DEVELOPMENT: Scientists Must Show the Way

Scientists must move to the centre of government decision-making on development issues, says a report presented to the United Nations Thursday.

ENERGY: French Plan Contradicts Europe’s Anti-Nuclear Trend

The French government plans to earmark 150 billion dollars over the next 30 years for nuclear power plants, including the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), despite experts' warnings on technological and environmental problems.

HEALTH: Intimidation, Politics and Drug Industry Cripple U.S. Medicine

While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is supposed to safeguard the nation's medical products, drawing upon the substantive expertise of its drug scientists in vigilant dedication to the public's health, that is not the case today.

CHALLENGES 2004-2005: ‘Pharma Crops’ Threaten Food Safety

Medicine and farming are merging as genetically engineered (GE) maize and soy crops promise cheap drugs, but they also threaten to contaminate food and the environment, warn activists and experts.

ENVIRONMENT: U.S. Rethinks Human Studies on Pesticides

Human studies involving dangerous pesticides are making a comeback in the United States, despite intense criticism from public interest groups which say that industry-sponsored research is inherently biased and designed to prove that its products are safe.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Sea Levels to Rise Faster – NASA

The predicted rise in sea levels caused by the world's changing climate will have to be revised upward after U.S. scientists recorded accelerated melting of ice in the Arctic and Antarctic, one researcher said this week.

ENVIRONMENT: Climate Change Legal Action Heats Up

British scientists say they now have proof linking Europe's deadly heat wave of 2003 to climate change caused by human activities, portending a raft of lawsuits against countries and companies.

DISARMAMENT: Biology, a Science of Life – and Death

Canada has had difficult experiences with disease in the past few years, like outbreaks of "mad cow disease" (BSE) and avian flu, that affected agriculture, or exposure to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which raised awareness regarding the dangers of "human pathogens".

ENVIRONMENT: Global Warming Killing Oceans’ Life Centres

Roughly 70 percent of the world's coral reefs are effectively destroyed or threatened with destruction, according to a major assessment released here Monday by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network.

ENVIRONMENT: Expedition Pursues Secrets of Clipperton Island

To compare him to Charles Darwin or Alexander von Humboldt might be too much. But French explorer Jean-Louis Etienne is proposing an effort similar to these giants as he heads to Clipperton, a tiny Pacific island 1,300 km southwest of the Mexican resort of Acapulco.

UAE: Oil-rich But In Renewable Energy Mode

A country that produces nearly 2.5 million barrels of crude oil per day has little reason to look anywhere else. However, regard for the environment and the realisation that fossil fuel reserves may not last forever have induced authorities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to consider renewable energy options.

TECHNOLOGY-VENEZUELA: Heading Towards Free Software

Venezuela, following in Brazil's footsteps, has joined the club of countries that are adopting and promoting free or open-source software, in a bid to save money, achieve technological independence, and strengthen alliances among countries of the developing South.

AUSTRALIA: Non-Proliferation the Word, Weapons-Enrichment the Game

The Australian government has been accused by Greenpeace Australia of being hypocritical in touting its nuclear proliferation control credentials while supporting the development of uranium enrichment technology, which security experts claim could also be used to produce materials for use in nuclear weapons.

U.S: Crop Testing Rules Menace Food Supply, Say Critics

Proposed rules for experimental genetically engineered (GE) crops will allow contamination of the U.S. food supply, critics said this week, as a new poll reported Americans want stricter regulation of GE foods.

CUBA: Chinese President’s Visit Further Strengthens Bilateral Ties

Cuba and China have signed a package of investment and cooperation agreements that promise to be of strategic importance for the two countries, separated by thousands of kilometres but close in ideology, despite having adopted different models of development.

ENERGY-BRAZIL: Innovations to Overcome the Shortcomings of Biodiesel

A frenzy of research, innovations and projects to develop biodiesel in Brazil has been dampened by the need for subsidies to make production of the new environmentally friendly fuel economically feasible.

POLITICS-IRAN: Doubts Persist as Tehran Makes Nuclear Commitment

As Iran promised to meet Monday's deadline for suspending a uranium enrichment process that could be used for making nuclear weapons - a freeze that could spare it U.N. Security Council sanctions - questions still remain unanswered.

BRAZIL: Indians’ Genetic Material Sold on Internet

The Brazilian government has asked Interpol, the international police, to intervene in what it says is the illegal sale of genetic material from its indigenous peoples by a U.S. research centre.

ENVIRONMENT: World’s Water Towers Need Protection – Scientists

Mountains are the world's water towers and they need urgent protection if planet Earth's future life-sustaining water supply is to be guaranteed, in the midst of disturbing climate changes, scientists told a major conservation conference Thursday.

THAILAND: Row over GM Papaya to Surface at Environment Meet

Thailand's most popular fruit, the papaya, is the subject of a heated debate here on genetically modified (GM) crops - an issue that will be taken up at a global environmental conference this week.

HEALTH: WHO Wants Research Put to Work for People

Some medical researchers are primarily interested in the three P's of publication, patents and professorships, while others focus on policies, practice and people. Unfortunately, the former vastly outnumber the latter in the scientific world today.