Only days away from the end of the United Nations' Year of Deserts and Desertification, four experts discuss the challenges of translating a decade's worth of research about the degradation of land in arid areas of the world. Phuong Tran reports from VOA's Dakar bureau, located in the arid Saharan region of West Africa. Read More
After years of community protests, including a semi-permanent tent camp, the Trinidad and Tobago government abruptly announced that it was backing away from plans to construct aluminium smelter plants in the southwest peninsula villages of Cedros and Chatham. Read More
ECUADOR: Ecuador's attorney general has asked U.S. officials to investigate Chevron Corp's alleged "fraud and deceit" connected with oil-field contamination in the Amazon rain forest, the latest salvo in a long-running legal dispute. Read More
Members of the Alliance for a Corporate-Free UN, a grouping of non-governmental groups from around the world, send letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan outlining major proposed changes to the Global Compact. Read More
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday ordered to the Atlantic Richfield Company, ARCO, to begin an investigation to determine the nature and extent of contamination at the Anaconda Copper Mine in Yerington, Nevada. Read More
Extra monitoring is needed on BP PLC's (BP) Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, particularly on cracks and leakages in its coating, the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation, or OPIC, said in a report. Read More