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QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) -- An international court has agreed to hear a 1.6-billion-dollar case brought by US oil giant Chevron against Ecuador in a long-running dispute over alleged environmental damage, the company said Thursday.Chevron filed the complaint at...

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STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- Swedish neuroscientists say they have demonstrated, for the first time, that people can perceive another body to be their own. Valeria Petkova and Dr. H. Henrik Ehrsson of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, conducted five experiments, during which participants wore a head-mounted video display that showed high-fid...

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- An animal rights group says a recently released U.S. Department of Agriculture report reveals primate experimentation has reached a record 69,990 animals. The Stop Animal Exploitation Now organization said that is equivalent to one monkey or ape being used in experimentation every 7 1/2 minutes. SAEN Executive Director ...

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COPENHAGEN (AFP) -- Nearly 30 Greenpeace activists on Thursday blocked the unloading of coal from a Panama-flagged cargo ship for the second day to protest the fuel's destructive effect on the climate, the group said."Eight of them spent the ni...

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WASHINGTON (AFP) -- Technical glitches have forced US space agency NASA to delay the launch of a landmark mission to Mars, which was due to lift off in the autumn of next year, officials said Thursday."We will not be ready to launch Mars Scien...

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LA JOLLA, Calif., Dec. 4 (UPI) -- Professor Ralph Lewin, known as the father of green algae genetics, died in his sleep Sunday at his California home from esophageal cancer. Lewin, 87, a scientist, poetry author and professor, spent nearly 48 years at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego and was considered a ...

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NOTTINGHAM, England, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- British and U.S. medical scientists say they have identified a gene that protects the body from developing lung cancer. Researchers from the University of Nottingham and Washington University in St. Louis said they discovered the tumor suppressor gene LIMD1 is responsible for protecting the body -- a finding that could lea...

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FORT COLLINS, Colo., Dec. 4 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say they are trying to develop vaccines aimed at ticks and mosquitoes to prevent such diseases as West Nile virus and malaria. In order to successfully slow the transmission rate of these potentially fatal diseases, we need to reduce the lifespan of the vector, or block them from becoming infected in the ...

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CHAPEL HILL, N.C., Dec. 4 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists have a new theory to explain how some marine animals find their way back to their birthplace to spawn after migrating thousands of miles. Marine biologists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill believe that salmon and sea turtles read the magnetic field of their home area and imprint it, al...

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency says it is postponing the launch of its Mars Science Laboratory until 2011. National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials said the original October 2009 launch is no longer feasible because of testing and hardware challenges that must be addressed to ensure mission success. NASA said the ...

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- The U.S. government says it has determined there are no food or feed safety concerns from the release of some unauthorized genetically engineered cotton. Officials said a small amount of the unauthorized variety was inadvertently harvested along with commercially available GE cotton by the Monsanto Co. The safety determination...

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- U.S. space agency Deputy Administrator Shana Dale says she will resign her post effective Jan. 17 after serving as NASA's second in command since 2005. It has been an honor for me to work with those who support America's space program, Dale, 44, said. It is a highly dedicated group, made up of individuals who share a deep p...

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CHAPEL HILL, N.C., Dec. 4 (UPI) -- Minuscule nanoparticles added to consumer products increasingly may be swarming through the body and threatening organs like the liver, U.S. scientists fear. The smaller a particle, the further it can travel through tissue, along airways or in blood vessels, Dr. Adnan Nasir, a clinical assistant professor of dermatolog...

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency says one of its veteran astronauts, Carl Walz, is resigning to take an unspecified job in the private sector. Walz most recently served as director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Advanced Capabilities Division. NASA owes a great debt to Carl Walz for his service as an astronaut...

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by Paul Harrington BRUSSELS (AFP) -- European ministers warned Thursday of tough talks ahead if the EU is to seal a major climate change accord this month, amid demands from Germany, Poland and others to protect their industries."The negotiation...

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WASHINGTON (AFP) -- Technical glitches have forced US space agency NASA to delay the launch of a landmark mission to Mars, which was due to lift off in the autumn of next year, officials said Thursday."We will not be ready to launch Mars Science Lab by the...

