Delegates meeting in Kobe, Japan negotiated into Thursday night and were expected to have another late evening to seal a deal before the five-day conference of 150 countries closes at the start of the weekend.

People with access to the session said the biggest issue was sorted out: the United Nations would take the lead in building a tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean.

But one difference reported to remain was how specific the language of the final document should be.

One Western diplomat said that most countries hit by the tsunamis had hurriedly sent delegations to Kobe and were concerned about being forced by donor countries to make financial commitments.

Another issue reported to remain was how to address climate change, according to diplomats.

The United States, which has rejected the Kyoto protocol which requires gas emission cuts, had gone on record opposing references to global warming in the final declaration, saying the meet should avoid the controversial issue.

But John Sparrow of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which is lobbying for the meet to approve concrete measures, said a compromise seemed to have been reached not to stress climate change.

"I think what we're seeing is that this is a humanitarian conference and that the political issues don't need to be discussed here," Sparrow said.

"The fact is that we're seeing extreme climate and that measures need to be in place. That's the end of the story," he said.

Sparrow said a greater sticking point in negotiations was that "the heads of some states are hesitant to commit to targets."

Salvano Briceno, head of the UN disaster reduction group leading the conference, indicated Thursday that a compromise had been reached with climate change to be mentioned only once.

Briceno said there was broad agreement for the United Nations to be in charge of building a tsunami early warning system amid competing proposals from donor nations to put their technology to work in the Indian Ocean.

He said work could begin to get the system running in 12 to 18 months with more than eight million dollars pledged by donors for the project -- half of it from Japan.

Delegates here have pledged that the project would only form part of the long-term effort to have a reliable global system to forewarn and reduce risks in all kinds of natural disasters.

Japan and Germany have both been promoting their own technology to predict Indian Ocean tsunamis. The United States, which has a tsunami research center in Hawaii, has called for the Pacific system to be extended to the Indian Ocean, while Australia has said the system should build on existing resources in the region.

India, the third worst-hit tsunami country, has meanwhile stressed that it is already at work on a tsunami warning system and said it was ready to share with its neighbors.

The world has responded with outrage that Indian Ocean countries had no prior warning when giant waves smashed into their coastlines on December 26, killing nearly a quarter of a million people.

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