ENVIRONMENT: Desert Winds Stir New Hope

With oil and gas reserves running dry, the most populous country in the Arab world is eyeing wind power as a solution to its looming energy crunch.

SOUTH AMERICA: Glaciers – Going, Going…Gone?

South America is perhaps most often associated with the Amazon jungle, the world's largest tropical rainforest. But along its western edge, from Ecuador to southern Chile and Argentina, it also harbours huge glaciers which are rapidly melting due to global warming.

BRAZIL: More Growth, Less Carbon

Achieving sustainable growth is one of the major challenges facing Brazil, an emerging power and the fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. To do this it will have to curb emissions, 30 percent of which are caused by industry and power generation.

VENEZUELA: Alarm over First Contraction of GDP in Five Years

The Venezuelan economy, which has grown steadily for more than five years, contracted by 2.4 percent in the second quarter of this year, heightening fears of stagflation, an unwelcome combination of recession and high inflation.

ENERGY-CANADA: “It’s Like the Wild West Out Here”

The once serene road to Tim and Linda Ewert's organic farm near Tomslake in northeastern British Columbia has become a mess of dust clouds, drilling rigs and hordes of pick-up trucks as the area transforms into the newest frontier of Canada's natural gas boom.

DEVELOPMENT-US: Gentrification Fears Dog Sustainable Transport

As U.S. cities consider the urgent need for sustainable public transportation options, advocates are looking for ways to achieve the environmental benefits of such projects without displacing residents through gentrification of surrounding areas.

MEXICO: Biological Remedy for Sickened Soil

Mexico is beginning to take on the environmental debts left by the oil industry, applying biological techniques to break down alcohols, solvents, glycerines, gasoline, benzene and acetone, turning them into carbon dioxide and water.

ENERGY: Pipeline Sabotage Blows Image of Stable Canada

North America's largest natural gas corporation hopes a one-million-dollar bounty will take down the saboteur who is blowing up their pipelines in northern Canada.

EUROPE: Wind Becomes More Energising

The 12 giant wind turbines tower more than 100 metres above the sea, some 50 kilometres north of Borkum island in the North Sea close to the border with the Netherlands.

DISARMAMENT: Africa Joins the Nuclear-Free Club

Africa, the second-largest continent after Asia, has now become the world's largest nuclear-free zone comprising 53 countries with about a billion people. This means denuclearisation of one of the richest uranium producing regions.

EUROPE: Easterly Wind Picks Up

The natural conditions in Romania and Bulgaria make these countries some of the best placed in Europe for producing wind energy. Interest in investing in wind power is high in both countries, but legislative ambiguity and the limited capacity of national electricity grids are delaying the building of new wind parks.

TRADE-VENEZUELA: Out with Colombia, In with Argentina

Ten thousands cars, 80,000 tons of beef, 100,000 tons of corn, 18,000 tons of milk, 9,000 tons of beans, 18 million eggs, two million pairs of shoes: Argentina has agreed to 1.1 billion dollars worth of sales to Venezuela, which has decided to stop importing goods from Colombia and get its supplies from other sources.

EGYPT: Israel Gas Deal Inflames Opposition

Opposition figures and political activists have slammed a new deal to sell Egyptian liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Israel at what they say are vastly reduced prices.

ENVIRONMENT-CHILE: Anti-Coal Plant Activists Get Death Threats

Five social activists and community leaders opposed to the construction of coal-fired thermoelectric plants near fishing villages in northern Chile filed a complaint with the prosecution service denouncing that they had received anonymous death threats warning them to stop their struggle.

ENERGY-CAMEROON: Dam Project Questioned

Construction has begun on a new dam at the confluence of the Lom and Pangar rivers in Cameroon. The government is pushing the project as key to addressing an energy shortfall, allowing for economic growth; observers believe the plan may only increase the country's vulnerability to drought.

CAMEROON: Fears for Forest as Dam Construction Begins

Crouched on a low wooden stool in front of his mud hut in the village of Pangar, Alain Selembe puffs away at his clay pipe, his gaze lost in the surrounding forest, quite oblivious to the noise made by his two playing daughters. All he hears is the rumbling of bulldozers opening up a 30 kilometre road from Deng Deng village to the confluence of the Lom and Pangar rivers, where the government plans to construct a new dam.

U.S.: Coal Power Hitting Roadblocks

As more and more states are turning against coal power facilities in the U.S., advocates have been using the legal system to halt new pending plants.

GERMANY: Nuclear Power Fails, And Nobody Notices

Seven German nuclear plants have failed to generate any electricity this month due to technical breakdowns. They have about half the production capacity of Germany's 17 nuclear reactors, but Germany did not suffer any power shortages.

ENERGY: "Nuclear Steals Billions from Other Technologies"

Why is nuclear energy back on the table?

ENVIRONMENT: Lavish US Lobbying Pushes Nuclear Energy

Climate change and the resulting need for low-carbon energy sources is driving the current interest in nuclear energy despite the industry's near universal legacy of staggering cost-overruns, technical difficulties and dependence on enormous government subsidies.

EGYPT: Plenty of Sun, Nobody Catching any Rays

Egypt receives some of the highest annual solar radiation in the world, yet the desert country remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels.