Commonwealth leaders back climate change fund

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Queen Elizabeth II got a carnival welcome in Port of Spain

Commonwealth leaders have backed a multi-billion-dollar plan to help developing nations to deal with climate change and cut greenhouse gases.

The fund, proposed by UK and French leaders at the Commonwealth summit on Friday, would start next year and build to $10bn annually by 2012.

Many Commonwealth members are island states threatened by rising sea levels.

Leaders also called for the strongest possible outcome at next month's climate change summit in Copenhagen.

They unanimously agreed to seek a legally binding international agreement, but accepted that "a full legally binding outcome" might have to wait to 2010.

ANALYSIS James Robbins, BBC News diplomatic correspondent Did the Commonwealth give a lead to the world on climate change, as the Queen urged when she opened this summit? The Commonwealth Climate Declaration does emphasise that "an internationally binding agreement is essential" but then concedes in the next sentence that "a full legally binding outcome" will have to wait until 2010. That doesn't mean the Commonwealth has failed. The wording looks cautious but realistic. It is the breakdown in global negotiations which threatens to sink a strong deal. There does seem to have been some meeting of minds at the Commonwealth on the global fund to distribute money from rich countries to the developing countries to help them adapt and pay for low-carbon alternatives. Poorer countries can start to see the money now, with the promise of payouts starting soon after a global treaty is agreed. That's a very direct incentive for the developing world.

Commonwealth leaders "welcomed the initiative to establish, as part of a comprehensive agreement, a Copenhagen Launch Fund starting in 2010 and building to a level of resources of $10 billion annually by 2012," a statement in Trinidad on Saturday said.

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the declaration sent a clear political message.

"The Commonwealth is showing that you can find some common ground amidst countries that are very different, large and small, rich and poor, and that climate change is an issue that affects us all, and that the world needs to show the sort of resolution that we've seen here over the past 24 hours," he said.

It added that "fast start funding" for adaptation should be focused on the most vulnerable countries.

"We also recognise the need for further, specified and comparable funding streams, to assist the poorest and most vulnerable countries, to cope with, and adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change. We recognise that funding will be scaled up beyond 2012."

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said half the $10bn fund should go towards helping developing nations reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and the other half towards helping them adapt to climate change.

The first cash would be made available next year, he said, before any emissions deal could take effect.

'Clock ticking'

Kevin Rudd stressed it was "time for action"

Commonwealth leaders met days after pledges by the US and China to limit their greenhouse gas emissions, amid concerns that December's Copenhagen meeting on climate change could fail to agree substantial cuts.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told a news conference in Trinidad on Saturday that the Commonwealth - representing a third of the world's population - believed "the time for action on climate change has come."

"The clock is ticking to Copenhagen. We've achieved one further step, significant step forward with this communique and we believe the political goodwill and resolve exists to secure a comprehensive agreement at Copenhagen."

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that when his country unveils its first targets for carbon emission cuts they would be "ambitious".

But he also stressed that India's offer would be conditional on other countries sharing the burden.

That neatly illustrates the greatest threat to a global deal, says the BBC's James Robbins.

Many countries will only make binding concessions if every other nation also gives ground, our correspondent says.

Speaking earlier at the summit, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he believed an agreement was in sight, with recent moves by some countries a positive step to cutting emissions.

The head of the UN's panel of climate experts, Rajendra Pachauri, said he was now very optimistic a deal could be reached in Copenhagen.

Honduras voting for new president

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Some Hondurans are optimistic the political crisis may soon be over

Presidential elections are under way in Honduras, five months after a political crisis ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

He was forced from Honduras at gunpoint in June, and replaced by Roberto Micheletti. Neither are candidates.

The favourite to win is conservative Porfirio Lobo from the National Party, and Elvin Santos from the Liberal Party is considered his nearest rival.

Mr Zelaya has called for a boycott of the election. Voting began at 0700 (1300 GMT) and will last nine hours.

Mr Lobo, 61, narrowly lost to Mr Zelaya in 2005, and Mr Santos, 46, was previously Mr Zelaya's vice president in the divided Liberal Party.

About 30,000 soldiers and police are to provide security for the elections, but many fear violence could erupt.

The political crisis and election have divided the region, with the US indicating it would endorse the result if the elections are deemed "free and fair".

Costa Rica, which has long been the mediator between the two sides in this crisis, has said likewise, but other Latin American countries have opposed the vote.

Porfirio Lobo is considered the favourite to win

Argentina and Brazil have said they will not recognise any government installed after the election, arguing that to do so would legitimise the coup which ousted an elected president, and thus set a dangerous precedent.

The main regional grouping, the Organisation of American States, has declined to send an observer mission.

BBC correspondent Stephen Gibbs in the capital Tegucigalpa says that while supporters of Mr Zelaya are watching events with dismay, many Hondurans are expressing optimism that an end to the country's political crisis is in sight.

Congress is due to vote on Mr Zelaya's reinstatement on 2 December. His term ends on 27 January.

Mr Micheletti temporarily stepped down from office - for a week until 2 December - to allow the elections to proceed "peacefully and transparently", his spokesman said.

