We’re going to have to wait a little longer for our secret weapon against HIV. A major trial of one promising microbicide just found no protective effect against HIV. The microbicide, PRO 2000, had showed promise in a previous trial. This larger trial, however, found no impact.
This video from the UN Development Program offers a pretty vivid reminder about why provisions for adaptation to the effects of climate change must be included in a final outcome in Copenhagen. As you can see the citizens of Kiribati will, in all likelihood, lose their homes and even their country because of rising sea levels.
Emotions are running high inside and outside the Bella Center in Copenhagen as the UN climate summit enters its second week.
China has had a one-child policy since 1978. It’s written into the constitution. It has been strictly enforced, through methods that include local officials in charge of monitoring birthrates, heavy fines for couples with more than one child, and social services available only to firstborn children. Now, with the nation’s demographics permanently altered, the Chinese government would like to see more kids born. Parents, however, don’t agree.
When assessing the progress of the climate negotiations in Copenhagen, remember: these talks are a game of geopolitical chicken with 192 players. All sides agree that emissions must be slashed and no country or region wants to sacrifice more than it has to. Rifts have emerged this week as various interest groups stake out their negotiating positions and size up the opposition.
Liu Zhenmin, the Chinese deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, spoke to the general assembly on Tuesday and called for better global cooperation on global health issues. He specifically focused on improving information: “The international community should pool its resources and work together, strengthen the sharing of information, technology and experience in prevention and control, so as to contain the spread of major epidemics around the world, including H1N1 influenza…”
Here's the story. Earlier in the week, in Copenhagen, a group of climate activists disrupted a public meeting of Americans for Prosperity, which is an astroturf organization committed to fighting action on climate change. At the time, Lord Monckton--a prominent speaker on the climate change denialist circuit--called the protesters,"Hitler youth." That was bad enough.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum hosted an event last night with Susan Rice, which was billed as a conversation about genocide prevention and timed to the one year anniversary of a high-level report on the topic. The Q and A was not earth-shattering, but her fluid articulation of the challenges facing the United Nations and the United States in confronting genocide and mass atrocity did re-enforced every positive bias I have toward my UN