With hurricanes, floods and other impacts of climate change becoming increasingly destructive, countries urgently need to step up their ambitions to cut emissions if they are to keep global warming within safe limits, experts said ahead of U.N. climate talks starting on Monday.

About 163 countries have submitted plans on how they will contribute to meeting the Paris climate agreement goal to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

But put together, the plans are likely to lead to a 3 degree temperature rise this century, according to the United Nations.

Nicholas Nuttall, spokesman for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, said the national plans delivered in advance of Paris, “were well known at the time to fall short of the Paris Agreement’s long-term goals.”

But the agreement also calls for countries to take stock of international progress on climate action and ratchet up the ambition of their national plans accordingly.

The first stock taking is set for next year, with the first more ambitious plans due in 2020.

“That will, if followed, eventually get the world on track to the goals and the aim of climate neutrality in the second half of the century,” Nuttall said.

“The U.N. climate conference in Bonn … needs to be a Launch pad to that next ambition moment,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

This year has seen particularly severe weather of the type climate scientists have long warned about: severe floods in Asia, devastating hurricanes in the Caribbean and United States, and wildfires in California and southern Europe.

In the effort to reduce emissions and stave off worsening impacts, “we’re in a race against time,” Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the OECD, last week.

“We have to make it stick that it’s good business to protect the environment but also that it’s good policy,” he said.

As 195 nations meet starting Monday in Bonn for U.N. climate talks, they will be working to create rules to implement the Paris agreement, including on sometimes contentious issues such as how reductions of climate-changing gases should be reported and checked by other nations.

But time is short, with global emissions of climate changing gases needing to peak by 2020 – just three years away – in order to keep warming to relatively safe levels, according to the World Resources Institute.

Camilla Born, a senior policy adviser for E3G, a London-based climate think tank said: “We are going to have to show increased ambition by 2020 if we’re going to really get on track to delivering those long-term goals.”

“This is a broader and deeper task than we’ve ever seen before. This isn’t just a conversation about raising targets. This is about structuring our economies differently.”

“We are moving in that direction, but we need to move there much faster,” Born told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “It’s not a done deal but we’ve got lots of ingredients to make that happen,” she said.

Where’s the money?

Many developing country plans to curb emissions and adapt to climate change depend on receiving enough finance to implement them.

Wealthy countries have pledged to raise $100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020, to help developing countries cope with the impacts of climate change and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

But more than $4 trillion is needed for developing countries to implement their plans, according to the Least Developed Countries (LDC) Group which represents the world’s poorest 47 countries.

“LDCs and other developing countries cannot take ambitious action to address climate change or protect themselves against its impacts unless all countries fulfill and outdo the pledges they have made,” said Gebru Jember Endalew, the Ethiopian chairof the group.

“(We) face the unique and unprecedented challenge of lifting our people out of poverty and achieving sustainable development without relying on fossil fuels,” he said.

The group is pushing for the Bonn talks to come up with more promises of cash to fund the needed changes. Least-developed countries alone, in their climate action plans, have said they need at least $200 billion just to adapt to worsening climate impacts, including harsher droughts and worsening floods,Endalew said.

Not finding it will be “a serious barrier to ambitious climate action”, he said.

Many of the poorest countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific have seen particular devastation from floods, storms, droughts and rising sea levels.

With such impacts following a global temperature rise of just 1.2 degrees Celsius, many poorer nations and organizations representing the world’s vulnerable are pushing hard to keep temperature rises to not just well below 2 degrees but to a more ambitious 1.5 degrees Celsius.

A global temperature rise of 1.5 degrees is “a critical threshold which can still prevent many of the worst impacts on poor populations”, said Sven Harmeling of CARE International.

The Bonn talks “must provide a clear way forward so that countries come back with more ambitious plans to cut emissions,” said Harmeling, who is head of CARE’s delegation to the talks.
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From: MeNeedIt

While President Donald Trump continues an Asia trip with high geo-strategic stakes, Republicans in Washington are promoting an ambitious tax reform bill that could bring enormous fiscal, and political, consequences. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, a tax cut is Trump’s last hope for a major legislative victory in his first year in office, something Republicans desperately need and something Democrats are determined to deny them.
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From: MeNeedIt

The Republican tax bill unveiled last week in the U.S. Congress could disrupt the global supply chains of large, multinational companies by slapping a 20-percent tax on cross-border transactions they routinely make between related business units.

