Tag: era

(Reuters) - When 17 employees of a dozen or so small and mid-size companies gathered for a cocktail reception last year at Clyde's restaurant in Washington, D.C., they toasted what they thought was the imminent completion of a $15 million arms deal to outfit the presidential guard of an African country.

Unbeknownst to them, FBI agents were secretly videotaping the meeting. To nail down the deal, the employees had allegedly agreed to pay 20 percent "commissions" to a sales agent they thought represented the African country's defense minister. The sales agent turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese President Hu Jintao's pledge this week to cut "carbon intensity" marked Beijing's first acceptance that it must control emissions, a pivotal shift that could alter the dynamic of global climate change talks.

It seemed obscure and technical to many, with no hard number to anchor the target or boost pressure on other major emitters, and some critics claimed the new objective was little more than a dressed up extension of existing "energy intensity" goals.