ENERGY-SRI LANKA: Solar Power Gets A Boost

There may be nothing new in a recent World Bank credit facility to provide electricity through renewable power to thousands of rural homes. But for the growing solar power sector here, it is a giant step in taking the industry forward.

TOGO: Trees Disappearing, Even as Some Believe the Supply “Will Never End”

In the southern Togolese village of Yoto Kopé, Akoua Amouzouvi and several other women emerge from the bush with bowls of charcoal balanced on their heads - hands and faces smeared with black dust.

INDONESIA: Mud Volcano Sullies Top Investment Firms

Environmental campaigners are urging several heavyweight investment firms, including Credit Suisse, Barclays, Fortis Group and Merrill Lynch, to shoulder some responsibility for a catastrophic mud volcano on the Indonesian island of Java that resulted from a gas project the firms helped fund.

TRADE-AFRICA: Libya to Supply Kenya with Cheaper Oil

Kenya is set to receive oil from Libya at preferential rates according to a bilateral agreement signed earlier this month between the leaders of the two countries.

PORTUGAL: Making Up for Lost Time in Renewable Energy

For decades, Portugal basically ignored the infinite possibilities proffered by its geographical conditions for producing clean energy. But that is starting to change, and the country is now among those that are putting the strongest emphasis on alternative energy sources.

ENVIRONMENT: Iceland Teaches the World to Dig for Energy

Icelanders more than anyone else find most of the energy they need beneath their feet.

HAITI: Pain at the Pump Spurs Strike Actions

A two-day transport strike last week gripped Haiti's major cities and underscored a mounting crisis over fuel prices, which rose nearly 20 percent in just two weeks.

ENVIRONMENT-INDIA: Wealth From Waste With Bio-Digesters

Saji Das foresees a time when people in this state, at the southern tip of the Indian peninsula, will compete to get at food waste and other rotting organic rubbish rather than holding their noses and walking away quickly.

ENVIRONMENT-UAE: Coming Up – World’s First ‘Zero-Carbon’ City

A city free of cars, pedestrian-friendly, powered by renewable energy and surrounded by wind and photovoltaic farms - all in the middle of a petroleum-rich desert.

ENERGY-US: Senate Plan Scales Down Fossil Fuel Use

The U.S. Senate began debate on a complex package of energy legislation this week that is running head-on into the politics of global warming.

ECONOMY-IRAN: Fear of Sanctions Drives Petrol Rationing Plans

As Iran reluctantly begins implementing Thursday a plan to reduce consumption of mostly imported petrol by cutting massive consumer subsidies, it is with an eye to possible tightening of international sanctions for the country's controversial nuclear programme.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Nobel Laureate Calls for Post-Kyoto Treaty

Large developing nations like China, India and Mexico should sign a new international treaty to curb climate change which must include economic penalties to clamp down on emissions of greenhouse gases, Nobel chemistry laureate Mario Molina said Wednesday.

ENVIRONMENT-THAILAND: Seeing the Light With Solar Power

Till over a year ago, health officials worried over maintaining the cold chain for vaccines delivered to children on this island. These included the ten given to new-born Thais, such as those for polio, diphtheria, tetanus, Japanese encephalitis and tuberculosis.

ENVIRONMENT-INDIA: Mega Nuclear Plant Hits Popular Opposition

Even as the Indian government gropes in the dark for a coherent policy on energy and the environment, it is rooting hard for a highly unpopular nuclear power project here, close to the peninsula's southern tip.

ENERGY-CUBA: A Light at the End of the Tunnel

The government announcement that electricity supplies in Cuba now exceed demand during the hours of peak consumption was received with a collective sigh of relief by Cubans, who have not forgotten the frequent and lengthy blackouts that occurred, especially during the summertime, two or three years ago.

ENVIRONMENT-RWANDA: Unhappy Ending of a Welcome Return

The return in 1996 of over a million Rwandans who had fled their country in the wake of genocide two years earlier, fearing persecution at the hands of Tutsi rebels who took control of Rwanda, was greeted with relief in many quarters.

ECONOMY-KENYA: Branson Flying More and Cutting Carbon Emissions

With the introduction of Virgin Atlantic flights on the London/Nairobi route company chief Sir Richard Branson is not only tapping into a lucrative tourism market, he is also offering export opportunities to local farmers.

BRAZIL: Tapping Hydroelectric Dams for Methane Gas

Hydroelectricity is not as clean as most people might believe, because the reservoirs created by dams in tropical areas - and in forested zones in particular - emit greenhouse gases from the decomposition of organic material. But this downside can be turned into a benefit, and give a boost to the amount of energy generated.

INDIA-US: Impasse Over Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Rights

High official-level talks between the United States and India to clinch the nuclear cooperation deal initialled in July 2005 have failed to narrow mutual differences and produce an agreement.

G8-BRAZIL: Guest Brings Biofuel Arguments to Summit

As a guest at the G8 summit this week in Germany, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will present arguments to convince the leaders of the world's eight richest countries of the importance of biofuels in the fight against global warming.

G8: Legislators Detail Their Hopes for a Climate Accord

Legislators from the G8 countries - Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada, United States and Russia - are hoping against hope that an historic breakthrough on climate change will be achieved at the Heiligendamm summit this week.