The Guardian: Europe offers to cut emissions 95% by 2050 if deal reached at Copenhagen
Europe attempted to reassert its international leadership in the fight against global warming today, offering to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by up to 95% by 2050 and by 30% by 2020 if a climate change pact is sealed in Copenhagen. According to The Guardian, Britain, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands supported this view, believing that Europe had more to gain from seizing the leadership in the run-up to Copenhagen. However, Germany and Italy were reluctant to name a figure publicly so early, believing this could weaken the European bargaining position.

New York Times: Experts Worry as Population and Hunger Grow
Scientists and development experts across the globe are racing to increase food production by 50 percent over the next two decades to feed the world’s growing population, yet many doubt their chances despite a broad consensus that enough land, water and expertise exist. Agronomists and development experts who gathered in Rome last week generally agreed that the resources and technical knowledge were available to increase food production, but are unsure whether the food can be grown in the developing world where the hungry can actually get it, at prices they can afford.

Reuters: USDA to play “modest” role in hunger plan-Shah
The U.S. Agriculture Department will play an “important but modest role” in the new U.S. plan to fight world hunger, but will take its lead from developing countries and the State Department, a senior USDA official said on Wednesday. The USDA plans to tap into its own network of scientists as well as researchers funded by grants to help developing countries on agricultural research and education. The Obama administration has said it will make food security a key plank in its foreign policy, and wants to spend $3.5 billion over three years on projects to help farmers boost food production.

Reuters: Global immunizations hit record but miss millions
Global efforts to immunize children against life-threatening diseases set a record high last year but failed to protect millions of youngsters in the world’s poorest countries, health officials said on Wednesday. A joint report by the World Health Organization, United Nations and World Bank provides a snapshot of an immunization boom that has tripled the global vaccine market to $17 billion in eight years and set off a renaissance of vaccine development aimed at AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and dengue fever.

Washington Post: HIV vaccine trial’s success more modest than thought
Full details of the HIV vaccine clinical trial in Thailand released Tuesday at a scientific meeting in Paris show that the vaccine provides no protection to people at the highest risk of HIV infection. In people at lower risk, the benefits may start to wane after a year. Furthermore, when the results of the three-year experiment are analyzed using alternative methods, the protective effect falls short of formal statistical significance. Despite the new caveats, many AIDS researchers say the findings are still important.

This Day: Global Fund Commits $1.1bn to Fight Malaria
Nigeria and the Global Fund for Malaria, Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS have signed a $669 million grant, bringing the total of its commitment to the country since 2002 to $1.1 billion. In an celebration marking the landmark signing, regional head of the Global Fund reminded the country that “the real work was in the implementation. Implementing such a big programme would be pain for everybody in the next five years. We expect challenges but the most overriding decision is that we can do it together”.

The Guardian: Alistair Darling to call for EU fund to help poor nations cut emissions
British Chancellor Alistair Darling said that the European Union should commit $9.1 billion dollars a year in direct funding to help developing countries adapt to the effects of climate change and reduce their emissions. Darling wants developed countries to agree to firm commitments ahead of the Copenhagen conference in December to convince developing countries the rest of the world is serious about supporting them to meet emissions targets.

Wall Street Journal: Does Obama Believe in Human Rights? (Editorial)
The Wall Street Journal questions President Obama’s record on human rights, referencing a number of key examples including his new policy in Sudan as well as his refusal to meet with the Dalai Lama. According to the Journal, “It also takes a remarkable degree of cynicism—or perhaps cowardice—to treat human rights as something that ‘interferes’ with America’s purposes in the world, rather than as the very thing that ought to define them. Yet that is exactly the record of Mr. Obama’s time thus far in office.”

The Guardian: Religion, HIV and the developing world
The British Secretary of State for International Development explores the role of religious leaders in the fight against HIV/AIDS, emphasizing that while the debate about religion and HIV is often skewed by the question of contraception, “we shouldn’t allow such disagreements to blind us to the difference faith leaders can make.” According to the Secretary, the role of faith groups in creating public support for international development goes beyond campaigning and advocacy, and that harnessing the power of faith groups will be vital if we are to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS in the developing world.

Reuters Africa: Lamy tells WTO to speed up Doha talks for 2010 goal
World Trade Organization Director Pascal Lamy said Tuesday that WTO members will fail to meet their latest deadline of 2010 for completing the Doha round to open global commerce if they do not speed up their work. Lamy said countries were making some progress in the latest intensive negotiations in Geneva in areas such as facilitating trade and the technical work necessary to implement an eventual deal in agriculture.

