France plans to launch a "solidarity tax" on airline tickets as early as next year to help fund the global fight against poverty, President Jacques Chirac said on Monday.
Saying he wanted his country to be "in the forefront" of efforts to boost aid to Africa, the French president -- eager not to be outshone in the aid stakes by British Prime Minister Tony Blair's recent drive for the continent -- said he had asked the government "to start the necessary procedures without waiting."
Chirac, who last month wrote to 145 world leaders seeking their support for the scheme, said in a speech to the annual meeting of France's ambassadors in Paris that Germany, Algeria, Brazil, Chile and Spain would help promote the idea at a UN summit in September.
An international ministerial conference on the theme will be held in Paris next February, he added.
Last January, when Chirac formally floated the scheme at the World Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he said a tax of just a few dollars on every airline ticket sold could raise up to US$10 billion a year to finance campaigns against diseases in Africa, notably AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. G8 rich nations promised last June that it would look into the project, but some countries are keener than others. A number of EU member states, including Greece and Ireland, reject the idea, while the US has said it will not stand in the way of other countries.
Britain, which is pressing hard for an international finance facility, a means of doubling aid flows by floating bonds on financial markets, initially responded coolly to Chirac's airline tax plan this year but has since stressed that the two schemes are not mutually exclusive.
France's finance minister, Thierry Breton, outlined the solidarity tax to a UN meeting in June, saying that, with world air traffic growing at an average 9 percent every year since 1960, it was "one of the most promising solutions for developing countries and for the international architecture of aid."
Breton said airline tickets were an appropriate commodity to tax because airlines benefit from globalization and pay low taxes, their passengers "are rarely among the poorest citizens," and such a levy has been proved feasible both practically and legally.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who set the UN's target of halving extreme poverty by 2015, said last month he supported the airline tax plan and that the idea "seems to be taking hold."
Along with several other leaders, Chirac has repeatedly said budgetary increases alone will not finance the extra US$50 billion needed to meet the UN's Millennium Development goals on poverty, health and education, and that additional innovative solutions were needed. French authorities estimate a tax of about 5 euros (US$6) per passenger worldwide, with a 20 euro surcharge for business class travellers, would generate revenues of about US$12 billion a year. The contribution could be reduced in poorer countries so as not to penalize passengers there.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was