UN members agree deal at Lima climate talks

Developing countries have accused wealthier nations of failing to take responsibility for climate change

United Nations members have reached an agreement on how countries should tackle climate change.

Delegates have approved a framework for setting national pledges to be submitted to a summit next year.

Differences over the draft text caused the talks in Lima, Peru, to overrun by two days.

Environmental groups have criticised the deal as a weak and ineffectual compromise, saying it weakens international climate rules.

The talks proved difficult because of divisions between rich and poor countries over how to spread the burden of pledges to cut carbon emissions.

'Not perfect'

The BBC's Matt McGrath in Lima says none of the 194 countries attending the talks walked away with everything they wanted, but everybody got something.

There was a great sense of relief among delegates when the announcement came in the early hours of Sunday morning, he adds, following 48 hours of talks without a break.

Peru's environment minister, Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, who chaired the summit, told reporters: "As a text it's not perfect, but it includes the positions of the parties."

The agreement was adopted hours after a previous draft was rejected by developing countries, who accused rich nations of shirking their responsibilities to fight global warming and pay for its impacts.

The final draft is said to have alleviated those concerns with by saying countries have "common but differentiated responsibilities".

 

The talks, which began on 1 December, had been due to end on Friday but ran over into the weekend

Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, who chaired the talks, announced the agreement to cheers from delegates

"We've got what we wanted," Indian environment minister Prakash Javedekar told reporters, saying the document preserved the notion that richer nations had to lead the way in making cuts in emissions.

It also restored a promise to poorer countries that a "loss and damage" scheme would be established to help them cope with the financial implications of rising temperatures.

However, it weakened language on national pledges, saying countries "may" instead of "shall" include quantifiable information showing how they intend to meet their emissions targets.

The agreed document calls for:

• An "ambitious agreement" in 2015 that reflects "differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities" of each nation
• Developed countries to provide financial support to "vulnerable" developing nations
• National pledges to be submitted by the first quarter of 2015 by those states "ready to do so"
• Countries to set targets that go beyond their "current undertaking"
• The UN climate change body to report back on the national pledges in November 2015

Environmental groups were scathing in their response to the document, saying the proposals were nowhere need drastic enough.

Sam Smith, chief of climate policy for the environmental group WWF, said: "The text went from weak to weaker to weakest and it's very weak indeed."

Jagoda Munic, chairperson of Friends of the Earth International, said fears the talks would fail to deliver "a fair and ambitious outcome" had been proven "tragically accurate".

The talks followed last month's agreement on emissions targets between the US and China, but hopes it would encourage wider global agreement faded once talks began in Lima on 1 December.

On Saturday, US climate envoy Todd Stern had warned that the deadlock in the negotiations threatened the chances of a new global deal next year, saying it would be seen as "a major breakdown".

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Japan election: Voting in Shinzo Abe's snap poll

Shinzo Abe has said this election is a referendum on his economic policies

Millions of Japanese people are voting in a snap election called by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to boost support for his economic reforms.

Voters will be choosing who sits in the 475-seat lower house of Japan's parliament, the Diet.
Recent surveys show Mr Abe's coalition is likely to win a majority, even though his popularity has dipped.
Mr Abe was elected in 2012 and has tried to revive the economy by raising public spending and printing money.
After an initial burst of growth, Japan slipped back into recession in the second half of this year.
Japan is the third-largest economy in the world, according to the World Bank, but it has struggled in recent years.
However, Mr Abe has insisted that his policies, known as "Abenomics", can get Japan back on track.

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The question for Japanese voters is how many options are there to deal with such deep-rooted economic problems?

"I promise to make Japan a country that can shine again at the centre of the world," he said in a recent campaign speech.
He has vowed to help more Japanese women enter and remain in employment by tightening anti-discrimination laws and setting employment targets.
He has also promised to amend the law to allow the Japanese military to engage in collective self-defence alongside allies who are threatened.
Economists say an increase in sales tax from 5% to 8% in April knocked consumer spending and helped to halt growth.

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Many Japanese women give up work when they get pregnant

The tax increase was legislated by the previous government in 2012 to curb Japan's huge public debt, which is the highest among developed nations.
Mr Abe called the election to seek a mandate to delay a second increase in the tax to 10%, scheduled for 2015.
Several surveys in recent weeks have pointed to a win for Mr Abe's Liberal Democratic Party.
Observers say this is partly due to the lack of a real political alternative, with the opposition in disarray.
The Banri Kaieda-led opposition Democratic Party is expected to pick up a handful of seats, but not enough to affect the parliamentary balance.
A total of 1,191 candidates are competing for 475 seats

Japan's population is rapidly ageing, leading to a strain on public resources

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US Congress passes contentious $1.1tn budget

 

The $1.1tn bill includes a provision to loosen regulations on financial instruments, angering Democrats

The US Senate has completed congressional approval of a controversial $1.1tn (£700bn) federal budget which will now be sent to President Barack Obama to sign.