The Canadian Press: Chew on this: Gates Foundation thinks gum, chocolate and malaria may have something in common
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Tuesday announced new grants of $100,000 each for 76 unconventional approaches to world problems, such as the idea of using chewing gum to detect malaria biomarkers in saliva. The researcher receiving the grant built his idea on the need for a malaria test that does not require a blood draw and on research using saliva for detecting other diseases. Another grant will be given to researcher at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York the money he needs to test chocolate for combating the malaria parasite.

Wall Street Journal: Rare ‘Outliers’ Drive Search for Cures to Disease
The Wall Street Journal profiles Bruce Walker, director of AIDS research at Massachusetts General Hospital, who heads an international consortium of doctors and researchers that has started identifying hundreds of so-called “elite controllers” who fare far better than what doctors typically expect of most people who contract HIV. Researchers are interested in studying how elite controllers avoid developing AIDS and an array of other health problems so as to hopefully replicate the defenses in other people through a vaccine or new drug. Studying these specialized groups has so far yielded important insight into disease and new drugs.

The Times: President Obama ‘may not attend Copenhagen climate summit’
The prospects of a global deal to tackle climate change diminished last night after a senior U.S. Climate Change official downplayed the chances of President Obama attending December’s UN summit in Copenhagen, saying that the president would only attend if sufficient progress was being made in the negotiations. According to the Times, the UK Energy and Climate Change secretary said Obama’s presence in Copenhagen could make all the difference between success and failure, referencing the fact that President Bill Clinton did not attend the Kyoto negotiations in 1997, which may have contributed to the US never signing the Kyoto Protocol.

The Associated Press: No winner for $5 million African leadership prize
In what the Associated Press is calling a “snub to recent ex-presidents and heads of state in Africa,” organizers of The Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership said Monday that they had decided not to give out the award this year. Created in 2007 by Sudanese entrepreneur Mo Ibrahim, the multimillion-dollar annual prize is awarded only to democratically elected heads of state who have left office in the past three years. It is ultimately unclear why the committee was unable to choose a winner as they have opted to not discuss their deliberations.

Los Angeles Times: Results of AIDS vaccine trial ‘weak’ in second analysis
A secondary analysis of data from the Thai AIDS vaccine trial — announced last month to much acclaim — suggests that the vaccine might provide some protection against the virus, but that the results are not statistically significant. In an editorial accompanying the further analysis, however, Dr. Raphael Dolin of Boston said the overall findings were nonetheless “of potentially great importance to the field of HIV research” because they might yield information about the kinds of immune responses necessary to provide protection against the virus.”

Reuters: Experts warn of less money for AIDS research, treatment
HIV experts warned on Monday that the global financial crisis and a loss of interest in the AIDS epidemic may translate into less money in coming years for research, treatment and prevention of the virus. According to an official at the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, “The financial crisis is clearly affecting the capacity of donors to fund international programs on AIDS and let’s not forget that it is also affecting the developing countries that are struggling to keep up with their investments in health.”

Reuters: Sudan says new U.S. policy has “positive points”
The Khartoum government said on Monday that U.S. President Barack Obama’s new policy on Sudan had positive points and was a strategy of engagement, not isolation. Unveiling the policy on Monday, Obama called for a “definitive end” to the conflict in the western Darfur region and implementation of a peace deal that ended more than two decades of a separate north-south civil war. According to Reuters, the strategy offers incentives if Khartoum works toward peace but Sudan faces tougher steps if it fails to act.

The Guardian: Mandelas, not Mobutus (Op-Ed, Mo Ibrahim)
In an editorial for the Guardian, African entrepreneur Mo Ibrahim discusses his belief that “visionary leadership is key to Africa’s progress,” highlighting his foundation’s publishing of an annual index on the quality of governance in Africa as a way to stimulate more effective governance. Ibrahim emphasized that leadership is key to changing the world’s perception of the continent, reiterating that his foundation “wants to help restore proper balance to perceptions of Africa, showing the world that our continent is as much about Mandela as it is Mobutu.”

