President Obama turned his attention to the need for more clean-energy funding Monday, arguing that an expanded investment is needed to lay the foundation for long-term economic growth, cut dependence on foreign oil and slow the process of global warming. Obama, speaking to a group of renewable-energy company owners and investors, said the country has "known the right choice for a generation (and that) the time has come to make that choice." In the years ahead, the United States "can ...

Iran faces a "clear choice" between between international cooperation over its plans to develop nuclear energy or tougher sanctions, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned at a conference in London on Tuesday. Brown said Iran had an "absolute right" to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes but said it was a test case in helping all nations secure civil nuclear power without nuclear proliferation. "We have to create a new international system to help non-nuclear states acquire the new sources ...

His colleagues call him the Flying Dutchman because of all the time Yvo de Boer spends in the air, traveling from one world capital to another as he tries to stitch together a global deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions — and possible save the world. As the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change , de Boer is the U.N.'s point man for the ongoing global effort to plan a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, ...

Imagine San Francisco Airport under water, or Long Beach Harbor in Los Angeles, home to the second busiest port in America, washed away. Picture Orange County's Newport Beach completely submerged under the encroaching ocean. That's the soggy future that could be in place for California at the end of this century, if climate change continues unabated. According to the Pacific Institute, an environmental NGO that specializes in water, unchecked global warming may cause the world's seas to rise more than ...

Japan's economy shrank more than 12 percent last quarter, the government said on Thursday, in another sign of how severely the global economic downturn has affected the world's second-largest economy. "It has been a core belief of ours that every nation must not only live by, but help shape global rules that will determine whether people enjoy the right to live freely and participate to the fullest in their societies," she said after a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang ...

The power of women hit the State Department on Wednesday when first lady Michelle Obama joined Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to celebrate champions of women's rights around the world. The event was to celebrate the State Department Women of Courage Awards, but highlighted how both the current and former first ladies have made women's rights a signature issue. Since calling women's rights a human rights issue at a women's conference in Beijing in 1995, Clinton has made it a ...

As President Obama reversed the Bush administration's limits on embryonic stem-cell research, he said scientific decisions must be "based on facts, not ideology." The president on Monday signaled a clear shift in tone from the Bush administration on a broad range of scientific issues. Obama overturned an order signed by President Bush in 2001 that barred the National Institutes of Health from funding research on embryonic stem cells beyond using 60 cell lines that existed at that time. ...

A 29-year-old woman has been arrested in connection with a custard-throwing attack on British Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, a Metropolitan Police spokesman told CNN Sunday. A woman was seen on television images Friday throwing a green slime-like liquid in Mandelson's face as he stepped out of his car to attend a meeting on carbon emissions. The act was a protest against the expansion of London's Heathrow Airport. The woman was not identified by police, but Plane Stupid, a group that ...

A protester opposed to the expansion of Heathrow Airport threw green custard in the face of British Business Secretary Peter Mandelson on Friday. Mandelson had just stepped out of his car for a meeting on carbon emissions when the woman threw the cup of custard at him. She shouted a few words at Mandelson, who rushed inside the building, before walking away. London's Metropolitan Police said it did not arrest the woman because "no complaint has been made as yet." ...

Normally, "hot spot" isn't the first phrase that comes to mind when talking about Saskatchewan, Canada. But with most of Canada suffering from devastating job losses, this cold province is becoming exactly that. It's an asterisk to the entire country when it comes to the economic climate, and Premier Brad Wall is shouting it as loud as he can. "It's a great time to come to Saskatchewan," said Wall, who even called the Toronto Star newspaper to tout his province's ...