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WARSAW (AFP) -- Greenpeace activists on Thursday climbed down a smokestack they scaled two days ago at a coal-fired power plant in central Poland, saying they would now pitch a protest camp at the site of UN climate talks in nearby Poznan."The politicians ...

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by Paul Harrington BRUSSELS (AFP) -- EU environment ministers started a key meeting Thursday as wrangling over pollution trading rights held up a major climate change accord that the EU wants passed at a summit next week.Germany, Europe's bigges...

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by Susan Njanji ACCRA (AFP) -- Ghana, which is running short of forests to chop down, is about to turn to the dead trees underneath its Lake Volta as a new source of exotic timber, one of its top export earners.Lake Volta, one of the world's largest artific...

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COPENHAGEN (AFP) -- Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen discussed climate change and continuing cooperation in Afghanistan in a 10-minute telephone conversation, he said in a statement issued Thursday."I expressed my respect for Barack Obama's stro...

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MANILA (AFP) -- Three local officials have been indicted for environmental crimes over the building of a hotel over wetland in the Philippines's top tourist destination of Boracay island, the government said Thursday.Ceciron Cawaling, mayor of the municipal...

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COPENHAGEN (AFP) -- Nearly 30 Greenpeace activists on Thursday blocked the unloading of coal from a Panama-flagged cargo ship for the second day to protest the fuel's destructive effect on the climate, the group said."Eight of them spent the night on one of...

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BRUSSELS (AFP) -- Greenpeace activists placed five large chunks of ice in front of the venue where EU environment ministers discussed global warming Thursday to denounce the bloc's "melting" leadership on climate change."Europe's climate leadership melting...

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by Paul Harrington BRUSSELS (AFP) -- EU environment ministers started a key meeting Thursday as wrangling over pollution trading rights held up a major climate change accord that the EU wants passed at a summit next week.Germany, Europe's biggest economy, an...

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POZNAN, Poland (AFP) -- Bangladesh, North Korea and Nicaragua suffered most from natural disasters in 2007, according to a barometer published on Thursday at the UN climate talks in Poznan.The Global Climate Risk Index looks at the cost of natural disasters...

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by Marianne Barriaux BEIJING (AFP) -- Travelling at 330 kilometres an hour on one of China's fastest trains, businessman Ren Wenzuo had nothing but praise for a multi-billion-dollar plan to spin a web of new rail links across the country."People nowadays wan...

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by Simon Sturdee POZNAN, Poland (AFP) -- "Hey DJ! Play that funky music!" might be one of the more unusual rallying cries for saving the planet. But the "Mini Sustainable Club" featured at the 12-day UN climate conference here has a purpose. Their disco show is one...

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STANFORD, Calif., Dec. 3 (UPI) -- A U.S. geneticist says he has created an online database that can, without charge, provide scientists around the world with a tool for protein analyses. Stanford University School of Medicine Associate Professor Arend Sidow recently launched his bioinformatics tool, which enlists evolution as the guide to determining the ro...

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PARIS, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- The European Space Agency says it has paired its European Remote Sensing-2 satellite with its Envisat satellite in their second tandem operation. ERS-2, the space agency's veteran spacecraft, and Envisat, the largest environmental satellite ever built, both carry Synthetic Aperture Radar instruments that provide high resolution images of ...

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WARSAW (AFP) -- Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Wednesday an agreement was "close" on the European Union's planned climate package which his coal-dependent country had threatened to veto."I think that we are close to a version acceptable for Poland...

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COPENHAGEN (AFP) -- Greenpeace activists on Wednesday blocked the offloading of coal from a Panama-flagged cargo ship docked in Denmark to protest the fuel's destructive effect on the climate, the global environmental group said."Activists have blocked a cr...

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OTTAWA, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is warning against consumption of Santa Lucia-brand ricotta cheese because of possible contamination. The CFIA and the manufacturer, the International Cheese Co. Ltd. of Toronto, said the cheese might be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, a bacterium that can cause the food-borne illness listeri...

