The Independent

State of emergency declared as devastating wildfires force evacuation of 350,000 homes

Everyone who comes to southern California learns to be afraid of the Big One, the earthquake that will level everything. But even major tremors do not present such an immediate, visceral and terrifying threat as wildfires, which strike with shocking regularity and are getting worse.

Celebrated scientist attacked for race comments: "All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really". By Cahal Milmo

The new editor of 'The Ecologist' is here to make changes. But though the articles may be fluffier, her magazine will still be campaigning hard, she tells Andrew Wasley magazines 'the ecologist'

New research suggests that the impact of shipping on climate change has been seriously underestimated and that the industry is currently churning out greenhouse gases at nearly twice the rate of aviation. By Daniel Howden

Monks confined in a room with their own excrement for days, people beaten just for being bystanders at a demonstration, a young woman too traumatised to speak, and screams in the night as Rangoon's residents hear their neighbours being taken away. By Rosalind Russell

The airport in Greenland's capital, Nuuk, doesn't look like any other airport. Outside, the tiny runway accommodates a lone helicopter. Inside the waiting room, the chairs are upholstered in seal skin. By Daniel Howden

As the Burmese military crackdown on the monks' protests intensifies, the parallels with the events that culminated in the massacres of 1988 are becoming starker. By Peter Popham

Images suggest that Japanese video journalist was a victim of Burma's repressive junta. By Claire Soares

A lot of rumours are flying around Yangon [Ran goon]. I am getting awfully paranoid. The military has been ordered to shoot. I heard... that "they have been ordered to shoot." Even now, a co-worker is saying: "They are going to shoot."

The inevitable happened sometime before noon. By Andrew Buncombe and Peter Popham

An environmental catastrophe is threatening central Turkey, once the country's breadbasket, where farmers are depleting the water table after the hottest summer in living memory. By Nicholas Birch

A rise of two degrees centigrade in global temperatures – the point considered to be the threshold for catastrophic climate change which will expose millions to drought, hunger and flooding – is now "very unlikely" to be avoided, the world's leading climate scientists said yesterday. By Cahal Milmo

The Greek government is facing a major embarrassment within days of its re-election after it gave property developers the green light to build on an environmentally sensitive area next to forests ravaged by this summer's deadly fires. By Elinda Labropoulou

The attack had been planned with military precision. Twelve men, masked and carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles stormed into the al-Sanik branch of the Bank of Baghdad, disarmed the guards, tied them up and then terrified the staff by firing into the ceiling. By Kim Sengupta

For overweight Americans relief is on the way, in the shape of ever-higher petrol prices. Getting out the car to drive downtown for a super-sized plate full of fatty fast-food is the highlight of the day for many Americans. By Leonard Doyle

An al-Jazeera journalist captured in Afghanistan six years ago and sent to Guantanamo Bay is close to becoming the fifth detainee at the US naval base to take his own life, according to a medical report written by a team of British and American psychiatrists. By Robert Verkaik

British soldiers return to action as tensions between US and Iran grow. By Kim Sengupta

The polar bear is under threat. In recent months the photogenic creature has become a symbol of the dangers posed by global warming

Additives in sweets and soft drinks made by multinational companies have been found to cause hyperactivity in children, prompting renewed calls for a ban on E-numbers. By Martin Hickman

A tropical virus that has caused severe illness and widespread panic on the islands of the Indian Ocean has become established in Europe for the first time. By Jeremy Laurance

Fires of unprecedented ferocity are sweeping around the world, fuelled by global warming and misguided environmentalism.

Most UK coal-fired power stations have announced plans to burn more energy crops such as willow chippings in their boilers. Recent changes to the subsidy scheme for renewable energy have boosted the attractiveness of wood and dried grasses to supplant coal.

The scale of the human disaster in the Iraq war has become clearer from statistics collected by two humanitarian groups that reveal the number of Iraqis who have fled the fighting has more than doubled since the US military build-up began in February. By Leonard Doyle

President Bush Invokes Vietnam As Splits Emerge With Iraq Allies. By Leonard Doyle & Kim Sengupta

The numbers are awesome. Total household debt of an estimated £1.34 trillion (£1,340 billion, or £1,340,000,000,000) ought to be enough to give the nation sleepless nights. By Sean O'Grady

Another worrying milestone on a nation's journey deeper into debt. By Martin Hickman

What can dying penguins tell us about the future of the planet? Meredith Hooper spent a 'ferocious' summer in Antarctica and discovered a living experiment going horribly wrong

They describe themselves as "a Christian fellowship based on the Holy Scriptures", but others call them a sect, and they have meddled in elections in New Zealand and Australia. By Kathy Marks

Geoff Lamb had to shout to be heard over the ever-present drone of the police helicopter yesterday afternoon.