1. Home
  2. Articles posted by: Rona Fried (Page 1814)

Bush Address to Focus on Alternative Fuels and Nuclear Plants

By Elisabeth Bumiller and David E. Sanger President Bush will renew a call for the development of alternative fuel for automobiles and promote the construction of new nuclear power plants in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, White House officials said Monday. After years of partisan arguments over the administration’s efforts to open new parts of the country for oil and gas drilling, Mr. Bush will cast his discussion of nonoil sources of energy as an economic imperative for the United States and a national security necessity to reduce dependence on Middle Eastern oil. The issues have been part of Mr. Bush’s agenda for years, but never a top priority. He will use his address to refocus attention on them at a time when oil is selling at more than $68 a barrel, close to its all-time high, and Americans are worried about the cost of fueling their cars and heating their homes. White House officials said the address would contain no expensive policy initiatives at a time of growing deficits and when Congress would be focused on midterm elections. Mr. Bush will also use the address to announce new proposals in health care, fiscal policy and […]

Read More

UN Unveils Plan to Release Untapped Wealth

By Philip Thornton, Economics Correspondent The most potent threats to life on earth – global warming, health pandemics, poverty and armed conflict – could be ended by moves that would unlock $7 trillion – $7,000,000,000,000 (3.9trn) – of previously untapped wealth, the United Nations claims today. The price? An admission that the nation-state is an old-fashioned concept that has no role to play in a modern globalised world where financial markets have to be harnessed rather than simply condemned. In a groundbreaking move, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has drawn up a visionary proposal that has been endorsed by a range of figures including Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Laureate. It says an unprecedented outbreak of co-operation between countries, applied through six specific financial tools, would slice through the Gordian knot of problems that have bedevilled the world for most of the last century. If its recommendations are accepted – and the authors acknowledge this could take years or even decades – it could finally force countries to face up to the fact that their public finance and growth figures conceal the vast damage their economies do to the environment. At the heart […]

Read More