George Osborne has been accused of depriving poor countries of up to £4bn a year by changing the tax rules for multi-national companies.

US Outlook You have to admire the chutzpah of Jeffrey Sachs, campaigning to be the next president of the World Bank through the op-ed pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Two men trying to row across the Atlantic for charity are adrift in the middle of the ocean after all their oars broke in rough seas.

Given the history of half-truths and special pleading which characterise the public pronouncements of tobacco companies, many people will find it unsurprising that the latest analysis casts doubt on previous industry-backed studies into the safety of cigarette additives. Indeed, independent scientists now claim that research published by Philip Morris a decade ago actually "obscured findings of toxicity".

Right up to the last minute, the danger was that the Climate Change Conference in Durban would end in fiasco or in an agreement so vague as to be meaningless. Instead, when hopes of a global deal looked dashed, European nations – acting with a degree of unanimity over climate change that seems absent from their deliberations on the eurozone – pulled off an agreement that gives new cause for optimism.

Countries agreed a deal today to push for a new climate treaty, salvaging the latest round of United Nations climate talks from the brink of collapse.

Negotiators from nearly two hundred countries were still arguing early today over the possibility of a new climate deal forcing all nations to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

What I Learnt This Week

Countries were today locked in debate over whether to press ahead with a new legal climate treaty, as the latest round of UN global warming talks entered their final hours.

Funding for poor countries and the "emissions gap" are among the topics on the table for government ministers getting down to negotiations on tackling climate change at the latest UN talks.

Country baulks at UN climate conference, concerned about cooling its red-hot economy

Growth, growth, growth... The regrettable lack of it and the imperative to encourage it were the guiding themes of the Chancellor's Autumn Statement, as they have been of practically anything anyone has said about the economy for years. Higher growth boosts national wealth and national morale; falling growth pushes countries into recession, which makes them feel, deservedly, very bad. So runs the consensus.