Experts said the 1755 quake, one of the most powerful in history, and the 2004 South Asian tsunami underscored the need to incorporate scientific advances in building earthquake- resistant cities. "The earthquake can’t be avoided, but the tragedy can be," Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio told an international conference on the quake. Salvano Briceno, director of [...]
"It is imperative that we find new ways to cooperate and develop a shared understanding of how the world can respond to climate change," Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary Margaret Beckett said. The summit brings the G8 group of industrialised nations alongside major developing countries including India and China. It is the first meeting [...]
Catches of minke whales were up from 543 in 2004 and were the second highest since Norway broke with a global moratorium by the International Whaling Commission in 1993 and resumed commercial hunts. Oslo says minke whales, a relatively small species eaten as steaks, are plentiful in the North Atlantic and no longer need protection [...]
"We need to study all existing possibilities if we want to reach the 10 percent target," said a spokesman for oilseed growers’ group FOP, which, with its financial arm Sofiproteol, owns over half of Diester Industrie, France’s main biodiesel producer. France plans to raise biofuels’ share of the market to 5.75 percent by end-2008, seven [...]
"We will pursue ambitious targets for the further expansion of renewable energy," it said in a draft deal between the country’s two main parties obtained by Reuters on Friday. That means Germany will stick to its target of ensuring renewable sources make up at least 20 percent of the country’s overall energy requirement by 2020, [...]
The conservatives of chancellor-in-waiting Angela Merkel and the Social Democrats (SPD) are in talks to forge a power-sharing alliance that should be in place by the end of November. The former election rivals have made steady progress on a series of issues, from budgetary policy to renewable energy, but the future of atomic power seems [...]
The agency said the Agriculture Ministry announced that as a result all poultry trade restrictions on the islands of Chios and Oinousses, where the suspected case appeared, were now lifted. "It is self-evident, that, if and when similar cases appear in the future, the exact same measures will be taken," the agency quoted the Ministry [...]
Earlier this month, Romania became the first European mainland country to detect H5N1 in birds in two villages in the Danube delta, in the southeast of the country. Last week, a heron was diagnosed with anti-bodies for bird flu in the eastern county of Vaslui, 100 km (60 miles) north of the Danube delta, in [...]
Romania culled hundreds of birds and quarantined villages to try to halt the spread of bird flu after it was detected in poultry in its Danube delta. Hungary’s ban comes after several other European Union countries, including Austria and Poland, implemented similar bans, MTI said. Turkish and Romanian authorities culled thousands of birds and imposed [...]
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Cryosat satellite was launched from Russia’s Plesetsk Cosmodrome on board a converted nuclear missile but a stage of the rocket’s booster system failed to fire. "The confirmation we have is that there has been a failure and that … the satellite with part of the launcher has fallen into the [...]
