News stories by Julio Godoy, page 8

At first glance, Lake Constance, trapped between Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, looks as peaceful as ever. But under the lake's apparently placid waters, a dramatic change is taking place - one that threatens to obliterate much of local biodiversity.

The electricity grid in Europe is in desperate need of an IQ boost.

Government officials in Germany are being accused of manipulating threats of terrorism to induce public hysteria, even while warning against such reactions. The self-contradictory approach has prompted German citizens to call the terror warnings 'farcical' and 'negligent.'

Massive increase in carbon emissions will worsen climate change if the European Union does not urgently revise its energy policy, experts warn.

The European Union (EU) is failing to fulfil its environmental commitments in practically all areas, from protecting biodiversity to improving air quality in the cities, according to official studies released this month.

Africa is heading towards a bright economic future, according to a new book co-authored by the former director of the French state agency for economic cooperation and released recently in Paris.

In the view of governments, international bodies and some sectors of civil society participating in negotiations towards new global rules on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, the REDD programme is the last chance to save tropical rainforests.

Little hope has emerged from a meeting here of any binding international regulations to reduce greenhouse gases at the next UN conference on climate change scheduled for November and December in Cancun, Mexico.

Subsidies for agriculture in the industrialised countries of the world grew again in 2009, benefiting the largest companies and land owners, such as Prince Albert of Monaco and Queen Elizabeth of Britain.

A civil society protest against a British agrochemical company that claims it has invented a particular sort of broccoli has again focused attention on the question who owns natural biodiversity, especially vegetables, seeds, and many forms of meat and animal food products.