European multinationals, some of which currently pay little U.S. tax on U.S. profits thanks to tax treaties and diversion of U.S. earnings to their home countries or other low-tax jurisdictions, could be especially hard hit if the proposed tax becomes law, according to some tax experts.

Others said the proposal could run afoul of international tax treaties, the World Trade Organization and other global standards that forbid the double taxation of profits if the new tax did not account for income taxes paid in other countries.

The proposed tax, tucked deep in the 429-page bill backed by President Donald Trump, caught corporate tax strategists by surprise and sent them scrambling to understand its dynamics and goals, as well as whether Congress is likely ever to vote on it.

Reuters contacted seven multinational companies and four industry groups. None would comment directly on the proposal, with most saying they were still studying the entire tax package.

The proposal is part of a broad tax reform bill unveiled by House of Representatives Republicans on Thursday, which promises to lower overall tax burdens and simplify the tax code.

Whether the proposed reforms ever become law is uncertain, with weeks and possibly months of debate and intense lobbying still ahead. The House package overall has drawn criticism for adding too much to the federal budget deficit and too heavily favoring the rich and big business.

However, the corporate tax part, experts said, included some ambitious proposals worthy of further discussion. They said the 20 percent excise tax is one such proposal targeting the abuses of so-called transfer-pricing where multinationals themselves set prices of goods, services and intellectual property rights that constantly move between their national business units.

Under global standards, those prices should resemble those available on the open market. However, if a foreign parent charges U.S. affiliates inflated price, it can reduce its U.S. tax bill and effectively shift profits to a lower-tax country, reducing the entire corporation’s overall tax costs.

Blunt instrument

“Clearly there’s a transfer-pricing issue and something should be done,” said Steven Rosenthal, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan Washington think tank.

“I would view this 20-percent excise tax as a blunt instrument to address the problem. And the problem with blunt instruments is sometimes they hit what you want to hit, and sometimes they hit what you don’t want to hit,” said Rosenthal, former legislation counsel at Congress’s Joint Tax Committee.

Under the proposal, U.S. business units that import products, pay royalties or other tax-deductible, non-interest fees to foreign parents or affiliates in the course of doing business would either pay a 20-percent tax on these or agree to treat the amounts as income connected to their U.S. business and subject to U.S. taxes.

As proposed, the new tax rule would apply only to businesses with payments from U.S. units to foreign affiliates exceeding $100 million. The rule would not take effect until after 2018.

European companies that sell foreign-made products into the U.S. market through local distribution units could be among those most affected, said Michael Mundaca, co-director of the national tax department at the accounting firm Ernst & Young.

Such companies could end up paying tax on the transfers twice — first if they paid the excise tax in the United States and then at home where they are taxed now and where the new U.S. tax would not be accounted for without changes to bilateral tax treaties.

“That would be a structure that would at least initially be hit by the full force” of the excise tax, said Mundaca, a former U.S. Treasury Department assistant secretary for tax policy.

He said European officials would be registering concern. “I am sure they are making calls right now to their counterparts in the U.S. Treasury looking for some explanation… and making the point that this might be contrary to treaty obligations.”

Gavin Ekins, an economist at the Tax Foundation, a conservative think tank, predicted that most multinationals would opt to avoid the excise tax by electing to pay U.S. corporate tax on all the profits related to products sold in the United States. Those include profits on activities conducted overseas, like manufacturing or research, which are also subject to foreign income taxes.

The U.S. corporate tax rate on those profits would drop to 20 percent from 35 percent if the House bill becomes law.

The promise of additional revenue and hopes that the new tax may entice multinationals to locate more production and jobs in the United States, may well outweigh international concerns.

The entire Republican tax package is projected to add $1.5 trillion over 10 years to the $20 trillion federal debt and the planned excise tax is among sources of new revenue needed to avoid an even bigger shortfall. It is expected to bring about $155 billion over 10 years, according to a summary of the Republican proposal distributed last week.

Still, as the tax debate heats up, foreign multinationals are likely to lobby hard against it, with domestic corporations linked to foreign affiliates possibly concerned as well.

