News stories by Julio Godoy, page 13

Seven German nuclear plants have failed to generate any electricity this month due to technical breakdowns. They have about half the production capacity of Germany's 17 nuclear reactors, but Germany did not suffer any power shortages.

Twenty German companies have drawn up ambitious plans to meet at least 15 percent of the European electricity demand by 2020 from solar thermal power plants installed in the North African Maghreb region.

The present global economic crisis and the need to reform the international financial architecture should encourage a return to the original focus on development in the international negotiations on agriculture, trade and development, also known as the Doha Round, according to two economists studying the issue.

The faults at the nuclear plant at Kruemmel near Hamburg surfaced just three days after Chancellor Angela Merkel declared nuclear energy 'indispensable' to Germany.

The boom in the acquisition of arable land in Africa by foreign companies and governments has stirred an international debate between international institutions such as the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and non-governmental groups and independent experts.

As its name suggests, the West Nile virus, a leading cause of a form of meningitis and a neuro-invasive disease, has until recently been reported mostly in tropical and sub-tropical African regions. But it is now about to become a global virus.

New scientific research suggests that climate change is taking place faster than foreseen in studies considered so far, according to environmental experts at a forum on climate change called by the Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment (GLOBE).

Environmental legislators from the 13 countries with the largest greenhouse gas emissions have called for the creation of an international green fund to be included in the Copenhagen protocol on climate change. The fund would provide developing countries with financial and technical resources to create a carbon-free economy.

Environmental legislators from the 13 countries with the largest greenhouse gases emissions are meeting in Rome this Friday and Saturday to discuss steps towards the UN climate change conference scheduled in December in Copenhagen.

The EU could meet all its electricity demands from renewable energy sources such as wind and the sun by 2050 if governments take the right decisions now, leading environment and energy experts say.