They call it the Robin Hood tax — a tiny levy on trades in the financial markets that would take money from the banks and give it to the world’s poor.
And like the mythical hero of Sherwood Forest, it is beginning to capture the public’s imagination.
The world’s poorest countries have asked that talks on a new climate deal covering all nations begin immediately.
At the UN climate summit, the Least Developed Countries bloc and small island states tabled papers saying the deal should be finalised within a year.Many of them are vulnerable to climate impacts such as drought or inundation.
The move puts the blocs on a collision course not only with many rich nations, but also with developing world partners such as China, India and Brazil.
Nairobi, Kenya — A little over a week ago, aid workers in Somalia were cautiously celebrating news that half of the areas previously classified as most at risk had improved and were no longer “in famine.”
Europe is taking the toughest negotiating stand it has ever adopted on global warming. At this week’s UN climate talks in Durban, the bloc will depart from decades of “dovish” practice by insisting stiff conditions must be met by China and other developing countries if a global climate treaty is to be arranged.
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The officials from around the world who will gather in South Africa on Monday to convene the latest round of U.N. climate negotiations are facing an uncomfortable fact: The global pact that has dictated greenhouse-gas targets since 1997 may no longer be relevant.
The Obama administration’s strategy for countering al-Qaeda’s affiliate in war-torn Somalia is to train and finance African peacekeeping forces, strengthen security alliances with other countries in East Africa, and conduct drone missions from bases to the north, east and west. Read related article.
The Obama administration is intensifying its campaign against an al-Qaeda affiliate in Somalia by boosting the number of proxy forces in the war-torn country, expanding drone operations and strengthening military partnerships throughout the region.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which underwrites AIDS treatment for about half the people getting it in developing countries, announced Wednesday that it will make no new grants for the next two years because of the worldwide economic downturn.
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