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and WebMD say they are collaborating in expanding consumers' access to the federal agency's health database. We are enthusiastic about this collaboration with WebMD because it will enable us to reach more consumers with accurate, science-based information that can help them improve their healt...

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UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- The United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency is urging increased use of radiation to produce high-yielding plants to help people avoid hunger. IAEA officials said the nearly century-old technique called mutation induction is safe and cost effective and the plants it can help create are adaptable to droughts, floods and o...

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ROME (AFP) -- Greenhouse gases worsen ocean noise by raising acidity levels and causing sound to travel farther, making it ever harder for marine mammals to communicate, UN and wildlife experts said Wednesday."Acidity is a new, strange and unwanted developm...

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HOUSTON, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- U.S. medical and energy experts say they are exploring synergies that have been identified in moving oil and pumping blood. The second annual Pumps & Pipes conference Monday will bring scientists and engineers together at the University of Houston, to discuss the similarities. Organizers said much like moving oil through a...

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- The U.S. and Russian space agencies said they've signed a $141 million modification of their International Space Station contract, extending it into 2012. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Russian Federal Space Agency said the fixed-price crew transportation services contract extension covers comprehensive Soy...

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency, along with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has selected the contractor for the next series of weather satellites. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration named the Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. of Denver to build the satellites for NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmenta...

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PARIS (AFP) -- Greenpeace admitted Wednesday it was behind a mystery poster campaign that saw walls across Paris plastered with pictures of President Nicolas Sarkozy modelled on an iconic Barack Obama election image.The campaign sought to raise awareness of...

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KAMPALA (AFP) -- Rare mountain gorilla twins have been born in Uganda's Bwindi Forest, home to around half the world's population of the endangered primates, a wildlife official said Wednesday.The twins were born to a gorilla called Kwintonda e...

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KAMPALA (AFP) -- Rare mountain gorilla twins have been born in Uganda's Bwindi Forest, home to around half the world's population of the endangered primates, a wildlife official said Wednesday.The twins were born to a gorilla called Kwintonda e...

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POZNAN, Poland (AFP) -- The world market in greenhouse gases was worth 38 billion euros (48.26 billion dollars) in the first half of 2008, an increase of 41 percent over the figure for the same period in 2007, the UN climate conference heard on Wedne...

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POZNAN, Poland (AFP) -- The world market in greenhouse gases was worth 38 billion euros (48.26 billion dollars) in the first half of 2008, an increase of 41 percent over the figure for the same period in 2007, the UN climate conference heard on Wednesday.T...

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KAMPALA (AFP) -- Rare mountain gorilla twins have been born in Uganda's Bwindi Forest, home to around half the world's population of the endangered primates, a wildlife official said Wednesday.The twins were born to a gorilla called Kwintonda early last mon...

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- U.S. health officials say a new right of conscience rule will likely be announced by the outgoing Bush administration. The Los Angeles Times reported the rule will allow doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare workers to refuse to participate in procedures they find morally objectionable, such as abortion. The rule c...

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ROME , Dec. 3 (UPI) -- Famed conservationist Jane Goodall is calling for an international effort to save gorillas in Africa. It is time for us to pool all of our resources toward saving these magnificent creatures, she said Monday at the launch of the United Nations Year of the Gorilla 2009. U.N. environment officials said the effort will focus on...

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OTTAWA (AFP) -- Extraction and refining of heavy oil from Canada's oil sands threatens to kill as many as 166 million migratory birds over the next 30 to 50 years, according to a report released Tuesday."The public needs to understand the real and long-ter...

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LIMA (AFP) -- A team of archaeologists on Tuesday announced they had discovered a fortified citadel in the remote Amazonian rainforest of northeast Peru that appears to be from the pre-Inca era.The main encampment comprises circular stone houses overgrown b...

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COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say they are utilizing materials known as piezoelectrics to move science closer to self-powering devices, such as cellular telephones. Texas A&M Professor Tahir Cagin and his team say they've made a significant discovery in the area of power harvesting -- a field that aims to develop self-powered devices...