The Guardian: Copenhagen climate change talks are last chance, says Gordon Brown
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned that the world is on the brink of a “catastrophic” future of killer heat waves, floods and droughts, unless governments speed up negotiations on climate change before vital talks in Copenhagen in December. This applies to the US as much as anyone, he said, adding that “there is no plan B,” and that agreement cannot be deferred beyond the UN-sponsored Copenhagen conference. Speaking to environment ministers from 17 countries, Brown said that “There are now fewer than 50 days to set course of next 50 years and more.”

The East African: Malaria now a danger to children older than 5yrs
According to a new study of 18 sub-Saharan African countries, children age 5-19 in regions like East Africa are now the most vulnerable group to malaria following the successful distribution of the free bed nets to protect children under five and pregnant women against the killer fever. The study, funded by the Wellcome Trust, says that the shift in vulnerability is due to the fact that “younger children are more likely to have access to the few bed nets already distributed than their older siblings, who also are exposed to bites by mosquito vectors when they are outdoors.”

The Guardian: Fight poverty through empowerment (Op-Ed)
In light of this weekend’s “International Day for the Eradication of Poverty,” the Guardian editorializes that the solution to poverty lies not so much in enrichment as in the empowerment of people. Poverty, according to the Guardian, is actually a human rights crisis which cannot be solved by simply raising income levels. Rather, they conclude that if “the poor are empowered to control their own lives then we will see the beginning of the end of poverty.”

New York Times: Have Faith in an AIDS Vaccine (Op-Ed)
In an effort to clear up any controversy surrounding last month’s AIDS vaccine study in Thailand, Seth Berkley, president and chief executive of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, emphasized the crucial steps scientists have made in the fight against AIDS, despite differing opinions of the importance of the study. Remarked Berkley, “Clearly we need better methods of preventing the spread of H.I.V., and no public health intervention is more powerful or cost-effective against infectious disease than a vaccine.”

Today is World Food Day—a day established by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 1979 to raise awareness about the issue of hunger and food insecurity worldwide. Below are some relevant news clips, including an op-ed from Secretary of State Clinton.

To learn more, check out our Food Security in Focus hot topic. And remember, not just today, but every day, there are over one billion people around the world suffering from hunger and food insecurity.

The Guardian—Seeding a safer world (op-ed by Hillary Clinton)
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton writes about hunger and food security in the developing world in today’s Guardian. She writes, “The Obama administration sees chronic hunger as a key priority of our foreign policy. Chronic hunger threatens individuals, governments, societies, and borders. We know that development works best when it is seen as investment, not aid. Revitalizing global agriculture will not be easy. But it can be done. It is worth doing. And if we succeed, our future will be more prosperous and more peaceful than our past.”

Financial Times—Gates’ charity to focus on food security
In a speech yesterday, Bill Gates put the focus of his multi-billion-dollar foundation firmly on food security, saying that making poor farmers more productive will have a “massive impact” on hunger. “Helping the poorest smallholder farmers grow more crops and get them to market is the world’s single most powerful lever for reducing hunger,” Gates said as he announced $120 million in one-off grants for research and development. While the foundation has already provided $1.4 billion to food security projects, the new grants and Mr. Gates’s speech point to a bigger prominence for agriculture, the Financial Times writes.

Washington Post—Gates’s Fields of Dreams (op-ed by Michael Gerson)
Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson writes about the Gates Foundation’s focus on agricultural investment. Gerson writes, “Approximately three-quarters of Africans are employed in agriculture, but about 30 percent of people on the continent suffer from hunger and malnutrition. Over the next few decades, African farmers will need to feed a growing population without expanding into ecologically important lands, while adapting to climate disruptions that make drought, pests and floods more common. They will need Gates’s help, and more.”

L.A. Times—Hunger breeds violence (op-ed by Sandy Berger)
Former U.S. National Security Advisor Sandy Berger connects the fight against hunger to the fight against terrorism and extremism in an op-ed in today’s L.A. Times. He writes, “Every six seconds a child dies of hunger. Those who don’t die face a childhood of worry and desperation. Many of them end up foraging in the streets or garbage heaps, where they are prime targets for recruitment by extremist groups or other criminal organizations. That is simply not acceptable when most live in a world of plenty.”

Wall Street Journal—Starving for Freedom (op-ed by Julian Morris)
An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal offers a slightly different perspective on food security, arguing that much of the blame for famine and hunger is due to trade restrictions, not climate change or a lack of Western aid. Julian Morris writes, “Instead of carping about climate change and more aid, the World Bank, Western governments and all those charities in Africa should learn the lessons from one of this year’s economics Nobel laureates. (Their) work emphasizes the need for markets and institutions to be built from the bottom up, without interference from higher levels of government.”

