International

"TOKYO -- Contaminated water with dangerously high levels of radiation is leaking from a storage tank at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, the most serious setback to the clean up of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl."

"In less than 40 years from now the cost to the world's biggest coastal cities from flooding is expected to have risen to $1tn – 0.7% of the value of the entire world economy in 2012."

"Working in top secret over a period of 17 years, Russian and American scientists collaborated to remove hundreds of pounds of plutonium and highly enriched uranium — enough to construct at least a dozen nuclear weapons — from a remote Soviet-era nuclear test site in Kazakhstan that had been overrun by impoverished metal scavengers, according to a report released last week by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard."

"OSLO -- Climate scientists are surer than ever that human activity is causing global warming, according to leaked drafts of a major UN report, but they are finding it harder than expected to predict the impact in specific regions in coming decades."
 

"WASHINGTON, DC -- The first new carnivore species to be identified in the American continents in 35 years was introduced to the public today by the Smithsonian Institution scientist who recognized it from skins and skulls tucked away in the collection of the Chicago Field Museum."

"UNITED NATIONS — After months of negotiations, the United Nations announced Wednesday that U.N. experts will depart imminently for Syria to investigate alleged chemical weapons use."

"The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is preparing to remove 400 tons of highly irradiated spent fuel from a damaged reactor building, a dangerous operation that has never been attempted before on this scale."

"LYON, France -- Securities fraud, insider trading, embezzlement, money laundering and cybercrime – the intangible nature of the global carbon trading markets puts them at risk for exploitation by criminal networks, according to a new law enforcement guide produced by Interpol."

"A U.S.-led drive to reduce soot and other heat-trapping air pollutants worldwide is less promising than hoped as a new front in the fight against climate change, according to a study published on Monday."