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.

POLITICS: India Split Over US Nuke Deal

While President George W. Bush has signed into law new legislation passed by Congress to enable the controversial U.S.-India nuclear cooperation deal, the agreement has come under flak in India's Parliament and a massive confrontation has broken out between its supporters and opponents.

BRAZIL: Tourism Industry Fears Summer-long Crisis in Airports

The southern hemisphere summer, which begins this month, is expected to be fraught with tension in Brazil's tourism industry given the possibility of a worsening of the crisis facing the country's airports, right when passenger travel is at its peak.

BIODIVERSITY: Plumbing the Secrets of the Ocean Depths

Incredible new forms of life have been discovered around super-hot 400 degree C seafloor vents, as well as under 700 metres of Antarctic ice, by the 20th scientific expedition of the Census of Marine Life of 2006 now underway.

HEALTH: Medical Use of Marijuana Divides Italy

In Italy just 10 ill people have authorisation to use marijuana as therapy against pain. But that number could grow in the coming months if parliament approves a law for using this usually illegal plant for medical purposes.

HEALTH: Malaria Vaccine Within Sight – Experts

Hopes that the world will finally be able to immunise people against malaria received a shot in the arm, this week, as leading health experts unveiled the blueprint for a preventive vaccine in the Thai capital.

HEALTH-CUBA: Conquering Vaccines – and Their Markets

Deliberately putting human health before economic considerations, according to local experts, Cuba has launched full-tilt into the vaccine industry to compete on the international market with its products, some of which are unique.

WORLD AIDS DAY: The Virus Hunters

Smallpox, polio and a host of other contagious, often fatal diseases have been stopped in their tracks by simple vaccines. More than two decades into the quest to untangle the secrets of the notoriously changeable HIV virus, is there still reason for hope?

ENVIRONMENT: Climate Measurements Better from Siberia

A metal tower standing some 300 metres tall in Siberia, where temperatures can vary 80 degrees Celsius over the course of a year, may produce data that prove essential to understanding global climate change.

POLITICS-US: More Scientific Sleight of Hand

Most abstinence-until-marriage education programmes in the United States - which receive about 158 million dollars annually from the Department of Health and Human Services - are not reviewed for scientific accuracy before they are granted funding, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office released this week.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Will Forests Adapt to a Warmer World?

Deforestation remains the greatest current threat to the world's forests, claiming 10 to 15 million hectares of tree-covered areas every year, but climate change may represent a bigger challenge in the long term, scientists say.

ENVIRONMENT: Polar Bears Go Hungry as Icy Habitat Melts Away

The iconic animal of the frozen north, the polar bear, is starving to death because climate change is melting the Arctic Ocean sea ice.

HEALTH: Ailments Surge as Ozone Hole Widens

Skin cancer, eye lesions and other infections are on the rise, a reminder that the Antarctic ozone hole continues to be a serious problem, especially for southern Argentina and Chile, where ultraviolet radiation during the spring months increases 25 percent.

ENVIRONMENT-AFRICA: Changing Climate, Changing Lives

Marginalised communities attending a United Nations conference on climate change being held in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, have given accounts of how their lives are being altered for the worse - something they blame on climate change.

ENVIRONMENT: From Mosques to Mollusks, No Haven From Rising CO2

Three hundred and eighty parts per million. That's the current concentration of carbon dioxide going into your lungs with each breath. Our parents or grandparents' first breaths at birth contained about 290 parts per million (ppm), as it was for everyone born before them.

ELECTIONS-US: E-Voting Squeaks By With Passing Grade

An estimated 80 to 90 percent of the nearly 79 million U.S. voters either cast their mid-term elections ballot by computer on Tuesday or had their vote tabulated that way, and as experts had predicted, there were various glitches with electronic voting machines throughout the country.

DEVELOPMENT-KENYA: Switch On the Sun to Get Cooking

The women in Kajiado were sceptical - unwilling to believe that cardboard containers lined with aluminium foil on the inside could cook food when placed in the sun.

ENVIRONMENT: Pacific Island Gives Clues to Tropical Biodiversity

Since early September, 170 scientists from 25 countries are conducting a first-ever in-depth exploration of the island of Espiritu Santo, in the Oceania archipelago of Vanuatu, to produce an inventory of tropical biodiversity. The biological wealth of this island region is so great that in about a month they have catalogued a hundred new species.

CANADA: Critics Say New Environment Policy Ignores Science

Canada has officially turned its back on the Kyoto Protocol and climate change in its new "green plan" introduced Thursday, environmentalists say.

ENVIRONMENT-ARGENTINA: At the Gates of the Polar Year

On the threshold of the International Polar Year, a global scientific meet has been convened in the southern Argentine province of Tierra del Fuego to raise awareness about the Earth's polar regions. The capital, Ushuaia, is getting ready to serve as the main gateway to Antarctica.

POLITICS-US/KOREA: No War, No Talks, More Pressure

In its initial reaction to Monday's North Korean nuclear test, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush indicated it will seek the strongest possible sanctions against Pyongyang at the U.N. Security Council but was not considering taking military action on its own, at least for now.