The Independent

If you fly one way, one time to Miami, you emit more greenhouse gases than the average SUV driver in a year

For more than 150 years, the start of Scotland's salmon fishing season on the river Tay has been celebrated in the middle of January. By Paul Kelbie

The Iraqi state that was formed in the aftermath of the First World War has come to an end. Its successor state is struggling to be born in an environment of crises and chaos. By Ali Allawi, former Iraqi Defence Minister

When the Burmese junta agreed to protect a vast tract of wilderness, the world was astonished. But the move also sparked the exploitation of the region's natural wealth, as Peter Popham reports

A birdseed factory in Shropshire, a holy lake in China, Baltic Sea fish and new-born hedgehogs have emerged as the first tangible victims of climate change in the year which forecasters predicted this week would be the warmest on record. By Ian Herbert

By the end of tomorrow the average Briton will have caused as much global warning as the typical Kenyan will over the whole of this year, according to a report. By Philip Thornton

How the West will make a killing on Iraqi oil riches. By Danny Fortson, Andrew Murray-Watson and Tim Webb

For anyone who has been mesmerised by the sheer number of stars that make up a clear night sky, it seems incredible that what we can see, even with a telescope, is but a small fraction of what is actually out there.

A series of mild winters and strict conservation laws mean their numbers are rising as never before. But the huge flocks are stripping rivers of vegetation, depleting fish stocks and threatening other birds' survival. By Marie Woolf

A combination of global warming and the El Niño weather system is set to make 2007 the warmest year on record with far-reaching consequences for the planet, one of Britain's leading climate experts has warned. By Cahal Milmo

For the first time, an inhabited island has disappeared beneath rising seas. Environment Editor Geoffrey Lean reports

As the country comes to a standstill, Simon Calder offers a challenge to the foggy thinking that clouds the aviation debate. By Simon Calder

For 20 million years, the white-fin dolphin, or baiji, swam China's longest river, the Yangtze. But a few years of breakneck development, overfishing and a massive increase in shipping have reduced sightings of this shy, graceful creature to zero. By Clifford Coonan

Bears have stopped hibernating in the mountains of northern Spain, scientists revealed yesterday, in what may be one of the strongest signals yet of how much climate change is affecting the natural world. By Geneviève Roberts

After the warmest summer on record, birds that should be in the tropics are still here, leaves are still on trees and insects that should be dead are feeding well. Is this proof of global warming? By Paul Kelbie and Jonathan Brown

Why are we asking this question now? Because yesterday the five Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor were, for the second time, sentenced to death by a Libyan court. By Peter Popham

The countryside is looking rather peculiar this winter. It seems we have a number of unexpected guests for Christmas. Dragonflies, bumblebees and red admiral butterflies, which would normally be killed off by the frost, can still be seen in some parts of the country.

Sir Montgomery Cecil, the president of Unlimited-Spurt - an organisation supposedly committed to aviation growth, which campaigns under the slogan "Sod them. Let's fly" - is emerging as an unlikely champion of the environmental movement. By Jonathan Brown

The Government's case for going to war in Iraq has been torn apart by the publication of previously suppressed evidence that Tony Blair lied over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. By Colin Brown and Andy McSmith

Augusto Pinochet, the former dictator who ruled Chile with an iron fist from 1973 until 1990, died in a high-security military hospital in the capital, Santiago, yesterday. By David Usborne

Bangladeshis making cheap clothes for Asda, Tesco and Primark are paid as little as 3p an hour, according to a report that claims to reveal the grim truth about Asia's sweatshops. By Martin Hickman

Madonna has outraged animal rights groups by wearing a fur coat made from the skins of 40 chinchillas. By Maxine Frith, Social

The twister that hit Kensal Rise yesterday terrified residents and caused damage costing millions. By Terry Kirby

The world's largest energy company is still spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund European organisations that seek to cast doubt on the scientific consensus on global warming and undermine support for legislation to curb emission of greenhouse gases.

The man picked by George Bush to be the next Defence Secretary has admitted the US is not winning the war in Iraq and said the soaring violence threatens to erupt into an even more chaotic regional conflict if a solution is not found rapidly. By Andrew Buncombe and Rupert Cornwell

As Tony Blair flies out to meet George Bush, the latest admission of failure in Iraq has made the two leaders appear even more isolated

The Defence White Paper says upgrading the Trident submarine fleet at a cost of £15bn to £20bn is "cheaper" than other options for maintaining Britain's nuclear weapon system. By Colin Brown

"I can't exactly recall when I became aware of HIV/Aids in South Africa. I think it was at the start of the 1990s, when we began to get calls from women's groups in the townships." By Fergal Keane

Today is World Aids Day. It was first marked in 1991, an attempt by the international community to alert humanity to the terrible scale of the threat posed by the disease. By Jonathan Brown, Andrew Grice and Steve Bloomfield

special dispatch by Patrick Cockburn on his journey through a country being torn apart by civil war