There is also uncertainty how the new rules would work in practice.

It was unclear, for example, from the bill’s language how companies should calculate income “effectively connected” to their U.S. business, Tax Foundation’s Ekins said.

“You don’t know what profit is included when you choose ‘effectively connected income’ and don’t know the formula,” he said. “Is it just for that product line? All the income that comes in from every other company or from every other source?”

The House tax committee was scheduled to begin considering amendments to the Republican tax bill on Monday.
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From: MeNeedIt

Smog has enveloped much of Pakistan and neighboring India, causing highway accidents and respiratory problems, and forcing many residents to stay home, officials said Saturday.

Pakistani meteorologist Mohammad Hanif said the pollution, caused by dust, the burning of crops, and emissions from factories and brick kilns in Pakistan and neighboring India, was expected to linger until the middle of the month. He advised people to wear facemasks to protect themselves from respiratory ailments.

Mohammad Arshad, a highway police official, said at least 10 people were killed and 25 injured in road accidents linked to poor visibility in various parts of the Punjab province since Monday. Authorities have advised people to limit road travel.

Average air pollution in Pakistan’s major cities is about four times higher than the World Health Organization limits.

Similar problems have been reported in the Indian capital, New Delhi, where air quality was rated “very poor” Saturday. Some private schools in New Delhi have suspended sports and outdoor activities.

India’s Supreme Court banned the sale of firecrackers in New Delhi ahead of last month’s Hindu Diwali festival to try to curb air pollution in the notoriously smoggy city. Though reports said air quality was better than last year, pollution levels in the capital hit 18 times the healthy limit the night after the festival, as many dodged the ban.
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From: MeNeedIt

The U.S. Civil War ended more than 150 years ago, but some Americans gather on old battlefields to re-enact this historic era in great detail today. They buy uniforms, authentic weapons, gather food typical of that era and sleep in tents on their ancestors’ battlefields. These re-enactments come at a time when many Americans are debating the future of monuments to the losing Confederate side. VOA’s Anush Avetisyan visited camps set up by the recreated “armies” of both sides.
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From: MeNeedIt

As private and public transportation slowly shifts to electric propulsion, fans of Formula One car racing wonder whether the thrill of roaring turbocharged engines and the smell of burning car tires will someday be replaced by the subdued sleep-inducing whine of electric motors. But Formula E cars keep gathering fans and creating support for alternative power sources. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

A growing amount of the waste in the world is out-of-date electronics. And inside all of our devices are a lot of valuable metals, and also some dangerously toxic ones. All that stuff needs to be handled with care, and Indonesia is working to make sure it doesn’t end up in landfills. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

Wireless carriers Sprint and T-Mobile called off a potential merger, saying the companies couldn’t come to an agreement that would benefit customers and shareholders.

The two companies have been dancing around a possible merger for years, and were again in the news in recent weeks with talks of the two companies coming together after all. But in a joint statement Saturday, Sprint and T-Mobile said they are calling off merger negotiations for the foreseeable future.

“The prospect of combining with Sprint has been compelling for a variety of reasons, including the potential to create significant benefits for consumers and value for shareholders. However, we have been clear all along that a deal with anyone will have to result in superior long-term value for T-Mobile’s shareholders compared to our outstanding stand-alone performance and track record,” said John Legere, president and CEO of T-Mobile US, in a prepared statement.

T-Mobile and Sprint are the U.S.’ third- and fourth-largest wireless carriers, respectively, but they are significantly smaller than AT&T and Verizon, who effectively have a duopoly over U.S. wireless service. The two companies have said they hoped to find a way of merging to make the wireless market more competitive.

Sprint and its owner, the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, have long been looking for a deal as the company has struggled to compete on its own. But Washington regulators have frowned on a possible merger. D.C. spiked AT&T’s offer to buy T-Mobile in 2011 and signaled in 2014 they would have been against Sprint doing the same thing. But with the new Trump administration, it was thought regulators might be more relaxed about a merger.

Sprint has a lot of debt and has posted a string of annual losses. The company has cut costs and made itself more attractive to customers, BTIG Research analyst Walter Piecyk says, but it hasn’t invested enough in its network and doesn’t have enough airwave rights for quality service in rural areas.

