year DaimlerChrysler (nyse: DCX - news - people ) will introduce a diesel Jeep Liberty and a diesel Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan. Volkswagen already sells diesel Golfs, Jettas and Passats in the U.S.

That leaves North American makers stuck in the middle. "Both sides want to push their home solutions on the U.S.," says Larry Burns, vice president for planning, research and development at General Motors (nyse: GM - news - people ). "We need our own solution."

Ford Motor (nyse: F - news - people ) will offer a hybrid version of its Escape small SUV early next year, but the company's sales targets are modest, about 20,000 per year. "It could turn out to be like the electric vehicle," says Steve Lyons, president of the Ford Division. "People might say: 'That's a great idea, my neighbor should buy that car.'"

Ford's chief operation officer, Nick Sheele, a Briton who recently ran Ford of Europe, would prefer to bring the diesel engines sold in Europe to the States.

To GM's Burns, diesels don't make so much sense: "It's risky to put capital on the table for a technology that may be obsolete in 10 or 15 years," he says. GM announced last month a sweeping plan to offer various types of hybrids across as many as a dozen models. Some of GM's hybrids will use simple batteries that boost fuel economy a modest 12%, others will use large, complex batteries that provide a 50% savings. Many of the components used in gasoline-electric hybrids will later be used in fuel-cell powertrains.

Both diesel and hybrid engines share a cost problem: Both are more expensive for manufacturers and car buyers. With car prices falling and automaker margins already thin, extra cost is not welcome. Depending on the type of system, hybrids add between $1,000 and $5,000 in cost to the manufacturer, mainly for the battery and electric motors. Diesel engines are more expensive than gasoline engines to start with, and then they require turbochargers to match the pep of gasoline as well as special equipment to reduce emissions.

With some of the lowest gasoline prices in the world, there is little incentive for U.S. car buyers to pay more for fuel-efficient engines, it would take them several years to offset the expense with lower fuel costs. Jim Press, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Toyota Motor Sales, believes buyers are beginning to care more about the environment and that they are going to do something about it. "There's an awareness that is awakening in the soul of America," he says. With SUV sales setting new records every month, and the overall mileage per gallon down 10% from its 1987 peak, the awakening seems lazy so far.

Diesel has yet another problem. Though it gets better fuel economy and emits less greenhouse gases, it produces more carcinogenic particulates and smog-causing nitrous oxide. U.S. standards governing those kinds of are scheduled to get tougher by 2007. No automaker has yet to build a car that could meet those standards.

The reason: the amount of sulfur in diesel fuel. In order for automakers to meet emission standards, it needs oil companies to produce low-sulfur diesel, something the oil companies have been reluctant to do. This has put carmakers and oil companies--natural allies--at loggerheads. "When we ask petroleum companies to get sulfur out of fuel, they say 'the sky is falling,'" complains Burns. "We've got to get them to play a little more proactively here."

By 2006 they will be required to sell low-sulfur diesel, but the levels will still not be as low as they will be in Europe and not low enough to allow carmakers to meet the 2007 emissions standards.

With all of these variables--consumer demand, oil prices, engine costs and a government that will seemingly do anything to keep oil prices low--the prospects for any of these technologies are dim. We may just continue down the path we're on: using more and more gasoline in bigger and bigger cars.