Xinhua: Five pilot countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America are set to receive 18 million U.S. dollars in funding from a United Nations program aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from forests while boosting local livelihoods, UN officials said here on Wednesday. The UN Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (UN-REDD) was launched last UN September by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as a way of combating climate change through creating incentives to reverse the …