Other news:

Financial Times—Affluent Africa
The Financial Times looks at the growing class of powerful African businessmen and women that has emerged in the past decade thanks to increased money being invested domestically on the continent. The Times writes that mobile phone entrepreneur Mo Ibrahim personifies this trend; his company and others proved it was possible to build a business on a regional scale that could be profitable providing services and connecting the lives of the rich and poor, a new step in the emergence of African entrepreneurs on to the world stage.

Reuters—Poor states seek cotton safety net due to slump
The world’s poorest countries on Friday urged other World Trade Organization members to set up a safety net for cotton producers in poor nations, to help address losses arising from the world economic slump. Trade Ministers from some 30 members of the Least Developed Countries also asked for quick action on removing trade-distorting subsidies and duty- and quota-free market access to cotton and cotton by-products from poor countries.

Wall Street Journal: House Subcommittee Passes Bill to Fund AIDS Treatment
The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health approved a bill that would permanently reauthorize a federal assistance program for low-income HIV and AIDS patients, in hopes of getting the bill signed into law before the program expires at the end of the month. According to the Wall Street Journal, the bill would allow the government to award about $2.5 billion annually to people with the immunodeficiency disease.

Xinhua: Chinese, African women pledge cooperation in addressing challenges
Chinese women delegates and their 110 counterparts from 29 African countries expressed confidence in collaborated efforts to fight poverty, gender inequality and cope with global challenges on Wednesday at a forum in Cairo. During the forum, delegates discussed topics including women’s role in promoting Sino-African political and social dialogues, cooperation in response to the current global economic crisis, as well as women and the Millennium Development Goals.

Business Day (South Africa): IMMUNOLOGY: Taking aim at a weighty TB target
Business Day explores the Tuberculosis epidemic thriving in Africa and the findings of a new study, which indicates that the typical dose of a medication considered pivotal in treating TB effectively is “much too low to account for modern-day physiques.” With the World Health Organization having designated TB as a “disease of poverty affective young adults in their most productive years,” this study’s key findings are vital to developing a more effective treatment strategy. TB is also the leading cause of death among people infected with HIV/AIDS.

AllAfrica.com: Battle Against Malaria Intensifies
The Zambian Health Minister flagged off the distribution of 300,000 insecticide treated nets (ITNs) on Tuesday worth more than US$1.5 million in Southern, Eastern and Northern provinces to help fight malaria. Implemented by a consortium of NGOs, the ITN program in Zambia has expanded greatly over the past five years and is proving successful, particularly after the government launched a door-to-door campaign to increase distribution and usage.

The Washington Informer: Secretary of State Clinton Speaks at the U.S. – Africa Business Summit
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke at the Seventh Biennial U.S. – Africa Business Summit Summit about the significance of U.S.– African relations and articulated a new engagement strategy built on “shared opportunity and shared responsibility” for the continent. Clinton urged U.S. companies to move beyond the past stereotypes of Africa as a continent dominated by corruption and poverty, to a more diverse and dynamic one built on good governance, stable markets, and economic opportunity.

Reuters: Doha best hope for services trade reform:Lamy
World trade talks, although slow moving, offer the best hope of expanding global markets for finance, shipping and other big service sectors, the head of the World Trade Organization said on Wednesday. According to Reuters, The slow pace of the Doha round, and the intense focus on agriculture and manufacturing issues in those talks, recently has prompted U.S. service companies to look at other initiatives for expanding international trade, a move which WTO officials say will be ineffective in the long-term.

Bloomberg.com: Women Key to Solving Hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa, Study Says
According to the International Food Policy Research Institute, expanding aid and education for women is essential to reducing hunger in the world’s most impoverished regions. Countries that scored worst on the group’s Global Hunger Index tend to have the greatest gender inequality, the institute said today as it released this year’s rankings. “With women responsible for up to 80 percent of African food production, gender equality equals food security,” the institute said.

The Independent: Are investors missing out on sub-Sahara Africa? (Op-Ed)
Alonzo Fulgham, an administrator for USAID, discusses the growing opportunity for business development in Africa and the need for “US firms (to) enter this last great investment frontier.” According to Fulgham, market-friendly reforms in Africa are happening at a faster pace in this decade than ever before, and while western media typically casts sub-Saharan Africa in terms of “conflict, corruption, AIDS, and poverty,” some countries, such as China are jumping at the chance to increase trade throughout the continent.