The Senate passed the bill by 56-40 in a late-night vote on Saturday.
The budget had been the subject of months of intense cross-party debate, with both Democrats and Republicans making concessions.
The bill avoids a government shutdown which could have started next week.
Republicans sought to pressurise President Obama into abandoning controversial new immigration plans by ensuring only partial funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
From January onwards, Republicans will hold a majority in both houses of Congress, which they will hope to use to block the adoption of President Obama's amnesty program for some illegal immigrants.
Democrats were unhappy at the repeal of financial regulation clauses. But others said it was hard to vote against the bill considering its scope and the fact the Democrats will be in a worse position to negotiate next year.
The bill had already cleared the House of Representatives in a close and contentious vote on Thursday.
With the prospect of a government shutdown fast approaching, Congress twice passed emergency funding bills to buy more time for an agreement, with the latest extension coming earlier on Saturday.

Analysis - Kim Gittleson, BBC News, New York

At the behest of Wall Street's biggest banks, Republican lawmakers had inserted a line that repealed one of the signature provisions of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform bill.
This provision, Section 716, required banks to put portions of their riskier derivatives businesses into holding companies. The idea was to separate some of the bank's riskier trading in things like credit default swaps and commodities into a separate entity not insured by US taxpayers. But banks have balked at the rule since it was passed in 2010.
Citigroup, one of the country's largest banks, wrote a measure repealing the provision, and with help from JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon, managed to get Republicans to include it in the final $1.1bn budget bill.
Unsurprisingly, this angered many liberal Democrats - and even conservative Tea Party members - who saw it as a dirty play by Wall Street to force a Congress desperately in need of passing a spending bill into doing the banks' bidding.
US spending bill boon for Wall Street?

Senator Elizabeth Warren (centre) has been sharply critical of the provision weakening financial regulation

The budget also adds emergency funding requested by Mr Obama, including funds to fight Ebola in West Africa and money for US air strikes against militant group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
The 1,600-page bill also included a number of provisions intended to gain votes from both parties, including:

• increasing the amount an individual person can contribute to a national political party from $32,400 to $324,000
• blocking the District of Columbia from using its own funds to set up regulatory systems for marijuana legalisation
• blocking certain Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations
• cuts in the budgets of the EPA and the US tax agency
• increases in the budget for Wall Street regulation agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi criticised Mr Obama for supporting the bill

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Canadian navy sailors face near-total alcohol ban

HMCS Whitehorse had to return early from an exercise in the US

Canada's navy has imposed a near-total ban on its sailors from drinking while at sea.

Previously, sailors were permitted to drink while off duty; now they will only be allowed to on special occasions at the captain's discretion.
The new measures come after a warship had to be recalled after incidents involving allegedly inebriated crew.
The new restrictions bring the Canadian navy closer in line with the navies of the US, Britain and New Zealand.
Beer vending machines will be removed from warships, and the price of alcohol will be raised in the onboard bars.
Royal Canadian Navy Commander vice-admiral Mark Norman told journalists that several "questionable incidents" concerning drunken sailors had prompted the decision.
"This is about a growing concern over a period of a couple of years where we had growing indicators of misconduct across the navy," he said.
In July, Commander Norman ordered warship HMCS Whitehorse back to Canada from an exercise in the US.
Three sailors were accused of sexual misconduct, shoplifting and drunkenness while the ship was in port.

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US Senate backs further defence spending for anti-IS fight

 

 The US has launched air strikes and missile attacks on Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria

The US Senate has approved a new annual defence bill expanding the military campaign against Islamic State (IS).

The bill approves a general Pentagon budget of $496bn (£316bn) plus $64bn for US wars abroad.
The measure also authorises the training and equipping of moderate Syrian rebel fighters for two years.
The bill had already been passed by the House of Representatives and has now been sent to President Barack Obama to sign into law.
IS controls large areas of Syria and Iraq, imposing a rigid version of Sunni Islam and persecuting or killing non-believers.
The US-led coalition has launched more than 600 air strikes against IS militant targets in Iraq since the campaign began on 8 August.
The US, with Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, has also carried out almost 500 attacks on IS in neighbouring Syria since 23 September.
Until now, US operations against IS had been funded from the existing Pentagon budget.
The new bill, which was passed by 89 votes to 11, approves $3.4bn for the direct deployment of US forces against IS, and a further $1.6bn for training Iraqi Kurdish forces for two years.

Democrat Senator Carl Levin said that US air power had "changed the momentum on the ground" but added that IS "cannot be defeated without an opposing force to take the fight to it".
'Warthogs' stay The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) had been the subject of cross-party talks for several months.
The bill rejected President Obama's request to approve the closure of the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay.
It also extended a ban on transferring inmates from the prison to the US.

US military footage shows the impact of air strikes on IS

The bill protected for another year the fleet of aging A-10 "Warthog" ground-support aircraft, whose retirement had been proposed.
A 1% pay rise for military personnel was also agreed.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lauded the bill, saying "it enhances our efforts to keep our warfighters safe on the battlefield, and it authorises the resources needed to responsibly conclude our combat mission in Afghanistan".
The bill also requires the provision of annual mental health screenings for military personnel.

