News headlines in September 2011, page 5

The possibility of exploiting the hitherto inaccessible natural resources of the Arctic Ocean is becoming increasingly tangible with the thawing of the North Pole, much to the alarm of European scientists.

When Internet activist ‘Huaguoshan Zongshuji’ published a survey of luxury watches worn by Chinese government officials this month, the move was commended by the state media. Yet weeks later the survey was censored - shooting the one-party state’s uneasy relationship with corruption into the spotlight.

Gazalla Amin’s office on the outskirts of this city, capital of Jammu & Kashmir state, is redolent with the fragrance of lavender wafting up from heaps of the dried flowers in a corner bowl.

With the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period set to expire in 2012, Connie Hedegaard, EU commissioner for climate action, is pushing for more countries to agree on binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The United Nations is partnering with private sector firms to promote universal access to energy, improved efficiency and wider deployment of renewable sources.

At least 200 million people in the world are in danger of being left without water, because they depend for their supply on glaciers that are melting, although paradoxically the process creates the illusion of plentiful water resources.

About 80 percent of Qatar's population is foreign. Of the 1.6 million people living in the Arab emirate in 2010, 685,000 were Indian or Pakistani, 160,000 were Iranian and about 430,000 came from other parts of the world.

The release on September 22 of the report Aid Effectiveness 2005-2010: Progress in Implementing the Paris Declaration, leads us to ask an important question: Are we any better at delivering aid effectively today than we were five years ago?

More than 200 Canadians engaged in civil disobedience, with 117 arrested in Canada's quiet capital city on Monday. The reason? To protest the Stephen Harper right-wing government's open support for the oil industry and expanding production in the climate-disrupting tar sands.

The implementation of a unified climate change policy across all of South Africa’s government departments will not be easy as the divisions currently work largely as separate entities, says Greenpeace Africa.