U.N. Meetings Push for Nuclear Safeguards and Test Bans

History is strewn with proof of the destructive capabilities of nuclear weapons and power, yet science is also replete with evidence that nuclear power has many advantages.

Bangladesh Draws Pakistan’s Garment Makers

Faced with serious political instability and a deteriorating industrial climate, Pakistan’s garment exporters are turning to Bangladesh, a territory which splintered away after a bloody war of independence in 1971.

DR CONGO: No Water, No Management, No Power

Frequent power cuts have led to the firing of the board of the Democratic Republic of Congo's national electricity company. But it is not clear if sub-par generation from the Inga hydroelectric power stations supplying the capital Kinshasa is due to poor management or to unusually low water levels in the Congo River.

China Breaks Latin America’s ‘Hundred Years of Growth Solitude’

With a shifting global landscape breeding strange bedfellows in the realm of international trade, analysts and economists gathered at the World Bank headquarters Tuesday to discuss what will likely be one of the defining partnership of the decade – China's connection with Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).

Indian Activists Bring Anti-Coal Campaign to World Bank

As leaders from two of the world's largest financial institutions, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, met for annual meetings here Tuesday, a delegation of activists from India called on the World Bank to follow through with its proposal to dramatically cut funding for coal-burning power stations.

WEST AFRICA: Households Turning to Cow Dung for Energy

There are dusty barrels carefully positioned outside many of the family compounds in the Léona neighbourhood of Kaolack, a city of 20,000 in western Senegal: signs of success for a project to introduce the use of biogas as a source of fuel. Amadou Faye, whose family herds cows, goats and sheep as well as growing groundnuts on the side, is among the early adopters.

INDIA: ‘Women Make Good Business Sense’

Harish Hande believes that involving women in design, manufacture and sales pays dividends in any business, but especially in those making products that women ultimately use.

Record Arctic Ice Melt Threatens Global Security

All the analysis and commentary about safety and security on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 ignored by far the biggest ongoing threat to global security: climate change.

Citizen Actions Turn Up the Heat for a Warming Planet

Civil society leaders meeting here for the 2011 CIVICUS World Assembly are looking ahead toward next year's Rio+20 summit – a milestone anniversary of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, and a crucial meeting of U.N. member states and non-governmental organisations to work towards a greener future.

U.S.: Citizens Ramp Up Battle Against Fossil Fuel Industry

The fight against oil and gas giants is heating up in the U.S., with new waves of protest and civil disobedience springing up across the country.

ARGENTINA: Against the Current in Nuclear Energy

While the tendency in the industrialised world in the wake of the Mar. 11 nuclear meltdown in Japan is to abandon plans for further nuclear energy development, in Argentina the capacity of existing plants is being strengthened, and new reactors are being built.

JAPAN: Fukushima Blows Lid Off Exploited Labour

The Fukushima disaster has thrown up the first opportunity in decades to bring justice to thousands of unskilled workers who risk radioactive contamination to keep Japan’s nuclear power plants running.

/CORRECTED REPEAT*/: U.S. Awash in Oil and Lies, Report Charges

With four times as many oil rigs pumping domestic oil today than eight years ago and declining domestic demand, the United States is awash in oil.

Obama Challenged to Stand Up to Big Oil Lobby

The United States' biggest environmental groups put aside their differences last week to make an urgent intervention on the country's addiction to oil. The first step on the long road to recovery, they say, is to stop the proposed construction of the Keystone XL pipeline that will "mainline" the world's dirtiest oil from northern Canada into the U.S. heartland.

U.S.: New Oil Pipeline Sparks Civil Disobedience

On the tenth day of a protest wave that has been gaining momentum since Aug. 20 and will continue until Sep. 3, nearly 300 people gathered in Lafayette Park directly across from the White House in Washington D.C., chanting, "When I say 'tar sands', you say 'no!' When I say 'action', you say 'go!'"

JAPAN: Fukushima Gives Renewable Energy a Chance

After decades of not bothering to switch off the lights in unoccupied rooms in their Tokyo home, Masayoshi Sakurai and his children now meticulously make sure they do.

THAILAND: The Green Cause Can Kill

In a country where the going rate for a contract killing is around Thai baht 15,000 (500 dollars), the price paid to eliminate Thongnak Sawekchinda, an environmental activist, has caught the police by surprise.

MALAWI: Remaining in the Dark

Malawi’s attempts to improve trade and investment in the country have taken a huge step backwards following a decision by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a United States government foreign aid agency leading the fight against global poverty, to put on hold 350.7 million dollars meant to improve the country’s flawed energy sector.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Welcome to Bizarro World

Canada and the United States are now the centre of Bizarro World. This is where leaders promise to reduce carbon emissions but ensure a new, supersized oil pipeline called Keystone XL is built, guaranteeing further expansion of the Alberta tar sands that produce the world's most carbon-laden oil.

NEPAL: Improved Wood Stoves Save Health, Environment

When Binita Lamichhane got married she was troubled by her husband's bloodshot eyes. "What happened to your eyes?" the 18-year-old bride asked. "Smoke," came the answer.

Q&A: “Governments Must Listen to the People, Not the Polluters”

The historic 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro marked one of the world's seminal international conferences on the environment, creating or reinforcing a slew of U.N. treaties and protocols on climate change, biodiversity, desertification and forests.