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China began Friday delivering equipment worth 20 million yuan (2.9 million U.S.dollars) to Russia to help fight a series of menacing fires, according to the Ministry of Commerce (MOC).

The equipment included 2,000 gas masks, 4,000 gas mask canisters, 1,400 fire-fighting uniforms, and 900 breathing apparatuses.

It also comprised 200 air tanks, 52 extinguishers, 40 sets of fire extinguishing systems and 10 field service compressors, said the MOC in a brief statement on its website.

The Chinese government announced on Aug. 11 that it would donate 1 million U.S. dollars and offer humanitarian aid worth 20 million yuan to help Russia cope with fallout from wildfires.

The raging peat-bog fires are reported to have killed 53 people and left 3,500 people homeless in Russia.

The boundaries of Canada’s claim to the Arctic continental shelf will ultimately depend on the results of underwater mapping of the North American continental shelf, Canada’s foreign minister said Friday.

At a news conference called by the Canadian government to announce its new Arctic policy, Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon admitted that the extent of the continental shelf is still not known.

He said Canada will know the strength of its claim to a large area of seabed once the mapping, which is being done by United States and Canadian vessels operating in the Beaufort Sea, is complete.

Cannon said he expects the survey to be finished in time to meet the 2013 deadline set by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

“I have never seen a map up to now that will indicate to you .. . where the extended continental shelf is. I didn’t see it. Nobody has seen it. We’re doing it. This is work in progress,” Cannon said.

Both Russia and Canada claim the North Pole. Moscow says the underwater Lomonosov Ridge, which extends under the North Pole towards Canada, is actually a geological extension of Russia’s Siberian continental plate, thus allowing Russia to lay claim to part of the region that Canada claims.

Canada claims the archipelago north of the North American mainland, along with the waterways between the islands, a 200 mile economic zone and the continental shelf seabed.

The United States and several other major powers argue that the Northwest Passage, the straights between the Arctic islands, should be an international waterway, similar to the Strait of Good Hope and the Straits of Hormuz.

Should global warming continue, ships may eventually be able to use the Northwest Passage year-round, cutting the shipping distance between North East Asia and the U.S. Atlantic coast by about 6,000 kilometers.

Cannon said decisions on the future of the Arctic will be made by the eight-member Arctic Council, consisting only of countries that border on the Arctic Ocean.

At the news conference, Cannon said Canada will work to strengthen the Arctic Council, so that it can “set the agenda” for cooperation on sustainable development in the Arctic. In early September, he will be traveling to Norway, Finland and Russia to meet with his counterparts in those countries to discuss Arctic issues.

Polls opened Saturday morning for Australia’s federal elections for the 43rd Parliament amidst a poll-suggestion that Prime Minister Julia Gillard led Labor Party is running neck-and-neck with Tony Abbott led Coalition.

More than 14 million people are enrolled to vote to choose from 1,198 candidates for all the 150 seats in the House of Representatives and 40 of the 76-member Senate.

Polling stations, which opened at 8 a.m. (AEST) on Saturday ( 2200 GMT Friday), have been set up at 7,700 locations which have stockpiled 43 million ballot papers and will be supervised by some 70,000 temporary electoral staff.

According to Australian Associated Press, this year’s election has been the tightest one in decades.

A Nielsen poll, published in News Ltd papers on Saturday, showed Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s Labor government ahead of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s coalition on a two-party-preferred basis by 50.2 percent to 49.8 percent.

The opposition party needs to win 17 additional seats in the House of Representatives to beat the Labor Party and form a majority government.

This will be only the second August election in 109 years of Australian Federation. The last time was exactly 67 years ago on Aug. 21, 1943, when former prime minister John Curtin was elected during World War II.

Oil prices continued to slide on Friday as a sell-off in stocks and a strengthening dollar weighed on the energy commodities.

The U.S. Economic Cycle Research Institute said on Friday that its index for future economic growth fell to a 3-week low last week.

Stocks remained weak with very light trading volume. Fears about a slowing recovery triggered risk aversion in the market, which sent the dollar rising against the euro and the sterling pound. Usually a strong greenback would limit energy commodities’ appeal as an alternative investment.

Light, sweet crude for September delivery fell 97 cents to settle at 73.46 U.S. dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Brent crude for October delivery fell one dollar to 74.30 dollars a barrel on the International Futures Exchange in London.

Wall Street traded mixed on Friday with light trading volumes after a heavy sell-off on Thursday.

Market sentiment was battered after the latest batch of economic data provided further evidence that the economic growth was slowing.

The U.S. Labor Department said on Thursday that the number of U. S. workers filing for jobless claims jumped 12,000 to 500,000 in the week ended Aug. 14, the highest level in nine months. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia announced a surprise decline in regional manufacturing activity.

The U.S. stocks tumbled with the Dow Jones average dropping more than 140 points on Thursday on dismal economic data.

With no economic data rolling out on Friday, investors found little reason to buy in the market before the weekend.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 57.59 points, or 0.56 percent, to 10,213.62. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 3.94 points, or 0.37 percent, to 1,071.69 and the Nasdaq was up 0.81 points, or 0.04 percent, to 2,179.76.

