Europe

"Watchdog also says US billionaire's Scottish golf resort could not substantiate claim that tourism will be harmed by turbines."

"The year: 1990. The venue: Palais des Nations, Geneva. The star: Margaret Thatcher, conservative icon in the final month of her prime ministership. The topic: global warming. Thatcher went to the Second World Climate Conference to heap praise on the then-infant Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and to sound, again, the alarm over global warming."

"PARIS -- Will Brussels try to give bees a break? In a case closely watched on both sides of the Atlantic, European officials plan to vote Friday on a proposal to sharply restrict the use of pesticides that had been implicated in the decline of global bee populations."

Researchers and campaigners claim that some 40 percent (19,200) of the children born to mothers taking the epilepsy drug Epilim have developed physical or mental problems.

"Pesticides blamed for killing bees have been removed from the shelves of Britain's biggest gardening chains, prompting calls for similar chemicals widely-used on farms to be banned completely."

"ESTREMOZ, PORTUGAL — We spent Christmas in a cabin on a hillside in the cork oak forest that clothes much of southern and central Portugal. We hiked along streams awakened by the winter rains. After dinner we walked under shockingly bright stars, undimmed by light pollution, listening to owls and the tinkle of bells from goats."

"BRUSSELS -- The 'Type 2  plug developed by the German company Mennekes will be the common standard for charging electrified vehicles across the European Union, the European Commission has announced."

"The toxic legacy of the Cold War lives on in Russia's Arctic, where the Soviet military dumped many tonnes of radioactive hardware at sea."

"PALERMO, Italy -- Inside a midnight-blue BMW, a Sicilian entrepreneur delivered his pitch to the accused mafia boss. A new business was blowing into Italy that could spin wind and sunlight into gold, ensuring the future of the Earth as well as the Cosa Nostra: renewable energy."