Why are we asking this now?

In an international calendar full to bursting with uncomfortable acronyms it's time for one of the worst of them: CHOGM. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting convenes in Trinidad and Tobago tomorrow for its bi-annual get together, which can ordinarily be counted upon to be in one of the warmer member states. Last time it was Uganda.

The agenda this year is dominated by the expected acceptance of Rwanda into the fold, ( Read more... )
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Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, admitted that G20 finance ministers were so divided that they were unlikely to reach a detailed agreement on bonuses at their meeting in London, which began last night and concludes today. He expected that "further work" would be needed before G20 leaders gather in Pittsburgh on 24 September.

France led calls for a cap on individual bonuses but Britain and America, while backing common rules to prevent excessive bonuses, argued that a ( Read more... )
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Jacques Diouf said a three-day summit in Rome "didn't go as far" as he had hoped. "If it has been possible to mobilise trillions of dollars to stimulate the global economy to combat the financial crisis, the world should be able to come up with resources to solve its hunger problem," he added.

The summit was labelled a failure at the outset when delegates from 192 nations rejected UN appeals to pledge $44bn (£26bn) annually in aid. The UN had hoped for a commitment to eradicate hunger by ( Read more... )
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Boxed in by ceremony, with any hint of controversy airbrushed out of his remarks by the regime's censors, with press conference questions banned and his interlocutors ruthlessly screened, he has struggled to get his message across.

Wearing a similar suit and tie to his host, President Hu Jintao, he has sometimes sounded practically confucian himself. "Our relationship going forward will not be without disagreement or difficulty," he intoned yesterday. "But, because of our co-operation, both ( Read more... )
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David Miliband told delegates at the Nato Parliamentary Assembly that Britain would be "ready" to send more troops as part of an agreed strategy.

He said: "I, as much as anyone else, want to bring our troops back home to safety.

"But we cannot leave a vacuum which the Taliban will quickly fill, and under their umbrella, Al Qaida quickly follow.

"Counter-terrorism may deal with symptoms, it brings short-term success.

( Read more... )
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It is a mission to give millions of children in the developing world something that is taken for granted in Britain: the registration of their birth and, with it, an official existence. Before the campaign ? mounted by the international children's charity Plan ? there were parts of the world where registration was rare. In Cambodia, for instance, as late as 2005 96 per cent of the population went unregistered. Without registration, there can be no birth certificate, no identity card, no passport, ( Read more... )
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As polls show a slump in support for the war, Gordon Brown has twice in two months been forced to deliver major speeches justifying military action. But the impasse in Washington has left Mr Brown's plans to send 500 more troops to Afghanistan in limbo ? creating disillusionment in the Ministry of Defence. One minister said: "We must move ahead to demonstrate to the public we have a grip on this." A Whitehall source added: "There is great frustration that the process is dragging on. We announced ( Read more... )
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Ms Simpson was singled out for ridicule after she was spotted wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan "Real Girls Eat Meat", believed to be a light-hearted dig at her boyfriend Tony Romo's vegetarian ex-girlfriend, Carrie Underwood.

Alistair Currie, a spokesman for Peta, said: "Jessica Simpson might have a right to wear what she wants, but she doesn't have a right to eat what she wants ? eating meat is about suffering and death. Some people feel like they are standing ( Read more... )
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As he prepared to fly out from Japan, he told his fellow leaders: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."

President Bush made the private joke in the summit's closing session, senior sources said yesterday. His remarks were taken as a two-fingered salute from the President from Texas who is wedded to the oil industry. He had given some ground at the summit by saying he would "seriously consider" a 50 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2050.

But green groups had protested that ( Read more... )
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The figures were released after media organizations asked what measures countries were taking against peacekeepers accused of rape and other abuses in conflict areas such as Congo. The UN can investigate allegations of misconduct, but prosecution is handled solely by governments contributing personnel to missions.

The figures show a significant increase in prosecutions and court-martials by national authorities this year. The disciplinary action against 33 ( Read more... )
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Suspicions still run deep about the resolve of Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari, who has been criticised in the US for failing to react forcefully to Taliban encroachments on Pakistani territory. Similar concerns linger about the authority beyond Kabul of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Republicans and some Democrats are threatening to rebel against plans to increase aid to Pakistan in particular unless conditions are attached on what steps the government in Islamabad should take to ( Read more... )
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Speaking to reporters after an "excellent" 45-minute meeting at the State Department, Mr Hague said he stressed to Mrs Clinton that the Tories' new partners in the European parliament, including Polish and Latvian parties, were not anti-Semitic, but "mainstream parties of the centre right".

That last issue had gone unmentioned until it was raised by the shadow Foreign Secretary himself ? part of his response to fears raised in some quarters of Washington that a Tory government might veer ( Read more... )
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U-2 spy planes

Iraq has agreed to allow flights by U-2 spy planes. Mr Blix said flights are expected to start next week. Inspectors are also likely to use French Mirage aircraft. Germany has offered unmanned drones and Russia offered its Antonov aircraft with night-vision capabilities. Mr Blix said: "Such measures could well increase the effectiveness of inspections."

Biological and chemical weapons

Mr Blix said inspectors had found no evidence of chemical or ( Read more... )
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The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Food Programme said 1.02 billion people are undernourished in 2009, the highest number in four decades.

The increase in the number of hungry people is not a result of poor harvests but is due to high food prices ? particularly in developing countries ? lower incomes and lost jobs.

"The rising number of hungry people is intolerable," said FAO director-general, Jacques Diouf. "We have the economic and technical means to make hunger ( Read more... )
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Why are we asking this now?

Because the number of people who go to bed hungry every night somewhere in our world has reached 1 billion ? one in six of the Earth's population, according to a new report by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation. The international goal of slashing in half the number of hungry people by 2015 now seems far from attainable.

But it need not be so. Undernourishment fell across the world throughout the 1980s and ( Read more... )
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Why are we asking this now?

The US Treasury says that al-Qa'ida is facing a financial crisis which is weakening it. It claims that the group is making appeals for funds and is saying that lack of money is hurting its training and recruitment.

The Treasury contrasts al-Qa'ida's problems with the robust financial health of the Taliban. It has also been several years since there has been a spectacular attack on a western target by the group along the lines ( Read more... )
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The epidemic of sexual violence in Democratic Republic of Congo visits most of us in the form of statistics, like the 27,000 rapes reported in a single year in a single province, or the 70 per cent of the women of one town who had been brutally assaulted.

The crisis visits Dr Denis Mukwege in a different way. It's there every day in the waiting room of his surgery in Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu, the province where the first statistic was recorded.

An average ( Read more... )
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Bomb attacks are ripping through the world's richest cities: explosions devastate Wall Street, the London Underground, a theatre in Barcelona, cafés in Paris, parades in Moscow. The police profile of a typical bomber warns: "He walks to his death with courage and no regrets." There is panic, and governments launch programmes of torture and deportation targeted at immigrant communities. Yet still the radicals wash defiantly across the world, killing as they go. They say they ( Read more... )
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The pair are to hold talks at the Prime Minister's country residence, Chequers, this evening.

Mrs Clinton will meet Foreign Secretary David Miliband in London beforehand, and give a press conference.

Her visit - part of a five-day tour of Europe - comes at a crucial time for the Northern Ireland peace process, with negotiations over devolving policing powers finely balanced.

Mrs Clinton is also expected to convey President Barack Obama's latest views ( Read more... )
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