AFP

Environment ministers from the world's top industrial powers called Monday for more effort to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, but little headway was seen in setting more immediate goals.

The Pakistani military reacted angrily Sunday to reports that US President George W. Bush is considering covert military operations in the country's volatile tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

France faced several "hellish" days as transport unions prepared on Tuesday to launch open-ended strikes, but President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed he would not retreat from reform. By Carole Landry

Veterinary authorities confirmed an outbreak of the potentially lethal Asian strain of bird flu in eastern England on Tuesday, in a new blow to the British farming industry.

Fresh from winning the Nobel Peace Prize, the UN's top scientific panel on climate change will meet in the Spanish port city of Valencia Monday to finalize a landmark report on global warming and how to avoid its worst ravages.

The discovery of a new population of monkeys in Kenya, away from their normal habitat, could have been caused by climate change that may be affecting Africa, a conservation group warned Wednesday. By Bogonko Bosire

Authorities were scrambling to contain an oil spill on Thursday after a container ship struck the San Francisco Bay Bridge, leaking 58,000 gallons of fuel into the ocean.

Emissions of greenhouse gases will rise by 57 percent by 2030 compared to current levels, leading to a rise in Earth's surface temperature of at least three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit), the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators joined marches in cities across the United States demanding an end to the war in Iraq, organizers said.

More than 250,000 people fled their homes as out-of-control wildfires raged across California on Monday, prompting authorities to draft in the US military to support weary firefighters. By Rob Woollard

Six activists of the environment group Greenpeace were arrested for scaling the chimney of a thermal power plant in eastern India to highlight damage caused by pollution, police said on Saturday.

2007 Nobel Barış Ödülü, çektiği Oscar ödüllü belgesel 'Uygunsuz Gerçek'le çok konuşulan eski ABD Başkan Yardımcısı Al Gore'la Hükümetlerarası İklim Değişikliği Paneli arasında paylaştırıldı

French oil giant Total on Tuesday faced a renewed Belgian probe into its alleged support of Myanmar's military regime as authorities reopened an investigation into the firm. By Pascal Mallet

Nearly 150 labour activists were killed worldwide in 2006, a new global trade union said in a report Tuesday outlining a rising tide of violence and harassment against unionists across the globe

Some water restrictions introduced in Australia's most populous state because of a long-running drought will become permanent because of the threat of global warming, officials said Sunday.

A meeting of signatories to the Montreal Protocol could make a "historic gesture" by working simultaneously to restore the ozone layer and halt global warming, a UN official said in an interview published Saturday.

The UN General Assembly on Thursday adopted a non-binding declaration upholding the human, land and resources rights of the world's 370 million indigenous people, brushing off opposition from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. By Gerard Aziakou

The global spread of deserts poses a severe challenge to humanity that transcends any international borders, a UN-sponsored conference in Madrid heard Monday.

SYDNEY (AFP) — Environmental activists targeting an Asia-Pacific summit meeting broke into an Australian power station Monday and chained themselves to a conveyor belt, a company spokesman said.

More than four million Iraqis have fled their homes because of sectarian violence, the largest population movement in the Middle East since Palestinians left the new state of Israel, the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday.

President George W. Bush will portray Iraq Tuesday as the front-line against Islamist extremists, singling out Al-Qaeda's Sunni Muslim insurgents and Iran-backed Shiite fighters, aides said. By Olivier Knox

US Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama on Saturday promised a more open policy towards Cuba at a packed campaign rally in Miami, the heart of the anti-Castro Cuban exile community.

The United States is worried about weakening Italian and German military commitments in Afghanistan as casualties increase in the fight to stem the bloody Taliban insurgency, officials said. By P. Parameswaran

US media reports related to the war in Iraq fell dramatically in the second quarter of this year, a new study revealed Monday, as the 2008 presidential race gathered pace.

North Korea late Monday said hundreds of people were dead or missing and thousands of houses destroyed in torrential rains which battered the country over the past week.

At least 20 people were killed and 39 remain missing after a bridge being built in central China collapsed just before it was to be put into use, state media reported on Tuesday.

Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper set off Wednesday on an Arctic trek to bolster his nation's disputed claim to the frigid far north, one week after Russia planted a flag at the North Pole. By Michel Comte

study has yielded the first confirmation that global warming is already affecting world's rainfall patterns, bringing more precipitation to northern Europe, Canada and northern Russia but less to swathes of sub-Saharan Africa, southern India and Southeast Asia.

The Royal Air Force said Sunday it was carrying out probably its biggest peacetime rescue operation in Britain as its helicopters helped evacuate more than 100 people from flood-hit areas.