Stephen Leahy

They are among the top investors in Africa and other countries, says a new report of the International Land Coalition released yesterday.

Oxfam and other NGOs charge that G8 donor nations have been playing a shell game - making multi-billion-dollar commitments at its meetings but without increasing their overall spending on overseas development aid.

Rising global temperatures are likely to result in more and stronger hurricanes in the Atlantic in future.

But for a change of weather last winter, millions of people in the Northern hemisphere would have experienced higher ultraviolet radiation.

Four large corporations control much of the world's booming bottled water industry and pose a threat to public water utilities.

If only the world's compassion for the victims of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean will expand to those suffering in an extended silent tsunami that is sweeping through Africa.

A Guatemalan journalist awarded an international press freedom prize says the recognition will not change things in his country but might empower others to "reveal the truth".

A global move to facilitate access to information has failed to consider basic issues of freedom of expression and press freedom, causing journalists to warn of possible censorship of news web sites.

If civilisation is lucky, diagnostic tests and treatment will curtail the Sars outbreak. Otherwise, warns an expert, the world will face a difficult struggle.

Soybeans contaminated by GE maize in the US are sparking an urgent rethink on growing biopharma products (that come from plants genetically-engineered to produce medicines) in food-producing areas.