"When the World Trade Organization ruled this week that China must again start exporting rare earth elements key to manufacturing high tech and defense products, traders and the markets that need the materials rejoiced. But less happy were the Chinese who claim complying will hurt the environment."
"Labeling tags were not attached to 1,500 valves controlling the flow of radioactive water in piping and other equipment at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in the aftermath of the March 2011 disaster, sources said."
"When Barack Obama sits down tomorrow with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, he’ll do so knowing the U.S. is importing the least crude in two decades, a shift changing America’s strongest relationship in the Arab world."
"Bright yellows, reds, blues and greens coat a day care center's walls, fence, slide and swing. More colorful paints peel from tables inside a kindergarten classroom."
"Planet Labs has announced that it has confirmed launches for more than 100 satellites over the next 12 months. The satellites will launch on rockets from the USA and Russia."
"Air pollution kills about 7 million people worldwide every year, with more than half of the fatalities due to fumes from indoor stoves, according to a new report from the World Health Organization published Tuesday."
"13 of the 14 warmest years on record occurred this century, according to the UN."
"Forget Glasnost, Mikhail Gorbachev and the arms race. What really broke the Soviet Union was the collapse of oil prices in the late 1980s. The late economist Yegor Gaidar, one of Boris Yeltsin’s prime ministers, wrote in 2007 that the empire’s fall could be traced back to Sept. 13, 1985, when Saudi Arabia, fed up with holding back supply to prop up prices, opened the spigots in a quest to recover lost market share. That day, he argued convincingly, was the beginning of the end."
"If you think of climate change as a hazard for some far-off polar bears years from now, you're mistaken. That's the message from top climate scientists gathering in Japan this week to assess the impact of global warming."
"The Japanese whaling fleet has left the waters of the Antarctic Treaty Zone, ending whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary for this season, according to data from the whale defense organization Sea Shepherd Australia."
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