News headlines in 2009, page 18

In the decades since 1972, when Nobel laureate economist James Tobin (1918-2002) first proposed it, the idea of a tax on currency speculation has resurfaced and disappeared many times, according to the economic tides.

‘’Those who run the decision-making on climate change are the same who have caused it,’’ said Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the world’s first international climate hearing on Tuesday, pithily identifying the reason why justice has been elusive at the ongoing climate change summit in the Danish capital.

Honduras has been hit harder by extreme weather events than almost any other country over the last 18 years, says a study of weather-related losses, released here as the climate summit continues this week.

At last, homosexuals in Nicaragua have someone to uphold their rights: an ombudswoman for sexual diversity has been appointed to defend the rights of the gay community, estimated to number half a million people.

There are broad prospects for developing countries to build on complementarities and leverage South-South Cooperation for development, according to Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, Ambassador of Qatar to the U.N.

Harry Mubita was tired of his wretched condition in prison. He had been in Lusaka Central Prison for more than a year, and still there was no sign that his theft case would be heard.

For the past several years, water expert Arshad H. Abbasi has been calling attention to the environmental degradation of the Siachen Glacier, one of the Himalayan glaciers and the largest in the world outside of the Polar Regions.

After Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank torched a mosque and desecrated copies of the Quran in the Palestinian village of Yasuf, last Friday morning, they ran into a wall of condemnation.

He talks with his hands. They are in constant motion as he expresses a view, makes a joke, mumbles.

Climate change is becoming an increasingly colossal problem, and civil society, fed up with fruitless negotiations, seems to have found its David: Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed.