World Leaders

LONDON - Thousands of people calling for a deal on climate change at this week’s United Nations conference in Copenhagen marched through central London yesterday, encircling the Houses of Parliament in a human wave of blue-clad demonstrators. London’s Metropolitan Police said about 20,000 people joined the Stop Climate Chaos march, which began at Grosvenor Square and wound its way to the Parliament building on the River Thames. Organizers put the turnout at 40,000. “We wanted to make a positive statement,’’ said retired teacher Pip Cartwright, 72, from Witney southern England.

The Group of Eight world leaders has warned North Korea that it faces more sanctions if it continues to threaten the stability of the region with provocative acts such as its failed long-range rocket launch in April. The U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and Britain issued a declaration on the results of the two-day summit. It includes a statement about the G-8's concerns over North Korea's nuclear program, including its uranium enrichment program. "We affirm our will to call on the UN Security Council to take action, in response to additional (North Korea)

WASHINGTON - World leaders battling a dire and deepening economic crisis vowed yesterday to cooperate more closely, keep a sharper eye out for red-flag problems and give bigger roles to fast-rising nations - but kicked many hard details down the road for their next summit after President-elect Barack Obama takes office. Perhaps as important as the modest concrete steps they took, the leaders of the planet's richest nations - and some of the fastest-developing - made clear their recognition of the world's increasingly interconnected financial architecture and the responsibilities...

The United States and NATO leaders are insisting the Afghanistan fighting coalition will remain whole despite France's plans to yank combat troops out early, but leaders weary of plummeting public support for the war are also using an alliance summit Sunday to show they want to move quickly away from the front lines. "There will be no rush for the exits," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Sunday. "Our goal, our strategy, our timetable remains unchanged. " Public opinion in Europe and the United States is solidly against the war, with a majority of Americans now...

WASHINGTON - World leaders will meet Nov. 15 in Washington to address the global financial crisis - the first in a series of summits to mitigate what economists predict could be a long and deep downturn. In making the announcement, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the first meeting will focus on the underlying causes of the financial crisis, the global response, and the principles that should guide any reforms. The summit will bring together leaders of Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, the United States, the European Union, China, Brazil, India, Russia, South...

HUNTSVILLE, Ontario — Fresh from a congressional win on a financial overhaul, President Obama pressed world leaders yesterday to join him in backing stronger rules against banking abuses. He made little headway in his call for more stimulus to keep the world economy growing. Instead, he ran into strong opposition from countries wanting to put deficit reduction first. “Those countries with budget deficits need to do that, and, as a world, we need to address the imbalances,’’ Britain’s conservative new prime minister, David Cameron, said yesterday after meeting...

World leaders weary of war will tackle Afghanistan's post-conflict future — from funding for security forces to upcoming elections — when the NATO summit opens Sunday. President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai will huddle on the sidelines of the summit for an hour-long meeting. Their talks are expected to focus on planning for Afghanistan's 2014 elections, as well as the prospect of a political settlement with the Taliban, a senior Obama administration official said.

More than two dozen world leaders will join President Barack Obama in an extraordinary weekend of back-to-back summits to tackle Europe's mounting economic woes and solidify plans for winding down the decade-long war in Afghanistan. The Group of Eight economic summit and the national security-focused NATO meeting will be infused with politics from every angle. For Obama, the summits are a unique election-year opportunity to show leadership on the world stage without having to leave the U.S. But with some new faces around the conference...

The U.N.’s top climate official says the world’s political leaders must step into climate negotiations in the next few months to sort out disputes over reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Christiana Figueres says climate negotiators are working toward a global framework for emissions reductions. Part of that framework requires nearly 40 industrial countries to extend commitments under the Kyoto Protocol that expire in 2012. But that is linked to actions by big emitters like the United States, China and India.

SINGAPORE - President Obama and nearly two dozen fellow leaders from Europe and the Asia-Pacific region agreed today that next month's much-anticipated international climate change meetings will be merely a way station - not the once hoped-for end point - in the difficult search for a worldwide global warming treaty. The 192-nation climate conference beginning in three weeks in Copenhagen had originally been intended to produce a new global climate change treaty. Hopes for that have dimmed lately.

More than two dozen world leaders will join President Barack Obama in an extraordinary weekend of back-to-back summits to tackle Europe's mounting economic woes and solidify plans for winding down the decade-long war in Afghanistan. The Group of Eight economic summit and the national security-focused NATO meeting will be infused with politics from every angle. For Obama, the summits are a unique election-year opportunity to show leadership on the world stage without having to leave the U.S. But with some new faces around the conference tables, Obama and the other leaders will be...

Roadways, parking lots and some of Chicago's top tourist attractions will close when world leaders come to the city later this month for the NATO Summit. The U.S. Secret Service on Friday released what it calls its Security Restrictions and Transportation Plan for the May 20-21 summit, outlining a host of regulations for an area that stretches from O'Hare International Airport to downtown. The plan calls for intermittent road closures on the Kennedy Expressway, the main thoroughfare that connects the airport to downtown, between May 19 and May 21 to...

Mike Wallace's half-century-long career took him around the world and into the minds of the 20th century's most newsworthy figures. But it all began in Brookline. A 1935 graduate of Brookline High School, Mr. Wallace returned to his hometown and alma mater many times over the years, often to give talks or accept plaudits. Smoki Bacon, the Boston philanthropist and socialite who helped orchestrate a sesquicentennial celebration for the school, remembers feting the newsman, who quickly engaged with the students in the audience.

President Barack Obama warned North Korea and Iran on Monday that their options are few, and their friends fewer, as those nations refuse to back down from actions the world sees as menacing. "By now it should be clear," Obama said, addressing North Korea from the South Korean capital only about 30 miles away. "Your provocations and pursuit of nuclear weapons have not achieved the security you seek, they have undermined it. Instead of the dignity you desire, you are more isolated.

GENEVA - A high-profile UN panel headed by the presidents of Finland and South Africa hopes to spark an "ever-green" energy revolution later this year in Brazil using a general roadmap it presented yesterday on how world leaders could wean the world off fossil fuels. Its report links the world body's goals of reducing poverty and inequality to promoting the use of wind, solar, and other renewable sources of energy to run the economies of nations rich and poor. To do that, the panel urges that nations fully integrate the social and environmental...

The president of Seychelles is asking world leaders to address insecurity in Somalia with greater urgency to help lower the number of pirate attacks in the southern Indian Ocean. President James Michel said Monday that even though fewer pirate attacks are now successful, the southern Indian Ocean has seen an increase in attacks. He said pirates are now better armed and resorting to "more desperate measures. " Michel asked in letters to President Barack Obama and European and world leaders for increased support for African Union peacekeepers in Somalia.

BANGKOK - The United Nations warned world leaders yesterday they have only 70 days to reach a new deal to limit global warming, while environmentalists pointed to the deadly floods in the Philippines to illustrate the already devastating impact of climate change. Only hours after negotiations began, rich and poor nations were flinging their usual rebukes at one another for failing to do their part to reach a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Talks have been deadlocked for months over the industrial countries’ refusal to commit to...

CANNES, France - World leaders attending the G-20 summit sent a strong message to Europe yesterday that it must do more to manage its spiraling debt and financial problems but offered no explicit help, saying the region's fate was in its own hands. After two days of talks dominated by the crisis in Greece, the most tangible outcome was an agreement by the cash-strapped government of Italy to allow its economy to be intensely monitored by the International Monetary Fund. Group of 20 leaders also said they would begin studying ways the IMF might provide faster help around the world in a...