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COLUMBUS, Ohio, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- U.S. and French scientists say they've developed a new understanding of a process called adiabaticity that's used to control atoms in magnetic resonance. Adiabatic processes are what physicists and engineers use to control atoms in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and during magnetic resonance imaging. Researchers ...

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HUNTSVILLE, Ala., Dec. 2 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency says 14 groups of middle and high school students will take part in the 2008-09 Student Launch Initiative rocketry challenge. The event will be held April 15-20 at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. During the annual event, NASA engineers w...

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PASADENA, Calif., Dec. 2 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say they've created, for the first time, images of the heart's muscular layer and the link between it and the way the heart contracts. California Institute of Technology researchers say their findings could help create a road map for future cardiac surgical techniques. The researchers showed the muscular...

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BRUSSELS (AFP) -- More than 10,000 metal workers, most from Germany, protested in Brussels Tuesday over EU plans to tackle climate change, which they fear will hit their industry.The protesters -- 11,300 according to police, 12,000 according to organisers, ...

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BINGHAMTON, N.Y., Dec. 2 (UPI) -- A U.S. geologist is warning the Earth might soon undergo rapid and unpredictable climate changes that could negatively affect many species. Binghamton University Professor Tim Lowenstein's concerns are rooted in his and Professor Robert Demicco's discovery of nahcolite -- a rare carbonate mineral that formed during the Eocene ...

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POZNAN, Poland (AFP) -- Negotiators at the UN climate talks in Poznan got down to work on Tuesday as South Africa headed demands for rich nations to agree to tough targets in a new pact for defeating global warming."We're out of the starting gate," said Yvo...

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WARSAW (AFP) -- Greenpeace activists on Tuesday scaled a 150-metre (500 foot) high smokestack at a power plant in central Poland to urge the government to agree to European environment reforms.Activists from Canada, Britain, Germany, Poland an...

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ROME (AFP) -- Global warming causes freak weather that may have a "devastating impact" on food security in the Pacific region, the UN food agency warned on Tuesday."Climate projections for the Pacific island countries are bleak and indicate reduced food sec...

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FRANKFURT (AFP) -- The German automobile federation VDA slammed on Tuesday an EU compromise on rules to cut CO2 emissions from new cars, saying it ignored the sector's current crisis."Globally, the project does not take enough account of the automobile ind...

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PANAMA CITY, Panama, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- U.S. archeologists say starch grains found preserved on human teeth in Peru suggest ancient Peruvians ate cultivated crops, including squash and beans. Dolores Piperno of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and the National Museum of Natural History, and archeology Professor Tom Dillehay of Vanderbilt Univ...

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- The U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service announced the recall of approximately 36,388 pounds of DeNunzio-brand Polish kielbasa due to a labeling error. The FSIS said DeNunzio's Sausage of Elmira, N.Y., initiated the recall because the sausage products might contain soy protein, an undeclared allergen. Being recalled are 1-,...

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KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) -- UN officials meeting in the Malaysian capital Tuesday warned Asian countries not to cut funding for disaster preparations, despite the global economic downturn.Philippine senator Loren Legarda, the UN's newly-appointed "champion" for ...

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WARSAW (AFP) -- Greenpeace activists on Tuesday scaled a 150-metre (500 foot) high smokestack at a power plant in central Poland to urge the government to agree to European environment reforms.Activists from Canada, Britain, Germany, Poland and Sweden woul...

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EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., Dec. 2 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency says space shuttle Endeavour is being readied to make its cross-country trip back to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said Endeavour ended its latest mission to the International Space Station with a landing Sunday at Edwards Air Force Ba...

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency says it has, most likely -- after a month of fruitless attempts -- reached the end of communications with its Phoenix Mars Lander. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said it has ceased its daily attempts to communicate with the spacecraft and has stopped using its Mars orbiters to hail the lander ...

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VIENNA (AFP) -- The UN atomic watchdog called Tuesday for renewed interest and increased investment in a technique that uses radiation to improve crop yields and resistance against a backdrop of the global food and energy crises.The International Atomic Ene...

