Reuters

This year will be the second or third warmest year globally on record. The prediction comes as climate concerns build among people in polar and low-lying areas and in the insurance and utility industries.

Norway's incoming left-of-centre government will permit oil drilling in the Arctic and raise spending on welfare under a policy platform to be unveiled on Thursday, Norwegian media said.

The conduct of U.S. troops in Iraq, including increasing detention and accidental shootings of journalists, is preventing full coverage of the war reaching the American public, Reuters said on Wednesday. By Barry Moody

Scientists say it's not easy to tell if global warming caused hurricanes Katrina and Rita but on Monday they forecast more unpredictable weather as Earth gets hotter. By Maggie Fox

Iraq's rushed constitutional process has deepened ethnic and sectarian rifts and is likely to worsen the insurgency and hasten the country's violent break-up, the International Crisis Group (ICG) said on Monday. By Alistair Lyon

BHundreds of Saudi fighters who joined the insurgency in Iraq showed few signs of militancy before the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein, according to a detailed study based on Saudi intelligence reports. By Dominic Evans

Iraq's justice minister has condemned the U.S. military for detaining thousands of Iraqis for long periods without charge and wants to change a U.N. resolution that gives foreign troops immunity from Iraqi law. By Mariam Karouny and Alastair Macdonald

Hurricane Katrina has spurred debate about global warming worldwide with some environmentalists sniping at President George W. Bush for pulling out of the main U.N. plan for braking climate change. By Alister Doyle

For energy-hungry Asian governments, the answer could literally be blowing in the wind.

Hurricane Katrina may be the most expensive hurricane ever to hit the United States, costing insurers up to $26 billion, storm modelers said on Monday.

The Ilulissat glacier in Greenland, a UN heritage site considered one of the wonders of the world, has shrunk by over 10 kilometers in just a few years, in one of the most alarming examples of global warming in the Arctic region. By Caren Bohan

Fresh from visits to Canada's Yukon Territory and Alaska's northernmost city, four US senators said on Wednesday that signs of rising temperatures on Earth are obvious and they called on Congress to act.

The US Army, hard pressed to attract new soldiers amid the Iraq war, seems doomed to miss its target for the year.

Maize crops in Spain and southwest France will fall well short of last year's without relief in the next few weeks from severe drought, farmers' groups said on Monday. By Emma Ross-Thomas and David Evans

More than two dozen doctors walked out of one of Baghdad's busiest hospitals on Tuesday to protest what they said was abuse by Iraqi soldiers, leaving about 100 patients to fend for themselves in chaotic wards.

Thousands of marine species are at risk from global warming because of acidification of the world's oceans, scientists said on Thursday. By Jeremy Lovell

Climate change in Africa gave rise to modern humans. Now experts fear that global warming linked to carbon emissions will have its worst impact on humanity's cradle.

Unconvinced that the world is warming, President George W. Bush looks set to shun pleas by his main industrial allies to step up a fight against climate change at a Group of Eight summit next month.

Republican senators called on Wednesday for the rights of foreign terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay prison to be legally defined even as the Bush administration said the inmates could be jailed there "in perpetuity."

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday defied President Bush by approving a measure making it harder for federal agents to secretly gather information on people's library reading habits and bookstore purchases.

Inuit hunters threatened by a melting of the Arctic ice plan to file a petition accusing Washington of violating their human rights by fuelling global warming, an Inuit leader said on Wednesday.

Big business added its voice on Thursday to a growing crescendo of calls on the governments of the world's richest nations to take urgent action to curb potentially catastrophic global warming. By Jeremy Lovell

World military spending rose for a sixth year running in 2004, growing by 5 percent to $1.04 trillion on the back of "massive" U.S. budgetary allocations for its war on terror, a leading research institute said on Tuesday. By Peter Starck

Human rights group Amnesty defended its description of Guantanamo prison as a "gulag" Thursday and urged the United States to allow independent investigations of allegations of torture at its detention centers for terrorism suspects.

The economics of solar and wind energy is why the world's largest publicly traded energy company is not making any bets on the environmentally friendly power sources now, and does not plan to any time soon.

Global warming is likely to significantly diminish food production in many countries and greatly increase the number of hungry people, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said on Thursday. By Philip Pullella

The world's richest energy consuming nations on Tuesday called for measures to curb their dependence on unreliable and expensive imports as near-record oil prices show signs of stifling the global economy. By Marguerita Choy and Barbara Lewis

Car-pools and driving restrictions could help shave at least a million barrels a day (bpd) from industrialised nations' oil demand in the event of a supply crisis, the International Energy Agency said on Thursday. By Marguerita Choy

'Big Bang soup' really behaves like fluid, scientists say

Starbucks Corp. said Thursday that 5 percent of the electricity it needs to power its company-owned US stores this year will be bought from renewable energy sources such as wind power.