Mr Zelaya was forced into exile on 28 June after trying to hold a vote on whether a constituent assembly should be set up to look at rewriting the constitution.

His critics said the vote, which was ruled illegal by the Supreme Court, aimed to remove the current one-term limit on serving as president and pave the way for his possible re-election.

Mr Zelaya has repeatedly denied this and some commentators say it would have been impossible to change the constitution before his term in office was up.

He sneaked back into the country in September and has been living in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa.

Gordon Brown's tough tone over Afghanistan's future

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By John Pienaar in Trinidad Political correspondent, BBC News

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is under pressure over Afghanistan

Gordon Brown has clearly decided it's time to add urgency and method to the international effort to hand control of Afghanistan to the Afghans.

His tone in setting down terms for co-operation with Hamid Karzai's government has never been more forceful.

The prime minister has been accused by critics of presiding over a mission with unclear aims, and beginning to drift.

Was it driven by the need to deny terrorists a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the UK and its allies? Was it about establishing a functioning democracy in Afghanistan, purged of corruption and endowed with traditions of equality and justice?

And crucially, was it geared to enable Afghanistan to manage its own security within a realistic timetable?

Gordon Brown has now attempted to show all these aims are interlinked, and progress in achieving them will be measured as a condition of British and other troops continuing to risk - and lose - their lives in the Afghan cause.

Conceivably, the newly re-elected Afghan president may resent being handed his marching orders in this way. But the prime minister's tone implied he was not overly concerned with Hamid Karzai's sensitivities.

Continuing criticism

And Mr Brown is under a good deal of pressure on his own account. British public opinion has been growing steadily more sceptical towards the Afghan mission.

Hamid Karzai is under pressure to bring order to Afghanistan

Constant suggestions that British troops have lacked necessary equipment - helicopters in particular - have taken their toll, despite ministerial denials.

The prime minister will be hoping this tough new tone wins over a few British doubters. He seemed confident that the international conference on 28 January next year would bring with it fresh promises of troops.

He seemed on course to confirm 500 more British troops would join the 9,000 already serving in Afghanistan in a statement to the Commons next week.

Mr Brown was offering no timetable for withdrawing those troops, and insisted he would not be doing so.

But an assessment of progress by the end of 2010, he suggested, might finally place the scale of British involvement on the agenda.

The existence of "benchmarks" for progress might also help him as he deals with an inevitably rising casualty list, and an increasingly sceptical public in the run up to the 2010 general election.

Al-Qaeda head Osama Bin Laden was 'within grasp' of US

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Osama Bin Laden is believed to be hiding in Pakistan's tribal areas

US forces had Osama Bin Laden "within their grasp" in Afghanistan in late 2001, a US Senate report says.

It says calls for US reinforcements were rejected, allowing the al-Qaeda leader to "walk unmolested" into Pakistan's unregulated tribal areas.

The report was prepared by the Foreign Relations Committee Democratic staff.

It says the failure to kill or capture Bin Laden had far-reaching consequences and laid the foundation for the protracted Afghan insurgency.

The report comes as President Barack Obama prepares to announce a long-awaited decision on sending troop reinforcements to Afghanistan.

It is highly critical of officials in former President George W Bush's administration and military commanders at the time.

'Potent symbolic figure'

It says that while the "vast array of American military power... was kept on the sidelines", US commanders "chose to rely on air strikes and untrained Afghan militias" to pursue Bin Laden in the mountainous complex of caves and tunnels known as Tora Bora.

SEE THE FULL REPORT Tora Bora Revisited[3.1MB] Most computers will open this document automatically, but you may need Adobe Reader Download the reader here

"On or around 16 December [2001], two days after writing his will, Bin Laden and an entourage of bodyguards walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan's unregulated tribal area," where he is still thought to be hiding, the report says.

The then US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld expressed concern at the time that a large US troop presence in the area could provoke a backlash and he said the evidence about Bin Laden's location was not conclusive.

Open door

The report says the "failure to finish the job" laid the foundation for "today's protracted Afghan insurgency and inflaming the internal strife now endangering Pakistan".

It acknowledges that removing Bin Laden "would not have eliminated the worldwide extremist threat".

But it adds that "the decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed Bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure who continues to attract a steady flow of money and inspire fanatics worldwide".

The report rebuffs claims by Bush administration officials at the time that intelligence about Bin Laden's location was inconclusive.

"The review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants underlying this report removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama Bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora," it says.

Pakistan must help break al-Qaeda, says Brown

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Brown warns Pakistan on al-Qaeda

Gordon Brown has told the BBC that Pakistan must do more to "break" al-Qaeda and find Osama Bin Laden.

Questions must be asked about why nobody had been able "to spot or detain or get close to" the al-Qaeda leader, the prime minister said.

He said he wanted to see "more progress in taking out" Bin Laden and his second-in-command Ayman Zawahiri.

Meanwhile, a Senate report claims US forces had Bin Laden "within their grasp" in Afghanistan in late 2001.