Reuters: U.S. needs more on services from Doha round: Kirk
A top U.S. trade official said Tuesday that the United States cannot agree to a deal in the Doha round of world trade talks until other countries make better offers to open their markets to services trade. According to U.S. trade representative Ron Kirk, the Doha round has focused “almost obsessively” on agricultural and manufacturing issues since it was launched in 2001. Kirk also emphasized that a successful agreement must include negotiations on services and the rules governing the use of anti-dumping and other domestic trade remedy laws.

Financial Times: World Bank has the poor firmly in its sights (LTE, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala)
The Managing Director of the World Bank argues that the World Bank is dedicated to helping the world’s poorest countries “weather the worst economic crisis in 50 years.” The official emphasized the Bank’s new lending programs, which target both poor and more developed countries. “Our long-term development lending, distinct from short-term actions by the International Monetary Fund, enables developing economies to expand global demand, assisting developed countries too.”

The Standard: US boosts fight against malaria with Sh2 billion
The USAID gave billion dollar grants (in Kenyan Shillings) to two NGOS in Kenya to extend malaria prevention and control activities in areas most affected by the disease. The programs target more than 400,000 children under the age of five and pregnant women.

New York Times: Exiled From School, H.I.V.-Infected Orphans Learn a Bitter Lesson
The New York Times explores the HIV epidemic in Vietnam and the estimated 5,100 children affected by the disease. According to the deputy minister of education, although the law currently requires equal treatment, almost none of the population of children affected by HIV has been accepted in schools because of the fears of other children’s parents. Mydans focuses specifically on a group of orphans affected by HIV who were refused entry to a local public school due to parents’ concerns.

Daily Champion: Nigeria: A Climate Smart Future (Editorial, Robert Zoellick)
World Bank President Robert Zoellick writes in the Nigerian newspaper the Daily Champion about the dire need for increased action on climate change in order to protect Africa from further challenges before it is too late. Zoellick emphasizes that the world’s poor will bear the brunt of the impact of global climate change, with extreme events such as droughts, floods, and forest fires become more frequent. He writes, “If we act now, act together, and act differently, there are real opportunities to shape our climate future for a safe, inclusive, and sustainable globalization.”

CNN.com: Africa’s new apartheid
Economist Glenn Hubbard says the shift by African governments to open themselves up to foreign business after years of state controlled economies is laying the ground for exploitation, which Hubbard is labeling “Africa’s new apartheid.” Hubbard focuses specifically on China, highlighting that while China is now the top trading partner in many African countries such as Angola, they are completely shutting out local business in their new development. Writes Hubbard, “This restriction makes for a new kind of apartheid: the business community of Angola is European and Asian, not African. That might not be the intent, but it certainly is the result.”

Public Agenda (Ghana): Feminized Poverty, a Gender Challenge (Op-Ed, Damian Avevor)
Journalist Damien Avevor argues that gender inequality remains one of the central challenges of the 21st century in spite of all the progress the world had made in fighting for women’s rights. Avevor calls upon both African governments and women to work together to remove the social, economic and legal constraints facing women. He writes, “It is critically important for policy makers to listen to and work with women to improve their positions and thereby accelerate Africa’s development.”

The Telegraph: Middle East and Africa bear untold riches for exporters
With its confluence of “peak oil” and scarce metals, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says Africa has the potential to become an “agricultural superblock,” if it can unlock the wealth of the savannahs by allowing farmers to use their land as collateral for credit. Journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard emphasized that free-market reforms and a shift from top-down development doctrines have begun to unleash pent-up energies, indicating that Rwanda, Egypt, and Liberia are among the World Bank’s top 10 reformers.

Foxnews.com: Bush Deserves Praise for Commitment to Africa (Op-Ed)
Journalist Jeffrey Scott Shapiro argues that former President George Bush deserves heightened praise for his dedication to Africa, emphasizing that “during his time in office President Bush did more to help Africa and more to combat the AIDS virus globally than any other president in history.” Scott highlights the president’s support in the battle against AIDS, including his choice to renew PREFAR and passing the “Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008, which actually tripled the original act’s funds to $48 billion.

