WORLD: “Poor Countries Should Have a Seat at G20 Table”

The global economic crisis highlighted the necessity of transforming global economic governance. But least developed countries (LDCs) have little voice in this process. It is time they are allowed a seat at the meetings of the Group of 20 industrialised and emerging economies.

SPECIAL OP-ED: People First, Turning Words Into Action

The promotion of women's rights at the global level should not be limited to treating the female population as a gender that is discriminated against and must be protected.

AFRICA: Uneven Progress on Development Goals

The Millennium Goals cannot be achieved at the United Nations. The U.N. can create a platform for governments to make commitments but cannot force compliance by member states.

G20: Leaders Agree on Reforms, Poor Still "Out in the Cold"

World leaders at the two-day G20 Summit in the U.S. city of Pittsburgh agreed to work cooperatively to recover from the global economic crisis and create structural reforms with long-term growth as the goal.

G20: Rising Above the G8

Something that was perhaps only half-expected has happened in Pittsburgh: the G20 has moved on from being an event to becoming an institution.

G20: Moving Up BRIC by BRIC

Every one of these 'G' meetings becomes now an occasion for the developing countries - say the emerging economies - to turn that extra energy into a louder voice in the business of global decision-taking.

G20: More May Be Needed, to Do More

The tests are coming thick and fast. After the G20 summit in Washington last year, the G20 in London in April, and the G8 in L'Aquila that was substantially a G20, the G20 finance ministers are meeting in London this Friday and Saturday ahead of the G20 gathering in Pittsburgh later this month.

POLITICS: Obama to Bolster Nuclear Disarmament at U.N.

When U.S. President Barack Obama presides over a meeting of world leaders in the Security Council on Sep. 24, he will provide a high profile political platform for two of the most sensitive issues at the United Nations: nuclear non- proliferation and nuclear disarmament.

HEALTH-AFRICA: Maintain Funding for HIV/AIDS Prevention

Health experts and scientists have accused the world's wealthiest countries of abandoning the goal of universal access to HIV prevention, care and treatment by 2010.

Q&A: The Threatened Have Some Friends

Declining amphibian populations, dwindling fish stocks, waning ocean biodiversity, loss of forests...All scientists acknowledge that the rate of species loss is greater now than at any time in human history.

SCIENCE: G8 Failure to Launch on Climate

The G8's failure to make meaningful commitments on climate last week pushes the world ever closer to global climate catastrophe, experts warn. Without commitments to take action, there is little comfort in G8 countries' agreement to keep overall global warming below 2.0 degrees Celsius.

G8: Some Aid Can be Hard to Stomach

As numbers go, and as expectations went, 20 billion dollars would be a fair bit for the G8 to produce to fight the food crisis and bring down hunger. Certainly, it was more than most expected.

CLIMATE CHANGE: G8 Declares a Lack of Promise

The G8 summit is no climate change meeting, and not formally associated in any sense with the series of negotiating meetings leading up to the climate change conference in Copenhagen in December. But the outcome of a G8 sponsored forum on climate change should get environmentalists worried about any outcome in Copenhagen.

G8: Doha Deal Begins to Look Nearer

Clear signs are emerging at the G8 summit here of progress towards concluding new terms for international trade.

G8: The Five Throw a Challenge

"The world needs a new global governance," the G5 declared Wednesday, "the construction of which must be based on inclusive multilateralism." As rhetoric goes, this might sound like more of the same. But the time and place of that declaration gave the words a new significance.

G8: Politely, a Revolution Under Way

It is with too much ease that we all sometimes use the word 'revolution'. Because all too often the change being championed is one that too many others simply do not notice. But that isn't the case here: the change pushed for at the G8 summit in Italy, and at other such forums, is no less than revolutionary, and can only be seen as historic.

G8: ‘Just Invest in Women’

Investment in the health and the rights of girls and women can help economic recovery, civil society groups are telling G8 leaders.

Q&A: ‘Africa Should Rebuild Domestic Markets to Address Crisis’

Despite the global economic crisis, the world's elites will only "tinker" with the world's markets and financial systems and not bring about the fundamental shifts that are required, says Gyekye Tanoh of the Africa Trade Network.

G8: Financial Crisis Or No, Rich Can Help Fight Hunger

The World Food Programme (WFP) is urging G8 leaders to turn words into action and meet urgent hunger needs in Africa and other developing nations as they gather in Italy for the 2009 G8 Summit.

G8: It Will Be a Tale of Two Summits

There is a reason that eight and five do not add up to 13 when it comes to the G8. And it is not just that the five developing countries that now attend the summit of the eight mighty ones as a matter of course are less rich. It's because they have their own way to go, and parallel with the G8 meet, their own summit to attend.

DEVELOPMENT: MDG Goals Face ‘Triple Crisis’

The developing world faces a "triple crisis" as global economics, food prices and the impact of climate change affect the world's most vulnerable people, a new UN report warns.