Reuters

The Maldivian president and ministers held the world's first underwater cabinet meeting on Saturday, in a symbolic cry for help over rising sea levels that threaten the tropical archipelago's existence.

The climate is heating up far faster than scientists had predicted, spurred by sharp increases in greenhouse gas emissions from developing countries like China and India, a top climate scientist said on Saturday.

Georgia's prime minister says he wants more evidence of a Russian halt to military operations because Russian fighter jets had continued to bomb Georgian villages.

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was taken to a prison cell in The Hague today to face trial at a UN war crimes tribunal on charges of genocide during the 1992-95 Bosnia war.

Food safety experts agreed for the first time on the qualities defining a tomato, in a first step toward an international code on preventing fruit and vegetable contamination

The CIA on three occasions shortly after the Sept 11 attacks used a widely condemned interrogation technique known as waterboarding, CIA Director Michael Hayden told Congress on Tuesday.

Societe Generale has uncovered a fraud by one of its traders which will have a 4.9-billion-euro ($7.16 billion) negative impact on the group, France's second-largest listed bank said on Thursday.

Cluster bombs, which nearly 100 countries are seeking to ban, should not be considered bad as long as states involved in conflicts use them responsibly, a senior United States official said on Wednesday. By Robert Evans

Antarctica lost billions of tons of ice over the last decade, contributing to the rising seas around the world, a climate researcher said on Monday.

Following are highlights of a

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Indonesia is losing tonnes of

Asian leaders put aside discor

Delegates at crucial U.N. talks on the causes and effects of global climate change are making slow progress with an agreement still some way off, sources close to the discussions said on Thursday. By Joe Ortiz

The President of the Maldives on Wednesday called for urgent global action against climate change, saying rising sea levels are threatening the survival of his country's low-lying islands.

A small aboriginal village downstream from Alberta's massive oil sands plants is calling for a moratorium on new projects in the region after a study found high levels of heavy metals and carcinogens in its fish and drinking water. By Scott Haggett

With prehistoric Antarctic ice sheets melting beneath his feet, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for urgent political action to tackle global warming. By Juan Jose Lagorio

Electricity firm International Power Plc (IPR.L: Quote, Profile , Research) reported a 12 percent rise in profit for the first nine months of its financial year, despite some adverse weather conditions, and pledged more investment in renewables. By Pete Harrison

The Netherlands and Britain, facing the worst flood threat in decades, closed surge barriers and evacuated people from homes on Friday as a North Sea storm threatened to inundate low-lying areas.

Trace amounts of genetically modified varieties of rice that were found commingled in the U.S. rice supply in 2006 caused more than $1.2 billion in damages and additional costs, the environmental group Greenpeace International said on Monday. By Lisa Shumaker

Yanzhou Coal Mining Co Ltd China's third-largest coal producer by market value, plans to double its annual output to roughly 70 million tonnes by around 2012, with aggressive expansion offsetting lower production at its old mines. By Niu Shuping and Nao Nakanishi

Wal-Mart Stores Inc said Thursday it has partnered with the Clinton Climate Initiative to explore ways to use purchasing power to lower prices on "environmentally-friendly" technologies such as energy efficient building materials and lighting.

Japan ordered its naval ships on Thursday to withdraw from a refueling mission in support of U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan as a political deadlock kept the government from meeting a deadline to extend the activities. By Linda Sieg

The Nordic nations said a meeting of environment ministers meeting in Bali, Indonesia, in December should agree "tangible measures to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases." By Alister Doyle

Floating wind turbines have a "huge potential" for Norway as part of a drive to export clean energy technology and diversify from oil, Petroleum and Energy Minister Aaslaug Haga said on Tuesday.

The citizens of Bansko, a ski resort in Bulgaria's Pirin mountains, are selling their land with gusto to buy fancy cars and replace communist-era furniture. By Anna Mudeva

Six in 10 Americans believe the use of corn to make ethanol has raised food prices and caused more people to go hungry, the latest evidence of a growing global backlash against alternative "green" fuels. By Andrea Hopkins

Safety breaches have caused a radiation leak at a major nuclear reprocessing plant in the Ural mountains, Russia announced on Monday, but officials said there was no danger to humans. By Natalya Shurmina