T-Mobile, meanwhile, has been on a yearslong streak adding customers. After the government nixed AT&T’s attempt to buy it in 2011, T-Mobile led the way in many consumer-friendly changes, such as ditching two-year contracts and bringing back unlimited data plans. Consumers are paying less for cellphone service, thanks to T-Mobile’s influence on the industry and the resultant price wars.

“T-Mobile does not need a merger with Sprint to succeed, but Sprint might need one to survive,” Piecyk wrote in an October research note.
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From: MeNeedIt

The World Health Organization says an outbreak of pneumonic plague in Madagascar appears to be slowing.  But, it warns vigilance must be maintained as the spread of the disease is far from over.  

The World Health Organization says plague came early to Madagascar this year and has spread quickly.  Quite unusually, pneumonic plague moved from the remote rural areas to congested urban areas, causing panic since, unlike bubonic plague, this disease is transmitted from human to human.   

The normal plague season of September to April causes about 400 cases of the disease.  But, this year, the WHO says more than 1,800 suspected cases, resulting in 127 deaths were reported in the three-month period from August through late October.  

WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic says that is an unusually large number of cases in such a short period of time.  But, he says there has been a decline in the number of new cases since the second week of October.

“There is also a decrease in the number of patients that are hospitalized due to suspicion of a plague,” said Jasarevic. “While this declining trend in new plague cases and reduction in hospitalizations due to plague cases is encouraging, WHO expects more cases of plague to be reported from Madagascar until the typical plague season ends in April 2018.”   

Jasarevic says people must remain vigilant and ongoing operations of surveillance and treatment must be sustained over the coming six months, when the danger will be over.  

He says finding and treating active cases of the plague, identifying people who have come in contact with an infected person, following up and providing antibiotic treatment is important.  In addition, he says rodent and flea control, as well as safe and dignified burials is crucial throughout the plague season.
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From: MeNeedIt

U.S. President Donald Trump urged Saudi Arabia Saturday to list its state-owned oil company on the New York Stock Exchange when the company goes public in what is expected to be the largest-ever initial public offering in which shares of a company are sold to investors.

“Would very much appreciate Saudi Arabia doing their IPO of Aramco with the New York Stock Exchange. Important to the United States!,” Trump tweeted from Hawaii, his first stop ahead of a 13-day trip to Asia.

Saudi officials have reportedly said the government intends to list 5 percent of  the company’s shares on local and global stock exchanges in 2018 but have yet to select an overseas venue. Saudi officials have estimated the IPO will be worth about $100 billion.

The NYSE has had discussions with the Saudis about the upcoming IPO as has the London Stock Exchange. Exchanges in Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Toronto and the U.S. are also soliciting portions of the public offering.

New York-based NASDAQ, which provides technology to Saudi Arabia’s exchange, has been leveraging that relationship in an attempt to win the listing.

Trump has developed a close relationship with Saudi Arabia. During his visit there last summer, he signed a $110 billion defense agreement with Saudi King Salman.

At a $2 trillion valuation Saudi officials have projected for Aramco, selling five-percent of the company’s shares would reap $100 billion.

The public offering of shares of Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer, is part of Saudi government plans to sell state assets as a recession slows Riyadh’s effort to eliminate a budget deficit caused by low oil prices.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

They are among the most underprivileged children in Lebanon, and now their voices can soar. For several months, conductor and composer Salim Sahab auditioned youngsters, most of whom work, for a choir of 300. With Syrian and Palestinian refugees selected along with Lebanese children, hopes are that the unifying power of singing will help cross political and sectarian lines. Having performed the same feat in Egypt, Sahab plans to get them on the big stage. John Owens reports from Tripoli.
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From: MeNeedIt

The recent flurry of social and economic reform coming out of Saudi Arabia has left some Saudis ecstatic, others more circumspect, and a few conservatives bewildered or even angry.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman told a crowd of investors at a conference in late October that he was merely attempting to “return Saudi Arabia to the moderate Islam that once prevailed” before the Iranian Revolution in 1979. He stressed that 70 percent of Saudis are younger than 30 and vowed “not to spend another 30 years of our lives living under extremist ideas.”

