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浏览:9252006-11-15 20:18:36 来自xzbaijie: download The United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has told an International Climate Change Conference in Nairobi that there is a frightening lack of leadership in confronting what he described as one of the world's biggest threats. The conference is looking at ways of moving beyond the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and bringing big developing countries such as Brazil, China, and India into its framework. From Nairobi Richard Black reports. This is Kofi Annan's last major environmental conference before leaving office, he wanted it to focus on Africa. And in his speech he announced that six UN agencies would begin a program of work aimed at helping African countries access Kyoto Protocol money for clean development projects such as renewable energy and forestry. The details of the scheme have still to remerge. What did become clear was Mr. Annan's scorn for climate skeptics, people who do not accept that humanity's emissions of greenhouse gases are warming the planet's surface. Skeptics are, he said, out of step, out of arguments, and out of time. This is strong language for a UN chief, particularly when the most politically important adherence of the skeptical position hold power in the White House in Washington. A United Nations report says that Iran and Syria are among at least ten countries of violating the international arms embargo to send weapons to Somalia. The report by UN experts who are monitoring the embargo speaks of detailed links between the governments in Teheran and Damascus and the Union of Islamic Courts which controls much of Somalia. It says, in addition, that more than 700 Somalis went to Lebanon to fight with Hezbollah against Israel in July. The British Ministry of Defense has asked the American multinational firm Halliburton to hold the potentially lucrative New York Stock market flotation of its subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root or KBR. Halliburton expected to raise more than 400 million dollars from the sale later this week, but there is a concern in London, because KBR controls the only British dockyard equipped to service its nuclear submarine fleet. The BBC business correspondent says the British government wants to hold the flotation while it takes a closer look at KBR's finances. President Bush is due to arrive in Moscow shortly at the start of his first foreign trip since his Republican party suffered heavy losses in the mid-term congressional elections last week. He is due to have talks with President Putin before flying on to Singapore and then Vietnam for an Asia Pacific summit. From Washington Jonathan Beale reports. Humbled by elections back home, President Bush will hope that this foreign trip to Asia will reassert his standing on the world stage. He will be the second American President to visit Hanoi since the Vietnam War. His focus of the APEC Summit there will be to widen free trade agreements with Asia. President Bush is also likely to use this opportunity to discuss with his partners in the region, American concerns about the nuclear in North Korea. The question now there: Will countries like China and Russia rally fully behind the US when the president has been weakened back home? 楼主
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