HEALTH: Chernobyl Kids Keep Arriving in Cuba

Thousands of kilometres from Ukraine, where the worst nuclear accident in history occurred 23 years ago, the sun and fresh air of a Cuban beach provide therapy for Ukrainian children, who continue to be born with problems stemming from the disaster.

POLITICS: Maritime Treaty Would Boost U.S. Interests, Report Says

The U. S. should quickly accede to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, according to a new Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) report.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Two-Degree Rise Ever More Likely, Scientists Warn

Climate scientists are calling for a phase-out of fossil fuels because humans are now pumping so much carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere that the '2-degree-C climate balloon' will burst otherwise, new studies show.

ENERGY-BRAZIL: Two-Pronged Policy

The Brazilian government announced it is overhauling the country's energy basket with more emphasis on renewable resources, while continuing to plan for future expansion of local production of traditional fossil fuels, like oil and gas.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Biggest Emitters Seek an Early Consensus

A two-day meeting in Washington of the 17 nations that collectively emit three-quarters of the world's greenhouse gases concluded Tuesday with optimism that it helped provide a springboard toward more comprehensive talks on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol at the end of the year.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Burden Lies with Rich Polluters, Native People Say

Already suffering significant impacts from climate change, indigenous peoples at the close of an international summit here rejected the concept of carbon trading and offsets. Many also called for a moratorium on all new oil and gas exploration in their traditional territories and the eventual phase-out of fossil fuels.

ENERGY-LATIN AMERICA: US Proposes “Variable Geometry”

The United States will work on energy issues with the other countries of the Americas based on "a variable geometry," allowing governments to choose to cooperate in some areas but not others, said Jeremy Martin, head of the energy programme at the Institute of the Americas at the University of California San Diego.

DEVELOPMENT: The Second Scramble For Africa Starts

Sub-Saharan African countries have of late become the target of a new form of investment that is strongly reminiscent of colonialism: investors from both industrialised and emerging economies buy or lease large tracts of farm land across the continent, either to guarantee their own food provisions or simply as yet another business.

ENERGY: Africa Will Have to Feed EU’s Artificial Biofuels Demand

Earlier in the decade, biofuels were hailed as the energy panacea, the silver bullet to solve oil shortages and abide by environmental concerns. The European Union recently took the lead in imposing the use of these liquid or gaseous fuels made from plants.

U.S.: Greens Hail Obama’s OK to Regulate Greenhouse Emissions

U.S. green groups hailed Friday's formal finding by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that carbon dioxide and several other greenhouse gases "endanger" public health and welfare as a landmark – if long overdue – step toward slowing global warming.

ENVIRONMENT-AFGHANISTAN: Smog Adds to Kabul’s Hazards

On any given day, a pall of smog and dust hangs over Kabul's streets. It clings to the face, burns the eyes, and stains the hands. It bathes the cars, often stuck bumper-to-bumper in traffic, and occludes the view of the distant mountains.

ENVIRONMENT: Paper and Fuel Wood Biggest Stresses on Forests

Protecting the earth's nearly 4 billion hectares of remaining forests and replanting those already lost are both essential for restoring the earth's health, an important foundation for the new economy.

AFRICA: New North-South Corridor To Tackle Trade Bottle-Necks

Africa’s contribution to the global economy will continue to be low if there is no investment in infrastructure, delegates heard at the North-South Corridor Conference in Lusaka, where 1.2 billion dollars was raised.

ENERGY: Oil Producers Look for Ways out of Crisis

With the price of crude oil down more than 50 percent from a year ago, and with U.S. President Barack Obama championing alternative forms of energy, oil producers are scrambling to find ways to protect their industry.

ARGENTINA-BRAZIL: Planned Dam Above Famous Falls Draws Fire

While a dispute between Argentina and Uruguay over a pulp mill simmers on, a new environmental conflict over a border river is taking shape, this time involving a hydroelectric dam between Argentina and Brazil.

CLIMATE CHANGE: G20 Leaders Wrangle Over Kyoto Successor

Senior legislators from the G20 bloc of the world’s biggest economies launched an international commission in Washington Monday to help lay the political groundwork for a global deal on climate change in Copenhagen this December.

TRADE: ‘‘Russia Should Extend More Preferences to Nigeria’’

As cooperation between Nigeria and Russia is strengthened, Russia should consider extending preferences to some goods from Nigeria to further boost trade between the two oil producers, according to the deputy director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’s Institute for African Studies, Professor Dmitri Bondarenko.

CLIMATE CHANGE: In Search of a Green Economic Stimulus

The high-level scientific climate conference that concluded last week in Copenhagen warned that humanity is rapidly approaching an irreversible, 1,000-year-long climate catastrophe.

ISRAEL: Green Group Resists Oil Exploration

A group of Israeli environmentalists is campaigning to prevent oil exploration inside a nature reserve by the Dead Sea.

ENERGY: Costa Rica Invests in Geothermal Power

The government of Costa Rica hopes to increase its power generation by tapping into volcanic hot spots, and to that end it has introduced a controversial bill in Congress that would allow drilling into volcanoes in national parks.

RUSSIA: In a New Gas War with Ukraine

The Ukraine-Russia gas dispute has boosted plans for construction of the South Stream and North Stream gas pipelines that would eventually divert Russian gas supplies through the Black Sea and the Baltic seabed respectively to European consumers.