Morning Briefing

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron has been asked by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to chair a "U.N. committee tasked with establishing a new set of U.N. millennium development goals [MDGs] to follow the present goals, which expire in 2015," the Guardian reports. "The invitation, accepted by the prime minister, represents a political coup for Cameron, who has stuck to the government's commitment to increase overseas aid to 0.7 percent of U.K. GDP, despite the recession," the newspaper writes. The MDGs -- which "range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015" -- "decide the international targets of global aid channeled bilaterally and multilaterally through organizations such as the World Bank and the IMF," the Guardian notes.