Merkel proposes UN economic body |
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel has proposed the creation of a United Nations Economic Council modelled on the UN Security Council. In a speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, she called for the adoption of a post-crisis global economic charter. The charter would be based on sustainable economics and the Economic Council would oversee markets. It is an idea that Mrs Merkel has advocated previously. “All of these issues… need to be enshrined in a charter for the global economic order,” she said. “This may even lead to a UN Economic Council, just as the Security Council was created after World War II.” The idea of creating a UN Economic Council was proposed by Mrs Merkel when she met French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris earlier this month. |
January 31, 2009
Merkel proposes UN economic body
September 17, 2008
Norway joins fight to save Amazon
Norway joins fight to save Amazon
![]() Cattle ranching is blamed for up to 70% of current Amazon deforestation
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Norway has pledged $1bn (£500m) to a new international fund to help Brazil protect the Amazon rainforest.
The donation is the first to the fund which Brazil hopes will raise $21bn to protect Amazon nature reserves.
Norway’s prime minister said the project was important in the fight to reduce global warming.
Brazil is one of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, with three-quarters of its total coming from the burning of trees in the Amazon.
The money will be released over seven years to promote alternatives to forest-clearing for people living in the Amazon, and support conservation and sustainable development.
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The Amazon rainforest
![]() Largest continuous tropical forest
Shared by nine countries
65% Brazilian territory
Covers 6.6m sq km in total
Pop: 30m – 23.5m are in Brazil
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Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg said: “Efforts against deforestation may give us the largest, quickest and cheapest reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
“Brazilian efforts against deforestation are therefore of vital importance if we shall succeed in our campaign against global warming,” he added.
The Brazilian government wants to raise $21bn through foreign donors by 2021, although President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva has insisted that the Amazon’s preservation is Brazil’s responsibility.
He welcomed Norway’s pledge, saying: “The day that every developed country has the same attitude as Norway, we’ll certainly begin to trust that global warming can be diminished.”
Japan, Sweden, Germany, South Korea and Switzerland are said to be considering donating to the fund, which was launched last month.
September 14, 2008
Scores die in Russian plane crash
Scores die in Russian plane crash
A Russian airliner that crashed near a city in the Urals, killing all 88 people on board, caught fire and exploded in mid-air, reports say.
The Boeing-737-500, belonging to a branch of the national airline Aeroflot, was on a flight from Moscow to Perm, near the Ural mountains.
Twenty-one foreign passengers were on board the Aeroflot Nord flight.
Radio contact with the plane was lost as it was landing. One witness said it looked like a comet as it came down.
“It looked like a… burning comet. It hit the ground opposite the next house, there was a blaze, like fireworks, it lit the whole sky, the blaze,” the witness told Russian TV.
![]() One witness said the blaze lit up the whole sky
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The Boeing-737 had 82 passengers on board, including seven children, and six crew, Aeroflot said.
Those killed include Gen Gennady Troshev, a former commander of Russian forces in Chechnya and military adviser to former Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A spokesman for Russian federal prosecutors, Vladimir Markin, said a criminal inquiry had been launched to examine whether safety procedures had been violated.
Earlier, Mr Markin said the most likely cause of the crash was technical failure but Aeroflot says the plane had “a full technical inspection” early this year and was judged to be in a “proper condition”.
Aeroflot conducted its own investigation into the causes of the crash and, without giving details, announced it was stripping Aeroflot Nord of the right to use its name from Monday onwards.
‘Completely destroyed’
Contact with the plane was lost at 0521 Perm time on Sunday (2321 GMT Saturday) as the plane was coming in for landing at a height of 1,100 metres, Aeroflot said.
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The minister for security in the region said the plane had caught fire in the air at an altitude of 1,000 meters.
It crashed on the outskirts of Perm, just a few hundred meters from residential buildings, but no one was hurt on the ground.
Part of the Trans-Siberian railway was shut down as a result of damage to the main east-west train track and the blaze took two hours to extinguish.
The 21 foreigners killed were listed as nine people from Azerbaijan, five from Ukraine and one person each from France, Switzerland, Latvia, the United States, Germany, Turkey and Italy, Aeroflot said.
Investigators have recovered two black box recorders from the crash site. There was no immediate suggestion of an attack or sabotage.
Aeroflot’s managing director, Valery Okulov, told reporters in Moscow that his company had already conducted its own, private investigation into the crash and decided to sever ties with Aeroflot Nord.
“We have paid too high a price for lending out our flag,” he added.
Scorched earth
Correspondents say the tragedy will be a setback for Russian aviation, which has been trying to shake off a chequered safety record.
A woman in Perm told Vesti-24 TV how she was thrown out of bed by the force of the blast when the plane crashed.
She said: “My daughter ran in from the next room crying: ‘What happened? Has a war begun or what?’
“My neighbors, other witnesses, told me that it was burning in the air.”
Sunday’s accident was the deadliest involving a Russian airliner since 170 people died in August 2006 when a Tupolev-154 bound for St Petersburg crashed in Ukraine.
August 21, 2008
Gaddafi son retires from politics
Gaddafi son retires from politics
![]() Sayf al-Islam said he was not at odds with his father
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The son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has announced his retirement from political life.
Sayf al-Islam Gaddafi has been a leading proponent of reform through his charity, The Gaddafi Foundation.
He said he had been obliged to intervene politically, but this was no longer necessary, as Libya now had institutions and systems it had lacked.
He has previously denied reports he was being groomed to take power and said there was no rift with his father.
He has no official role in government but in the past four years he has come into the limelight internationally because of his interventions.
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![]() ![]() Sayf al-Islam Gaddafi
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In an hour-long televised speech, Sayf al-Islam Gaddafi took some credit for the rehabilitation of Libya’s reputation.
“I intervened extensively in everything: our foreign policy, in a lot of problems, in development, in housing. Because there were no institutions or an administrative system that were able to do so,” he told a crowd in the desert town of Sebha.
“But now the situation has changed and if I continue there will be a problem.”
He said the decision-making process should not be held in the hands of a few people and again urged the creation of more civil societies, an independent media and a judiciary enshrined in a new constitution.
These goals were the responsibility of all Libyans, he said, to a standing ovation in Sebha, where he was addressing a crowd of thousands of young supporters.
Sayf al-Islam is one of seven of Col Gaddafi’s sons.
The Libyan leader’s youngest son, Hannibal, has caused a diplomatic row with Switzerland after being charged with assaulting two of his servants last month.
Libya’s state shipping company halted oil shipments to Switzerland in protest.