Environment

The Ugandan parliament will soon have a hearing on the draft Plant Variety Protection Bill, approved by the cabinet early last year. According to an inside government source, seeds companies including Monsanto have been lobbying for such intellectual property protection. Read More

Kazakhstan has warned ArcelorMittal, the world's biggest steel company, that it could be forced to close one of its coal mines if it does not improve safety following an explosion last month that killed 30 people. Read More

Over the last 50 years, a network of cronies helped former Indonesian president Suharto build a business empire and amass a multi-billion dollar fortune. Today his successors face an uphill battle to recover the money even after his death. Read More

Dueling reports released yesterday -- one by a consortium largely funded by the biotech industry and the other by a pair of environmental and consumer groups -- came to those diametrically different conclusions. Read More

Just in time for Valentine's Day, five of the leading U.S. jewellers have sworn off gold that someday could come from the Pebble Mine, a huge deposit being scoped out by a subsidiary of a Canadian company near the world's most productive wild sockeye salmon stream in southwestern Alaska. Read More

Staples Inc, the largest U.S. office supplies retailer, said on Friday it ceased doing business with Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) late last month because of environmental concerns. Read More

With minimal public notice and no formal environmental review, the Forest Service has approved a permit allowing a British mining company to explore for uranium just outside Grand Canyon National Park, less than three miles from a popular lookout over the canyon's southern rim. Read More

Peasant farmers from the northern Salvadoran province of Cabañas fear that mining operations planned for the region will consume 30,000 litres of water a day, drawn from the same sources that currently provide local residents with water only once a week. Read More

Unlike more established competitors, Mr. Giustra was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic. But what his fledgling company lacked in experience, it made up for in connections. Accompanying Mr. Giustra on his luxuriously appointed MD-87 jet that day was a former president of the United States, Bill Clinton. Read More

With companies eager to tout their "green" credentials to consumers, advertising watchdogs in a number of countries are stepping up efforts to rein in marketers that make false or exaggerated claims. Read More