Free Republic

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - French President Jacques Chirac will urge world leaders to launch talks on a new international tax to fight world poverty, sources with him at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg say. The sources said Chirac rejected the existing "Tobin Tax" proposal to raise levies purely on foreign exchange transactions but would call in a speech to the summit for discussion on a wider tax on wealth generated by globalisation. "It could be a tax on airplane tickets, on carbon dioxide, on health products sold in industrialised countries, and indeed on international financial transactions," one source said. "The idea...

Along with death and taxes, the U.N.'s America-bashing is one of the few things in life you can count on. The only variables in this global version of the Whack-A-Mole game are the time, place, and manner of the whacks. This week the venue moves to Johannesburg, South Africa, the site of the U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development. The forum aims to focus on the deteriorating state of the environment in poor countries. News accounts remind us that 100 presidents and prime ministers from around the world will attend-but not George W. Bush!(gasp!) The New York Times' "news...