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by Richard Ingham POZNAN, Poland (AFP) -- The head of the world's top climate scientists says he is stunned at the trillion-dollar cheques that have been signed to ease the banking crisis when funding for poverty and global warming is scrutinised or denied....

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HONG KONG (AFP) -- China's foreign minister Yang Jiechi on Tuesday said rich countries should lead the fight against climate change and provide expertise to the developing world to help reduce emissions.Yang conceded that China was large emitter of greenho...

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BOSTON, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- A study of blacks living in a Boston-area community found those born in the United States were more likely to have asthma than those born elsewhere. Doug Brugge, an associate professor at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, said a review of 479 asthma screening questionnaires from children and adults in Dorchester, Mass., sugg...

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BRASILIA (AFP) -- The Brazilian government on Monday announced a plan under which it would cut deforestation of the Amazon by 70 percent over the next decade.It is the first time Brazil, home to the largest area of tropical woodland on the pla...

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PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- U.S. medical researchers say they have discovered a key molecular partnership that coordinates body rhythms and metabolism. University of Pennsylvania researchers led by Dr. Mitchell Lazar and doctoral student Theresa Alenghat said they studied a protein called NCoR that modulates the body's responses to metabolic hormones. They sa...

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BOGOR, Indonesia, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- An Indonesian forestry research group says large areas of Earth's forests could succumb to climate change, resulting in disaster for forest-dependent people. The Center for International Forestry Research says unless immediate action is taken, climate change could have a devastating effect on the nearly 1 billion people who de...

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STANFORD, Calif., Dec. 1 (UPI) -- U.S. medical scientists say they've found distinct groups of proteins that each control one of four simple activities involved in cells' collective migration. Stanford University School of Medicine researchers said their findings detailing how cells within blood vessel walls move en masse overturn an assumption common in the a...

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ROME (AFP) -- Endangered gorilla species will be placed "on a higher pedestal" next year in efforts to raise awareness about their plight and threats to their habitat, a UN expert said Monday."The Year of the Gorilla 2009 will place gorillas on a higher pe...

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BRUSSELS (AFP) -- Italy will veto ambitious European Union plans to tackle climate change unless changes are made to make the package less costly to industry and consumers, a minister warned Monday."If the climate package passes as it stands it will lead to...

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PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say they have found a way to keep the body's T cells in prime shape for fighting infection and cancer. Researchers at the Wistar Institute said they have discovered seven different receptors on the outside of the body's immune system T cells that can tamp down immune responses during a prolonged battle with an in...

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by Simon Sturdee and Richard Ingham POZNAN, Poland (AFP) -- War, hunger, poverty and sickness will stalk humanity if the world fails to tackle climate change, a 12-day UN conference on global warming heard on Monday.A volley of grim warnings sounded out at t...

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency says it will honor Armadillo Aerospace of Rockwall, Texas, as winner of the 2008 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. The recognition ceremony is scheduled Friday at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's headquarters in Washington. Armadillo's winning vehicle successfully demonstrated so...

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POZNAN, Poland (AFP) -- Green groups upped the pressure at UN climate talks in Poland on Monday with wacky stunts aimed at prodding delegates from around the world to get moving on a new deal to tackle global warming.The World Wildlife Fund, o...

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CLEVELAND, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency is trying to find an effective way to monitor pilots' brain activity to help stop mishaps caused by stress, fatigue or distraction. The research being conducted at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Glenn Research Center involves using functional near infrared spectroscopy and other imaging techn...

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa., Dec. 1 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say they've created a computer program to help predict when icebergs will calve from ice sheets. The models we have do not currently have any way to figure out where the big ice sheets end and where the ice calves off to form icebergs, said Penn State Professor Richard Alley. The problem, he sai...

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BRASILIA (AFP) -- The Brazilian government on Monday announced a plan under which it would cut deforestation of the Amazon by 70 percent over the next decade.It is the first time Brazil, home to the largest area of tropical woodland on the pla...

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Energy says it has selected six university-proposed projects under its University Coal Research Program. The program -- the nation's longest-running student-teacher research grant initiative -- is designed to advance new ideas in coal research and train a new generation of scientists and engineers in the inv...