The young crown prince also proposed an ambitious plan for a new economic zone on the Red Sea near Jordan and Egypt. In April, he put forward an economic road map for the kingdom, called Vision 2030. Part of the plan calls for privatizing 5 percent of the country’s flagship petroleum company Aramco, in addition to attracting foreign investment capital.

​Too much change too fast

Clarence Rodriguez, who spent 12 years as a French foreign correspondent in Riyadh and recently wrote a book called Saudi Arabia 3.0 on the aspirations of Saudi women and young people, tells VOA that she believes Saudi Arabia “is in crisis, due to the drop in the price of petroleum,” and that it has found itself under pressure to “diversify its economy, which necessitates societal reform involving women and young people, as well.”

Rodriguez points out that the late King Abdallah, who died in 2015, started the reform movement by allowing Saudi women to run for the country’s consultative “Shoura” council and to enter the work force, becoming lawyers, bankers and salespeople.

She worries, however, that some recent moves to change the status of women have angered parts of the kingdom’s mostly conservative population. Traditionalists, she says, are “not used to such quick change” and many “are afraid, because things are moving too fast for them.”

On a recent talk show on an Arabic-language news channel, a conservative Saudi caller told the show’s host that he thinks Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman are “violating (Islamic) sharia law” with some of their recent reforms “and should go to jail.”

Saudi commentator Jamal Kashoggi tells VOA that he’s “not optimistic about the reforms,” but that he would “still like to be optimistic … since everyone will suffer if they fail.” Kashoggi worries that the reforms are “not engaging Saudi society, enough.” 

“We wish Mohammed Bin Salman well, and we need economic (and social) reform,” he said, “but, we also need to discuss (these issues). The change,” he said, “is being done in very narrow circles. (Ordinary) people are not feeling engaged.” 

Was Saudi society more moderate?

Hilal Khashan, who teaches political science at the American University of Beirut, is not convinced that Saudi society was more moderate before the Iranian Revolution in 1979. He thinks that parts of Saudi society have always had a conservative streak to them, pointing out that Wahabi conservatives killed many moderate Muslims, including the Shafa’i mufti of Mecca when they overran the city and the nearby resort city of Ta’ef in 1924.

A handful of prominent Saudi conservative clerics have been arrested since Mohammed Bin Salman replaced his cousin, Mohammed Bin Nayef, as crown prince, in June. 

“By weakening the clerical establishment and making clerics simple government workers,” Khashan said, “(Mohammed Bin Salman) will be able to give women more rights, as he is proposing.” Saudi women were allowed to drive, starting in September, and this week were given permission to attend sports matches with their families.

Khashan believes that economic considerations are a key factor in the decision to allow Saudi women to drive. 

“If 10 million women are given the right to drive in Saudi Arabia,” he said, “and if just a fraction of those women buy cars, take driving lessons or buy insurance, that would contribute to stimulating Saudi Arabia’s stagnant economy.” Allowing women to drive will also curtail the expensive practice of hiring foreign chauffeurs to drive women around.

Both Kashoggi and Khashan believe that the Saudi government will eventually prevail in its efforts to reform society. 

“Conservatives,” Kashoggi said, “have already lashed out. They’ve been lashing out since 2003. Al-Qaida, or ISIS, or the radical Wahabis … these are the extremists in Saudi Arabia … and they don’t want change. They have resisted, and will continue to resist. … The only thing stopping them is (government) security.”

Clashes with clerics

Khashan points out that in clashes with conservative clerics back in the 1960s, after King Faisal opened a school for girls in Riyadh, and when the king opened the first TV station in Riyadh in 1965, the government prevailed. 

“Whenever the state clashes with the (conservative) clerical establishment, the state emerges victorious,” he said, “and there’s no reason to believe that things will not be the same, this time.”

Jordanian analyst Shehab Makahleh is less certain about who will come out on top, however. 

“There is a kind of opposition among royal family members who are not happy (about the reforms),” he said, “and they have had a number of meetings to clarify where the country is heading in the coming five to 10 years.”

Makahleh believes that King Salman may soon abdicate in favor of Mohammed Bin Salman “in order to gain more support from the international community” for his ambitious reform program and to promote a more secular model of society.
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From: MeNeedIt