Free Republic

After weeks of uncertainty and foot-dragging, the Appeals Court this week made a critical ruling, setting the stage for a potential shakeup in Turkish politics that may block President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s drive for an executive presidency. The court gave the green light for the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) to hold a convention requested by in-house dissidents seeking to remake the party, whose erosion in recent years has played directly into Erdogan’s hands. Leading the dissidents is Meral Aksener, a rare female heavyweight on Turkey’s political scene, whose fortunes may now change not only the MHP’s but also Turkey’s course.

New Delhi: If a power plant coming up in India for $500 million can embrace clean technology for an extra $50 million, developed countries must pay the difference, a top UN official has said. United Nations Development Programme Administrator Kemal Dervis said developed and developing countries had different responsibilities, but would have to strive together to reach a goal of two tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per capita, which would mean a global warming of two degrees Celsius. Scientists have warned any climate change beyond this level would potentially have disastrous consequences. Delivering one of the Talking Tomorrow lectures organised...

The United Nations representative in charge of eradicating poverty has said that the rapacious pursuit of profits by a new generation of “super-bankers” has triggered an economic crisis that risks delaying anti-poverty targets in the poorest countries. Kemal Dervis, the head of the UN Development Programme, said that the blame for the three economic ructions of the past decade — the Asian crisis of 1997, the dot-com collapse of 2001 and the present American sub-prime troubles — fell at the feet of an overinfluential and underregulated financial sector. “It is the super-bankers, hedge fund managers and owners of private equity...