BBC World Affairs correspondent Mike Wooldridge said this was not a new claim.

However, he said, staff working for the Democratic majority on the Foreign Relations Committee now claimed to have evidence that in December 2001 US military power was kept on the sidelines while Bin Laden escaped "unmolested" into Pakistan's unregulated tribal areas.

Air strikes

The report comes days before US President Barack Obama is due to announce additional US troops for Afghanistan - Mr Brown is to announce whether conditions have been met to send an extra 500 British troops.

Speaking in a BBC interview, the prime minister said that if so much effort was going into building up security in Afghanistan, Pakistan had "to be able to show that it can take on al-Qaeda".

The prime minister said Pakistan had made progress against the Taliban in south Waziristan.

We want to see more progress in taking out these two people at the top of al Qaida Gordon Brown Bin Laden was 'within US grasp' Brown's tough tone on Afghanistan

But he told the BBC: "We've got to ask ourselves why, eight years after September the 11th, nobody has been able to spot or detain or get close to Osama bin Laden, nobody's been able to get close to Zawahiri, the number two in al-Qaeda."

Pakistan had to "join us in the major effort that the world is committing resources to, and that is not only to isolate al-Qaeda, but to break them in Pakistan", he said.

Pakistan's prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, will meet Mr Brown at Downing Street on Thursday. Mr Brown informed Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari by telephone that he intended to speak out about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

The prime minister told the BBC that over eight years "we should have been able to do more ... to get to the bottom of where al-Qaeda is operating from".

'Political surge'

Progress had been made he said, but Pakistan had to make sure that "in South Waziristan we are taking on al-Qaeda directly".

"We want, after eight years, to see more progress in taking out these two people at the top of al-Qaeda, who have done so much damage and are clearly the brains behind many of the operations that have hit Britain," said Mr Brown.

Later Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Britain wanted Pakistan to "join us in upping our game" in tackling terrorism on its border with Afghanistan.

"We know that the Pakistani authorities, as the prime minister said, are taking big losses in their drive against the so-called Pakistan Taliban... we recognise that."

But he said it was "right that we recognise that stability in Afghanistan requires stability in Pakistan too and that requires a combined effort."

"We've all got to do more, Pakistan has got to do more, Afghanistan has got to do more and the international community has got to do more, but we've also got to do better."

Shadow defence secretary Liam Fox told BBC One's Politics Show that Pakistan faced economic and political problems and its army did not "really have the capabilities for the sort of anti-terrorist counter-insurgency measures that we want".

"The international community has to give Pakistan a lot of help if Pakistan is to fulfil the role we want it to do," he said.

And Edward Davey, for the Liberal Democrats, said: "The real questions are, why hasn't this happened before and because it hasn't, why is it suddenly going to happen now?

"This looks more like wishful thinking than a new well considered strategy"

Pakistan's High Commissioner in London, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, told BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend: "We are doing what we could. We have carried out two very big military operations at enormous cost to the country."

He added: "The people of Pakistan want its allies to do more. If you provide us with equipment and expertise we will be able to be more successful - we are successful, but more successful - in tracking down al-Qaeda leadership."

Iran 'planning 10 new uranium enrichment sites'

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Iran insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes

Iran's government has approved plans to build 10 new uranium enrichment plants, according to state TV.

The government told the Iranian nuclear agency to begin work on five sites, with five more to be located over the next two months, the report said.

It comes days after the UN nuclear watchdog rebuked Iran for covering up a uranium enrichment plant.

Western powers say Iran is trying to develop nuclear arms. Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceful.

BBC Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne says Sunday's announcement is a massive act of defiance likely to bring forward direct confrontation over Iran's nuclear programme.

On Friday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed a resolution that was heavily critical of Iran for covering up a uranium enrichment plant near the town of Qom.

Earlier on Sunday it was reported that the Iranian parliament had urged President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government to reduce co-operation with the IAEA.

HOW SWINE FLU OUTBREAK EMERGED

HOW SWINE FLU OUTBREAK EMERGED

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Flu viruses mutate over time causing small changes to proteins on their surface called antigens. If the immune system has met a particular strain of the virus before, it is likely to have some immunity; but if the antigens are new to the immune system, it will be weakened.

The influenza A virus can mutate in two different ways; antigenic drift, in which existing antigens are subtly altered, and antigenic shift, in which two or more strains combine. Antigenic drift causes slight flu mutations year on year, from which humans have partial, but not complete, immunity. By contrast, the new strain of H1N1 appears to have originated via antigenic shift in Mexican pigs

The name "swine flu" is a slight misnomer as it is believed pigs acted as a mixing pot for several flu strains, containing genetic material from pigs, birds and humans. Most humans have never been exposed to some of the antigens involved in the new strain of flu, giving it the potential to cause a pandemic.

The new virus has made the jump from pigs to humans and has demonstrated it can also pass from human to human. This is why it is demanding so much attention from health authorities. The virus passes from human to human like other types of flu, either through coughing, sneezing, or by touching infected surfaces, although little is known about how the virus acts on humans.