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a report on the year-long implementation of its Food Protection Plan to protect domestic and imported foods. The plan, officials said, outlines strategies for prevention, intervention and response to food safety issues by encouraging the building of safety into every step of the food suppl...

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BRASILIA (AFP) -- The Brazilian government on Monday announced a plan under which it would cut deforestation of the Amazon by 70 percent over the next decade.It is the first time Brazil, home to the largest area of tropical woodland on the planet, has set ...

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POZNAN, Poland (AFP) -- Green groups upped the pressure at UN climate talks in Poland on Monday with wacky stunts aimed at prodding delegates from around the world to get moving on a new deal to tackle global warming.The World Wildlife Fund, or WWF, welcom...

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POZNAN, Poland (AFP) -- Green groups upped the pressure at UN climate talks in Poland on Monday with wacky stunts aimed at prodding delegates from around the world to get moving on a new deal to tackle global warming.The World Wildlife Fund, or WWF, welcom...

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by Simon Sturdee and Richard Ingham POZNAN, Poland (AFP) -- War, hunger, poverty and sickness will stalk humanity if the world fails to tackle climate change, a 12-day UN conference on global warming heard on Monday.A volley of grim warnings sounded out at t...

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by Simon Sturdee and Richard Ingham POZNAN, Poland (AFP) -- War, hunger, poverty and sickness will stalk humanity if the world fails to tackle climate change, a 12-day UN conference on global warming heard on Monday.A volley of grim warnings sounded out at t...

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BEIJING, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- The Chinese Space Technology Academy announced the Monday launch of a remote sensing satellite, sent aloft on a Long March-2D carrier rocket. The Yaogan IV satellite, fired from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern Gansu Province, will be used for scientific research, land resources surveying, crop yield estimate a...

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POZNAN, Poland (AFP) -- A 12-day UN conference on climate change began Monday to warnings that the impact of global warming could wreak a dark toll in human misery and conflict."The world community is more and more aware that humankind in its activity just...

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by Simon Sturdee POZNAN, Poland (AFP) -- Representatives from almost every country on the planet are set to start 12 days of tough talks in Poland on Monday aimed at getting the ball rolling for a new global climate change pact.The forum of the 192-member U...

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by Frank Zeller THACH SON, Vietnam (AFP) -- Gazing at the Soviet-era factory that looms over his northern Vietnamese commune, Quang Van Vinh remembers what the farmland here looked like before it became known as a "cancer village.""This used to be a vast gar...

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SYDNEY (AFP) -- More than 150 whales have died after beaching themselves in southern Australia, with many sustaining deep cuts after thrashing onto rocks, an official said Monday.The long-finned pilot whales were discovered trapped on a rocky beach in the r...

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by Simon Sturdee POZNAN, Poland (AFP) -- Representatives from almost every country on the planet are set to start 12 days of tough talks in Poland on Monday aimed at getting the ball rolling for a new global climate change pact.The forum of the 192-member U...

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BEIJING (AFP) -- Beijing achieved its annual target of low pollution days one month early due in part to Olympics measures, but repeating the success next year will be a big challenge, state media said Monday.China's capital on Sunday experienced its 256th ...

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by Jean-Louis Santini CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AFP) -- The US space shuttle Endeavour and its crew of seven have returned safely to Earth at a California air base concluding a 16-day mission to double living capacity at the International Space Station.NASA's...

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AFP) -- The US space shuttle Endeavour landed safely Sunday at a California air base to conclude a 16-day mission to the International Space Station, after two Florida landing chances were ruled out due to poor weather....

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by Jean-Louis Santini CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AFP) -- Bad weather scuppered two efforts to land the space shuttle Endeavour in Florida Sunday, and NASA officials said they plan instead a touchdown later in the day at Edwards Air Base in California's M...

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by Simon Sturdee POZNAN, Poland (AFP) -- Investing in "cheap and dirty" power because of the global recession will lead to another financial crisis, the UN climate chief warned Sunday on the eve of tough international talks in Poland."My firm belief is that ...

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