On currency front, the euro dropped against the U.S. dollar after European Central Bank Governing Council member Axel Weber said the bank should extend its loose monetary stance. The euro slid to 1.2711 dollars from 1.2824 on Thursday.

Russia’s economic growth was the slowest among the BRIC countries, which also groups China, Brazil and India, Moscow’s Vedomosti daily reported Friday.

According to Russia’s statistical agency Rosstat, Russian gross domestic product (GDP) rose in the second quarter of 2010 by only 5.2 percent year-on-year, while China’s GDP rose by 10.3 percent, India’s by 8.9 percent and Brazil’s by 11.3 percent.

However, over the period, the Russian economy grew faster than the United States (3.2 percent), Japan (1.9 percent), Germany (3.7 percent) and France (1.7 percent), the newspaper reported.

The latest global crisis hurt Russia not solely due to a drop in oil prices in 2009 but as a result of a late anti-crisis response by the government, a poor investment climate and bad macro-management, experts said.

France is on track to meet its forecast economic growth of 1.4 percent growth this year after registering positive economic indicators, the Elysee presidential office said Friday.

“Given the rebound in economic activities, the objective of a 1.4 percent growth will be reached or exceeded for the whole year of 2010,” the office said in a statement.

Growth in Europe’s second biggest economy rose by 0.6 percent in the second quarter this year from 0.2 percent in the first quarter thanks to a lift in household expenditure and buoyant investment.

The economic growth helped the country create 35,000 new jobs over the period versus 23,900 jobs during the first quarter.

“These (results) allow us to forecast a two-percent growth rate in 2011,” the statement said.

France is facing a widening budget deficit and working hard to narrow its ratio to gross domestic product to 8 percent this year and to 6 percent in 2011 by cutting public spending.

“Narrowing the public deficit … remains a major target of the country whatever the growth level,” President Nicolas Sarkozy has said.

“Reducing the deficit must be achieved by reducing public spending by priority. Neither the income tax nor tax on companies will be increased,” he said.

The government also expected to remove 10 billion euros (12.6 billion U.S. dollars) in tax loopholes in the autumn. Operating spending and state intervention will fall by 10 percent by 2013 from 5 percent in 2011.

In a move to strengthen its online business, the world’s largest chip-maker Intel Corp. on Thursday announced that it has agreed to buy computer security company McAfee Inc. for about 7.68 billion U.S. dollars.

The deal have been approved by boards of directors of both companies and is expected to close pending regulatory and other conditions, according to Intel.

Intel noted that the purchase reflects that security is now a fundamental component of online computing.

“With the rapid expansion of growth across a vast array of Internet-connected devices, more and more of the elements of our lives have moved online,” Paul Otellini, Intel’s president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.

“In the past, energy-efficient performance and connectivity have defined computing requirements. Looking forward, security will join those as a third pillar of what people demand from all computing experiences,” he added.

McAfee, founded in 1987 and headquartered in Santa Clara in the U.S. state of California, is billed as the world’s largest dedicated security technology company.

McAfee is expected to become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intel, reporting into Intel’s Software and Services Group.

China and Switzerland on Friday agreed to start free trade agreement (FTA) talks, as the two states celebrate their 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties.

Chinese President Hu Jintao and his Swiss counterpart, Doris Leuthard, witnessed the signing of the memorandum of understanding on finishing the FTA feasibility study that was started in 2009.

The two states will begin FTA talks as soon as possible, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in a statement.

As one of the first Western countries to forge diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, Switzerland has become China’s major trade partner in Europe.

“Facing new opportunities, China-Switzerland relations are at a new starting point,” Hu told Leuthard during their 30-minute meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

President Hu hailed the development of bilateral relations and pledged to further expand political trust and trade and economic cooperation.

Leuthard conveyed her nation’s condolences to China over the series of natural disasters the country has suffered recently.

Leuthard also said Switzerland will stick to the one-China policy.

In China for a working visit, Leuthard also said the two states should boost cooperation in finance, education, culture, environmental protection, tourism and on international affairs.

The timetable of U.S. troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan will be driven by situation on the ground, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan said in an interview to be aired over the weekend.

David Petraeus, the four-star general recently installed to take over the Afghanistan war, told NBC’s David Gregory that President Barack Obama has made clear he wants the best military advice possible concerning the drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

“Certainly, I am aware of the context within which I offer that advice,” Petraeus said. “But that just informs the advice; it doesn’t drive it. The situation on the ground drives it.”

Obama has set July 2011 as a deadline to begin withdrawing troops. Petraeus said the challenge now is to demonstrate signs of progress, according to excerpts of the interview released by NBC on Friday. The interview will be broadcast on Sunday on “Meet the Press.”

“I think our job is again to show those in Washington that there is progress being made,” Petraeus said. “To do that, we’ve got to build on the progress that has been established so far, because there is certainly nothing like irreversible momentum.”

Petraeus, who previously served as head of the U.S. Central Command, assumed command of U.S. Forces Afghanistan and the NATO- led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan last month.