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Korean Air executive 'made steward bow over nut rage'

A cabin crew chief says he was forced to kneel and ask forgiveness by the daughter of Korean Air's chairman, before being ordered off a flight.

Heather Cho, who was an executive at the airline, was furious after being served nuts in a bag, not on a plate.
Describing the incident for the first time, the head steward said the company tried to persuade him to change his story.
The incident has sparked anger and mockery across South Korea.
'Insulted and shamed' Ms Cho was in first class on a Korean Air flight leaving New York for Incheon in South Korea last week when she demanded a crew member be removed for the manner in which he had served her macadamia nuts.
"People who haven't experienced [such abuse] will not understand that feeling of being insulted and shamed," head steward Park Chang-jin told South Korea's KBS television network.
After being confronted about the nuts, he said he was made to kneel down in front of the executive before Ms Cho yelled for the crew to "call right now and stop the plane".
"I will stop this plane from leaving," she is said to have shouted.

Heather Cho forced the plane to return to the gate and made the cabin crew chief take another flight

Mr Park said that in such a situation, he did not dare to refuse the "owner's daughter". He left the plane and returned to South Korea on a different flight.
Once home, officials from the airline came to his home to ask him to say that Ms Cho did not use abusive language and that he voluntarily got off the plane, he said.
Korean Air initially defended Ms Cho, noting that she was responsible for overseeing flight service in her role as vice-president, but the company later apologised.
Top family The government says it is looking into whether Ms Cho, heiress to her father's fortune, violated safety regulations by ordering the plane back to the gate.
On Friday, she bowed in apology when she spoke to reporters outside a government building, where she was due to meet transport officials.
Her father also held a news conference and apologised "as a father and head of Korean Air" for the incident.
Mr Cho said his daughter would step down from all her posts in companies under the Cho family-owned Hanjin Group, which also owns Korean Air.
The Hanjin Group is one of South Korea's top family conglomerates, called chaebol.
Some South Koreans resent chaebols for dominating the economy and many accuse them of acting with impunity.
The Cho family has made headlines before. Mr Cho was at the epicentre of a tax evasion and embezzlement scandal in the late 1990s and was later jailed for seven months.

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Washington march: Civil rights protest over US police killings

13 December 2014 Last updated at 18:17 GMT

Thousands of civil rights protesters are marching through Washington DC, to bring attention to the recent killings of unarmed black people by police.

Relatives of Michael Brown, shot dead in the Missouri town of Ferguson, and Eric Garner, who died being restrained in New York, are due to attend.
Grand jury decisions not to charge police over either death generated waves of unrest across America.
A demonstration in New York is also due to draw thousands.
Organisers arranged buses to take demonstrators to the capital, where they are due to march down Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capitol.

Would police body cameras help? Alistair Leithead reports from Rialto, California

Speakers at the Capitol are expected to call for legislative action.
"We need more than just talk," the Rev Al Sharpton, a leading civil rights advocate, said in a statement. "We need legislative action that will shift things both on the books and in the streets."
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, America's oldest civil rights group, is involved in the protest, called the Justice For All March, along with the National Action Network and the Urban League.
Bereaved families Michael Brown, 18, was shot dead on 9 August during an altercation with a white police officer in Ferguson.
Mr Garner, 43, died while being held down by a white police officer on 17 July after being challenged over the alleged sale of loose cigarettes on a street in the Staten Island borough of New York.

The event was caught on camera and his dying plea of "I can't breathe" has become a slogan of the protesters - as has the chant "Hands up!", relating to a claim that Mr Brown was surrendering when the fatal shots were fired.
Relatives of three other black people killed in controversial shootings are also expected to attend the march, according to the National Action Network.

• Akai Gurley, 28, was shot dead by New York police on 20 November

• Tamir Rice, 12 years old, was shot dead in a Cleveland, Ohio, park on 22 November while carrying a pellet gun

• Trayvon Martin, 17, was shot dead on 26 February 2012 by a neighbourhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Florida

'Racist killings' Addressing the crowd in Washington before the march started, the Rev Charles E Williams of the National Action Network in Detroit said protesters had come with the same message that had echoed across the US.
"That message is that all life matters," he said to cheers. "Black life matters. Brown life matters. Yellow life matters. White life matters. And until the federal government does something about it we're gonna march, we're gonna protest, we're gonna lie down, we're gonna sit down, we're gonna stand in the way until we get justice."
New York march co-organiser Umaara Elliott said in a statement that it was "open season on black people".

"Heaven is crying out for justice": Placard held by a protester in Washington DC

Buses were arranged to ferry protesters from New York and other cities

"This stops today": Another slogan of the protest movement

 

The march in Washington DC is the culmination of weeks of unrest

"So we demand that action be taken at every level of government to ensure that these racist killings by the police cease," she added.
The decision not to prosecute a policeman over Michael Brown's death sparked riots in Ferguson and as far away as Oakland, California.
However, most of the protests over his and Mr Garner's death have been peaceful and dignified.
Baltimore resident Terry Baisden, 52, told the Associated Press news agency in Washington she was "hopeful change is coming".
She had not protested before, she said, but felt compelled to turn out because "changes in action, changes in belief, happen in numbers".

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