Financial Times: Human rights are the wrong basis for healthcare (Op-Ed, William Easterly)
William Easterly discusses the moral argument that politicians are raising for healthcare reform in the U.S., emphasizing that the push for healthcare as a human right has made access to healthcare worldwide seem unequal in comparison. Writes Easterly, “We should learn from the international experience that this ‘right’ skews public resources towards the most politically effective advocates, who will seldom be the neediest.”

Boston Globe: World’s poorest farmers now offered insurance
Oxfam America is offering an innovative insurance program that will cover hundreds of farmers in a northern province of Ethiopia, whose crops have been ruined due to severe drought in the region. Funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and Swiss Re, one of the world’s largest insurance companies, Oxfam America has made drought insurance available for the first time to about 200 households, 38 percent of them headed by women.

Reuters: World’s poor see few job benefits from trade boom
The boom in global trade over the last two decades has not improved the quality of most jobs in poorer countries, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and United Nations labour agency (ILO) said on Monday. Their joint report, whose conclusions may make a new global free trade pact even harder to swallow for some, found most workers in developing countries continue to face low incomes and limited job security, even in sectors tied to exports.

The Guardian: How will the world feed itself in 40 years’ time?
Alex Renton, writing from his report for Oxfam International on the impacts of climate change on humans, examines the connection between food security and climate change. He posits that rich countries are already getting richer. At the same time, a warmer climate is less likely to negatively impact richer countries as they will poorer countries (particularly poor countries in tropical climates). This means that there is likely to be greater food wasting in richer countries just when poorer countries have greater need for that food.

The Independent: Paul Collier: The flight of finance from Africa
Paul Collier accounts for the recent flight of finance from Africa across the spectrum. He says that a collapse in letters of credit has hit Africa far harder than any other region, leaving the continent desperate for investment. For decades Africa has been investing only around 20 per cent of national income, which means that almost regardless of returns, Africa will continue to fall further behind the emerging market economies. Yet Africa simply cannot afford to finance a substantial increase in investment from its internal resources because a domestically financed increase in investment could only come at the expense of consumption. So if international finance is essential and private international finance is fleeing, the only option is international public finance.

Reuters: China says rich countries undercut climate talks
China accused rich countries of undermining key elements of an international climate change agreement that nations hope to agree by the end of 2009, adding to a chorus of discord over the negotiations.

NY Times—In Surprise, Nobel Peace Prize to Obama for Diplomacy
In a surprise selection, the Nobel Committee announced Friday that the annual peace prize was awarded to Barack Obama, just nine months into his presidency, “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

AFP—African policy makers meet to discuss development, climate change
African policy makers will meet today to discuss climate change only two months before a critical UN summit where African countries are poised to seek billions in compensation for the effects of global warming. At the forum organized by the government of Burkina Faso together with the United Nations and the African Union, several African heads of state will meet key policy makers to discuss the opportunities climate change could offer for sustainable development. The World Bank estimates that the developing world will suffer about 80 percent of the damage of climate change despite accounting for only around one third of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Reuters—Chinese companies sign $6 billion Congo deal
Chinese companies have signed an amended $6 billion infrastructure and loan deal with Democratic Republic of Congo, China’s ambassador said yesterday, a step seen clearing the way for debt relief for the African nation. The IMF had feared the contract, which uses Congo’s mineral reserves as a guarantee for infrastructure projects, could plunge Congo deeper into debt. The size of the deal was cut in August to $6 billion from an original plan of $9 billion, and Congolese government guarantees connected with the mining aspect of the agreement were taken off the table.

TIME Magazine—10 Questions for Muhammad Yunus
TIME magazine interviews Muhammad Yunus, a man who himself has won a Nobel Prize for his efforts to create and expand microcredit services for the world’s poor. Yunus says extreme poverty can be ended, and the first step is to “make people believe that we can send poverty to museums. When I talk about it, people laugh and say, ‘It’s impossible.’ But when you don’t believe something, you can’t achieve it. You have to imagine and make that imagination achievable.”

Reuters—Impoverished Haiti is stabilizing but still risky
Led by the calls of Bill Clinton, who is serving as Special UN Envoy to Haiti, many private and government officials say impoverished Haiti is showing signs of stabilization. Private investors and NGOs said this week they believe a window of opportunity has opened to put money into a country desperately in need of roads, power and foreign investment. About 70 percent of Haiti’s 9 million people still live on less than $2 a day.