POLITICS: N. Korean Nuke Tests Say World Must Return to Peace Agenda

North Korea has shocked the world by detonating a nuclear explosion and making good the threat it had held out six days earlier. Pyongyang's action is one more blow to the existing global non-proliferation order and will trigger greater instability in Northeast Asia and in the Asian continent and world as a whole.

POLITICS: Indo-US Nuclear Deal Hits Doldrums

The controversial United States-India "civilian nuclear cooperation" agreement met with a major setback over the weekend when the Senate formally went into recess without voting for a bill which would have granted the President George W. Bush the necessary powers to enable the deal to be implemented.

CHILE: Disturbing Exhibit Combines Technology, Human Rights, Art

The screens of more than 100 old television sets flicker with poems on torture and death that are generated by a sophisticated computer programme.

SCIENCE: Fossils Reveal Ancient Biodiversity

The discovery of an amber deposit formed in the Amazon during the Miocene epoch proves that the region's rich biological diversity goes back some 16 million years, members of the research team that made the finding told Tierramérica.

ENERGY-PORTUGAL: Riding the Wave of the Future

Atlantic Ocean waves are to light up 1,500 homes in the north of Portugal. The first 2.25 megawatts of electricity produced from wave power will be brought ashore at Aguçadoura, on the northern coast, as of October.

ENVIRONMENT: Scientists Set Sights on ‘Green’ Chemistry

A green chemical revolution is underway that promises to be environmentally sustainable and profitable while reducing the risks of industrial disasters like the Bhopal, India gas leak in 1984.

HEALTH: Fighting Disease One Cell at a Time

Hi-tech medicine, including stem cell therapy and biotechnology, are seen by many experts as potential solutions for non-infectious diseases like diabetes in the developing world.

CHINA: Buying Water Technology From Singapore

Faced with water problems that many fear are beyond repair China is looking to tap Singapore's expertise in growing and thriving on limited water resources.

ENVIRONMENT: 60 Years to Restore the Ozone Layer Over Antarctica

Another giant ozone hole has opened up over the Antarctic, while evidence mounts that 20 years of international efforts have finally helped the atmosphere to start to heal itself.

DEVELOPMENT: World’s Poorest Nations Slowly Get Online

An African diplomat from one of the world's 50 poorest nations, described as least developed countries (LDCs), once complained that it took about five to 10 years to get a landline telephone connection in his home country - and an additional five years to get a dial tone on the new phone.

ENVIRONMENT: New Data Erases Doubt on Storms and Warming

There is little doubt now that climate change is making hurricanes and cyclones much more powerful and more frequent, top scientists announced Monday.

SCIENCE-LATIN AMERICA: Intergenerational Power Struggles

"He lacks grey hairs," argued the head of a Latin American scientific association when he blocked the promotion to the board of his institution of a young colleague who had won awards for his contributions to medical science.

SCIENCE: Developing Nations Urged to Join Forces in R&D

Developing countries, which lack the industrialised world's capacity for technological investment, are going to have to look to innovative solutions and collective initiatives if they expect to overcome their problems and address the basic needs of their people.

SCIENCE: Excellence and Cooperation in the Developing South

High-quality scientific research is also carried out in the developing South, especially in response to problems specific to the Third World, and in a spirit of cooperation - all of which will be on display as of Saturday at a paradisiacal Brazilian beach resort.

ENVIRONMENT: Was Katrina a Sign of the Gathering Storm?

One year after Hurricane Katrina devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast, a new survey reveals a majority of U.S. citizens now believe global warming is responsible for extreme weather events in recent years.

SCIENCE-CUBA: Two Decades of Biotech Advances

Since 1999 there haven't been any cases of hepatitis B amongst Cuban children ages five and under, thanks to a locally produced vaccine that is also being exported to 20 countries - the star among the products of this island nation's biotechnology industry, whose flagship institution was founded two decades ago.

ENVIRONMENT: Triage for an Ailing Planet

The Global Environment Facility (GEF), the world's largest environmental funding body, received a shot in the arm Tuesday after 32 countries agreed to contribute a whopping 3.13 billion dollars for environmental projects over the next four years amid rising concerns about the impact human activities are having on the Earth.

ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Experimenting with Hydrogen Transportation

Brazil has joined the industrialised countries in the race for hydrogen power, announcing the development of public buses running on this source of "clean" energy. But experts say the new vehicles will only be commercially viable at the end of the next decade, or even later.

IRAN: Tough Barganing Ahead Over Nuclear Issue

Iran's response to the nuclear incentives package offered by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) plus Germany (P5+1) is a sign that there could be tough bargaining ahead of the Aug. 31 deadline for this country to stop uranium enrichment or face sanctions.

TECHNOLOGY-INDIA: Cyber Coolies Bridge Digital Divide

When Deepak Jagdish, a young Indian student of computer science, explained to Bill Gates last month the complex navigation and processing system of new software, which mimics the echo location system used by bats, to assist visually challenged individuals move about safely, the founder of Microsoft remarked: ''I have never seen something like this''.

ENVIRONMENT: Sailing Scientists Investigate Arctic Melt

Over the next two years a team of scientists aboard the French schooner "Tara" will sail the Arctic Ocean to study the consequences of global climate change in the polar ice environment.