News stories by Ramesh Jaura, page 2

A leading global environmental group has accused the United States of holding up UN climate negotiations.

As the electronic clock at the preparatory talks here in the former West German capital counted up to the crucial UN climate change conference Dec. 7-18 in Copenhagen, the possibility of a new treaty being hammered out appeared rather remote.

The world is on track towards negotiating a solid deal in Copenhagen at the end of this year, Yvo de Boer, the UN's top climate change official, told reporters at the opening of a 12-day conference in Bonn Monday.

The financial crisis that has sent economies reeling the world over is beginning to adversely affect Africa, threatening to plunge many people back into poverty and thwarting efforts to meet the target of halving the share of the population living on less than one dollar a day by 2015.

Leading supporters of disarmament see new hope arising from the announcement by the U.S. and Russian presidents that they are willing to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with a new one.

Norway's foreign affairs minister Jonas Gahr Støre has called for giving new priority to nuclear disarmament that has been assigned to oblivion since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Japan, the world's second largest economy, is calling for global initiatives to reactivate financial flows to Africa, including government grants, concessional loans and lines of credit.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for a new green deal that would work for all nations, rich as well as poor, in the face of both climate change and the global economy.

The World Bank has urged the international community to look to Latin America, the world's most bio-diverse region, for innovative solutions to avert a climate crisis.