GEORGETOWN, Oct 14, 2007 (AFP) - Glabal warming and its devastating effect of the environment will top the agenda of a two-day meeting of Commonwealth finance ministers that opens here Monday.

Ransford Smith, deputy secretary general of the 53-nation organization, said the international community needs to balance economic growth with the use of new and clean technologies because climate change would adversely impact on agriculture outputs in many developing countries, as well as employment patters and populations shifts.

ISLAMABAD, Sept 20, 2007 (AFP) - Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon said Thursday that the announcement of a date for President Pervez Musharraf to seek re-election showed democratic progress in Pakistan.

But McKinnon added that the 53-nation club of mainly former British colonies expected the Pakistani military ruler to quit as army chief by the end of the year.

FREETOWN, Sept 3, 2007 (AFP) - The Commonwealth secretary-general Don McKinnon on Monday called on political players in Sierra Leone to rise above partisan interests after tje pre-poll unrest that left scores wounded.

The west African country, which only six years ago emerged from one of Africa's most brutal civil wars, goes to the polls on Saturday to pick a new president in an election run-off.

LONDON, July 24, 2007 (AFP) - Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip are due to visit the Mediterranean island of Malta, where they lived as a young couple, in November when they celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary.

Their trip to Malta comes on their way to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM) in Uganda that begins on November 23, a spokeswoman at Buckingham Palace, the royal couple`s residence in London.