International

"The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is out with a new report this week on the world food outlook."

"An unusual solar flare observed by a NASA space observatory on Tuesday could cause some disruptions to satellite communications and power on Earth over the next day or so, officials said."

"The Fukushima meltdown showed how some nuclear plants are vulnerable to cooling-system failures. That might be of interest to Al Qaeda, which considered attacking US nuclear facilities after 9/11, a new study says."

"Greenpeace accuses Mattel of using paper from Indonesian rain forests to package Barbie dolls. Activists hang a large banner on Mattel's headquarters in El Segundo. Police arrest 10 protesters."

"Delegates from 183 countries got down to business at a United Nations preparatory climate change conference in Bonn today. For the next 11 days they will work towards a draft agreement on limiting greenhouse gas emissions that can serve as the basis of negotiations at the annual UN Climate Summit set to start November 28 in Durban, South Africa."

"Oil prices fell to near $98 a barrel Wednesday amid signs OPEC may raise its crude production quotas at a meeting in Vienna."

Paul Epstein started his career as a physician caring for the poor in Mozambique and Boston. In a new book, the Associate director of Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and Global Environment connects the dots between climate change and its global impacts. They range from cholera outbreaks in Africa and plankton blooms in the Caribbean ... to parasites devastating East Coast oysters.

"The world must invent new ways to protect people driven from their homes by climate change without copying safeguards for those uprooted by wars or persecution, the head of the U.N. refugee agency said on Monday."

"Japan disclosed Monday that its nuclear accident was more severe in its first days than it had previously admitted -- casting new light on how Tokyo's early handling of the disaster briefly sent its relations with the U.S. into one of the tensest periods in years."

"TransCanada Corp's 591,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) capacity Keystone pipeline resumed shipping crude oil, one week after being shut by a leak at a Kansas pumping station, the Calgary-based company said in a statement."