What We’re Reading 11/4/09

Nov 4th, 2009 1:45 PM UTC
By Robyn Mitchell

The Guardian: African nations make a stand at UN climate talks
African countries have said they are prepared to provoke a major UN crisis if the US and other rich countries do not start to urgently commit themselves to deeper and faster greenhouse gas emission cuts. The move by developing countries reflects “their deep and growing frustration over the slow progress that industrialized countries are making towards agreeing cuts.” According to the Guardian, this week’s UN negotiations in Barcelona are shedding light on the growing split between rich and poor countries, which threatens to blow the talks fatally off course.

The Guardian: US puts climate debate on hold for five weeks despite plea by Merkel
In the latest obstacle on the road to the UN summit in Copenhagen next month, the US Congress ruled out passing a climate change law before 2010. The delay caused a last-minute push by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, who have repeatedly said US legislation is crucial to a deal on global warming. According to the Guardian, Merkel used a historic address to a joint session of Congress today to urge America to act on climate change, stating that success at Copenhagen rested on the willingness of all countries to accept binding reductions in carbon emissions.

The Christian Science Monitor: Is fight against hunger a matter of security?
Kanayo Nwanze, the new head of the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development is bringing increased attention to hunger and food insecurity as an international security issue, a dimension that is raising new interest in tackling the matter. Rural hunger and food security are increasingly cropping up in venues ranging from the US Congress to G8 summits. According to Nwanze, it is the emergence of food as an international security issue that raises the odds that “the international community will help developing countries come up with sustainable answers to food production challenges.”

Reuters: Only 15 pct of G8 food aid pledge is new-sources
Reuters reports that only $3 billion of the $20 billion promised by a G8 summit over the next three years to boost agriculture in poor countries appears to be new money. According to one diplomat, “In the $20 billion figure people have included all sorts of things, double counting stuff, putting in loans and grants: the real new money is $3 billion at best.” Despite the announcement of increased investment at the G8 meeting in Italy last summer, anti-poverty campaigners warned that the pledges announced by rich countries were proving elusive.

Reuters: Brazil, others squeeze China in scramble for Africa
Though China has now eclipsed the United States as Africa’s biggest trading partner, they are by no means the only country involved in what Reuters is calling the “21st century scramble for Africa.” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has visited the continent six times in his four years in office and the country has increased its trade with Africa from $3.1 billion in 2000 to $26.3 billion last year. However, according to Reuters, it is not only Brazil and China that are muscling in on Africa. “The two other members of the so-called BRICs grouping — India and Russia — are also setting up stall in a region that for generations European powers regarded as their own back yard.”

Daily Nation: Kenya: Locally-Growing Moringa Tree Key in Fight Against Malaria
A malaria treatment derived from a locally-growing Kenyan shrub is one of only a few herbal cures being presented at an international conference in Nairobi this week. The tree is competing alongside malaria medicines developed by some of the world’s best scientists with the backing of global pharmaceutical giants. In a presentation at the Pan- African Malaria Conference, the tree extract, in combination with other herbs, has been seen to cure even drug-resistant malaria and has been endorsed after trials by the World Health Organization, according to a researcher at the National Research Institute for Chemical Technology in Nigeria.

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