TRADE-AFRICA: Green Investment to Get Boost from New EU Fund

After years of promising a way to help Africa tackle climate change, the European Union has joined with the World Bank to attract foreign direct investment to the continent and help save the planet at the same time.

ENERGY-SOUTH AMERICA: Leaders Overcome Impasse on Ethanol

The controversy over whether to put the accent on fossil fuels or biofuels was overcome by the presidents in the first South American energy summit with the assertion that the answer depends on each country's specific circumstances, and that the different national policies are complementary to each other, not contradictory.

ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Hybrid Electric Vehicles – Better Than Ethanol

Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) are the best way to achieve a drastic reduction in greenhouse gases produced by vehicle exhaust fumes, until hydrogen-powered models become viable. They are even more environmentally-friendly than the use of biofuels.

SOUTH AMERICA: Leaders Seek Regional Energy Sovereignty

The South American energy summit that got underway Monday marks a point of convergence between the certainty that the region has the energy resources needed for its development and the political will to translate that into socially and economically viable undertakings.

ENERGY-CHAD: A Solution to Deforestation That Some Also View as a Problem

It's affordable, and central to stopping deforestation in Chad. But, butane gas has a long way to go before it becomes a household staple in this Sahelian country: many Chadians have a fixed belief that gas is simply too dangerous to use.

ENERGY-SOUTH AFRICA: Fuel in the Car at the Expense of Food on the Table?

South Africa has joined the race to find alternative sources of energy: government has already approved a 'Draft Biofuels Industry Strategy', and called on stakeholders to discuss it.

ENERGY: Brazil Aims to Dominate World Ethanol Market

Brazil is working towards producing enough ethanol to substitute 10 percent of the gasoline consumed worldwide within 18 years. That would mean increasing its current production of 17.3 billion litres a year by a factor of 12, without sacrificing forests, protected areas or food cultivation.

EUROPE: Poor Need More Than a Declaration

The 50th anniversary of the European Union has been marked by a declaration committing the 27-country bloc to "drive back poverty, hunger and disease" throughout the world.

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: Renewable Sources the Key to Energy Crisis?

Biofuel and other renewable energy sources may hold the key to Africa's energy crisis. Without intervention, this crisis is set to grow. Southern African cities such as Lusaka in Zambia, Harare in Zimbabwe, Gaborone in Botswana and Dar-Es-Salaam in Tanzania will be affected.

BRAZIL: No Consensus on Success of Land Reform

Brazil's land reform programme has settled nearly one million families on small farms of their own in the last 20 years. But there is no consensus on the effort, which the government touts as a success, the landless movement sees as insufficient, and the opposition criticises as wrongheaded.

ENVIRONMENT: Biofuels Boom Spurring Deforestation

Nearly 40,000 hectares of forest vanish every day, driven by the world's growing hunger for timber, pulp and paper, and ironically, new biofuels and carbon credits designed to protect the environment.

POLITICS-INDIA: ‘Neo-Liberal’ Left Behind Peasants’ Massacre

By ordering police to open fire on peasants trying to protect their land from being acquired for a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), the communist government of West Bengal state has indicated the crumbling away of the last bulwark in India against neo-liberal and free market policies.

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: MDGs Depend on Power Relations Changing

‘‘The people of Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta are poor not because they do not have resources but because they do not have political power. Those who wield power in Nigeria are building skyscrapers in Lagos and Abuja while there is nothing in the Niger Delta. It is the same at the global level.''

URUGUAY-US: Bush, an Unwelcome Guest

U.S. President George W. Bush's arrival in Uruguay Friday has created quite a stir in the leftwing coalition that is governing this South American country for the first time ever.

CUBA-VENEZUELA: Making Biofuels Without Wasting Food

The governments of Cuba and Venezuela are planning to move forward together on biofuels production, but they will rely on producing alcohol from sugarcane, in order to spare food crops.

ENERGY: Major Oil Consumers Warm to Biofuels

Despite their diverse - and sometimes sharply conflicting - political and economic interests, the world's major powers seem to be getting closer to each other in their quest to develop clean alternative sources of energy.

ENERGY-U.S./LATIN AMERICA: An OPEC for Ethanol?

U.S. President George W. Bush will visit Latin America next week seeking a strategic alliance with Brazil to develop biofuels - and Venezuela, the region's main oil exporter, is taking this as a warning sign.

JAPAN: GM Soya for Biofuel – Boon for Organic Farmers

Plans in the United States to boost ethanol fuel production using genetically modified (GM) soybeans has raised cautious hopes among local farmers involved in organically grown crops as well as environmental and consumer groups.

ENERGY-CHILE: Home-Grown Biofuels – Big-Time?

The government of President Michelle Bachelet seems determined to develop the biofuels industry in order to diversify Chile's energy sources, in spite of doubts that have arisen about their desirability.

DEVELOPMENT-BURKINA FASO: Price Snags for Cotton Farmers

Some call it "white gold"; but, the ever-falling price of cotton means that this nickname may end up being more ironic than complimentary. In Burkina Faso cotton producers are, for the first time, facing the prospect of a third consecutive drop in the price of the commodity.

ENERGY-CHINA: Biofuels Eating Into Food Grain Stocks

China's biofuel industry is booming thanks to voracious demand for energy to power the country's high-flying economy. Applying modernised versions of ancient chemical processes to convert crops and oils into energy sources, Chinese entrepreneurs have created a profitable "green business" with plenty of room to grow.