African leaders at a development summit with Japan pledged Friday to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as part of the fight against global warming. Global negotiations to draft a new climate treaty covering after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol? obligations to slash emissions expire, have been bogged down by disputes between wealthy and poor countries.

Africa? leaders and Japan pledged Friday to ramp up the continent? food production, seeking to put the crisis of spiralling prices firmly on the agenda of the Group of Eight rich nations. Wrapping up a three-day summit in Yokohama, near Tokyo, Japan also won renewed support for its top foreign policy goal ?securing a permanent seat at the UN Security Council ?which has been blocked under pressure from China.

African countries are doing their part in achieving development goals to reduce poverty on their continent and tackling other key issues such as climate change, but more funds and political push are needed to give it more substance, African representatives and their partners said Thursday.

Japan will offer $10 billion over the next five years to help African nations tackle climate change, government sources said Sunday. The plan will be announced by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda in his speech at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development, to be held in Yokohama on May 28, the sources said.

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is expected to announce a plan for Japan to offer $10 billion over the next five years to help African nations tackle climate change in his speech at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development in late May, government sources said Sunday.

Fighting malarial drug resistance WILL the world lose another miracle cure? Fifty years ago chloroquine seemed to be an unbeatable malaria remedy. But as the popularity spread of this synthetic form of quinine (a tree extract), the biological backlash began in the form of drug resistance. Today it is not recommended even for use in Africa, which suffers most of the world's malarial deaths.

The police in Somalia stood near the corpses of lambs in Dagaari. Drought is killing livestock and destroying livelihoods. She cannot afford rice or wheat or powdered milk anymore. At the same time, a drought has decimated her family's herd of goats, turning their sole livelihood into a pile of bleached bones and papery skin. The result is that Ms. Safia, a 25-year-old mother of five, has not eaten in a week. Her 1-year-old son is starving too, an adorable, listless boy who doesn't even respond to a pinch.

A new NASA-led study shows human-caused climate change has made an impact on a wide range of Earth's natural systems, including permafrost thawing, plants blooming earlier across Europe, and lakes declining in productivity in Africa.

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