Australia's parliament passed landmark laws to impose a price on carbon emissions on Tuesday in one of the biggest economic reforms in a decade, giving new impetus to December's global climate talks in South Africa.
The scheme's impact will be felt right across the economy, from miners to LNG producers, airlines and steel makers and is aimed at making firms more energy efficient and push power generation towards gas and renewables.
Australia accounts for just 1.5% of global emissions, but is the developed world's highest emitter per capita due to a reliance on coal to generate electricity.
Iran on brink of becoming nuclear state, warns UN
Leaked document confirms US fears, report David Usborne and Kim Sengupta
An ominous new report by the UN's nuclear watchdog showing that Iran is closer than ever to becoming a nuclear weapons state will trigger fresh debate among Western governments about how to respond. But it is unlikely on its own to prompt new international sanctions, diplomats said yesterday.
Anxiety about Iran has flared in part because of early leaks of the report compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Adding to tensions have been reports that Israeli cabinet members, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, below, agree over a possible military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.
Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai on Monday accused a top minister in President Robert Mugabe's party of orchestrating a weekend attack on his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) rally outside the capital Harare.
Tsvangirai told a news conference at his home that Saviour Kasukuwere, the minister leading efforts to make foreign businesses cede shares to local blacks, had brought in militants from Mugabe's Zanu-PF to disrupt the rally on Sunday in the suburb of Chitungwiza.
Is Nigeria's militant group Boko Haram in it for the cash?
Nigeria's militant group Boko Haram claims it wants to impose Islamic law on Nigeria, but there is speculation the group would accept amnesty and cash as Niger Delta militants did in 2009.
As violence rampages across northern Nigeria and the capital city of Abuja faces renewed terror threats, questions are being raised about the true motivation of Boko Haram, the Muslim group responsible for the hostilities. Since Friday, Boko Haram has killed more than 100 people, the group’s most audacious display of violence to date. Boko Haram is now threatening attacks in Abuja, and the US government has warned that hotels frequented by foreigners are being targeted. According to the Associated Press, the group has now killed 361 people this year.
NAYPYIDAW, Burma — After five years of cozy cooperation with Burma’s ruling generals, China Power Investment Corp. got a shock in September when it sent a senior executive to Naypyidaw, this destitute Southeast Asian nation’s showcase capital, a Pharaonic sprawl of empty eight-lane highways and cavernous government buildings.
Armed with a slick PowerPoint presentation and promises of $20 billion in investment, Li Guanghua pitched “an excellent opportunity,” a mammoth, Chinese-funded hydropower project in Burma’s far north.
Ravers and time travellers re-record history
By Daniel Nasaw and Matt DanzicoBBC News Magazine, Chicago
In an increasingly disposable world, efforts to preserve and catalogue our analogue and and digital lives could change the nature of history as we know it.
In a modest house in Chicago's Bridgeport neighbourhood, an antique library filing cabinet holds hundreds of old cassette tapes. Many have handwritten labels, some two decades old.
The cabinet stores the raw analogue material for Ravearchive.com, an online project aimed at preserving and distributing the DJ mixtapes, party fliers and fanzines of the 1990s US rave scene.
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