By Jim Lobe  for IPS WASHINGTON, Mar 5 2014 (IPS) - In the latest twist in a 21-year-old environmental pollution case, a U.S. federal judge Tuesday ruled that the victims of massive oil spillage and their U.S. attorney could not collect on a nine-billion-dollar judgement by Ecuador’s supreme court against the Chevron Corporation. In a racketeering case brought by the U.S. oil giant, the judge found that the ...

By Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales. See Democracy Now! for video interview Residents who live near areas of oil and natural gas fracking have long complained that the industry has poisoned their water with toxic chemicals. Now a new investigation is shedding light on another concern: air quality. The new report, "Fracking the Eagle Ford Shale: Big Oil and Bad Air on the Texas Prairie," is the result of an eig ...

In news from Japan, about 100 tons of highly radioactive water have leaked from one of the hundreds of storage tanks at the devastated Fukushima nuclear power plant. The Tokyo Electric Power Company described it as the worst spill at the plant in six months. Next month marks the third anniversary of the meltdown at Fukushima. ...

Fracking News UK, by Occupy London (See the full article here) “..nowhere does public opposition seem as tenacious and as vocal as in Britain, where the fracking industry, heartily backed by the Conservative-led government, is still in an embryonic stage. Companies are lining up for permits to drill exploratory wells, prospecting for rich and accessible seams of gas-laden shale across the country. The deep- ...

Caribbean nations are extremely vulnerable to sea level rise and extreme weather. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has calculated that the economic losses of climate change for Caribbean nations are US$7.5 billion yearly. “The Caribbean is a very vulnerable subregion that could suffer considerable and negative economic consequences by 2050 because of climate change,” ensur ...

"Scientists from Stanford University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have discovered that crude oil interferes with fish heart cells. The toxic consequence is a slowed heart rate, reduced cardiac contractility and irregular heartbeats that can lead to cardiac arrest and sudden cardiac death The research, published in the Feb. 14 issue of Science, is part of the ongoing Natural ...

By Ranjit Devraj for IPS, Inter Press Service NEW DELHI, Feb 1 2014 (IPS) - Activists opposed to India’s plans to massively increase civilian nuclear power production are aghast that a plan for an Indo-Japanese nuclear cooperation deal is gaining pace even while Japan is struggling to cope with the fallout of the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was guest of hon ...

Tokyo, 31st January 2014: Local governments across Japan are seeking to supply their regions with 100% renewable energy, three years after the major earthquake which resulted in a nuclear disaster. At the Community Power Conference in Fukushima, the Founding Partners of the Global 100% Renewable Energy Campaign welcome the decision of Fukushima prefecture to be entirely energy self-sufficient by 2040 using ...

New IRENA report proves positive socio-economic impacts of renewable energy Abu Dhabi, UAE, January 21, 2014: The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) today launched a pioneering new report on employment in the renewable energy sector, Renewable Energy and Jobs. The first global study of its kind, it features new data on employment within the sector, as well as recommendations for policy makers. In ...

By Fabiana Frayssinet for IPS news CORDOBA, Argentina, Jan 25 2014 (IPS) - Residents of a town in Argentina have won the first victory in their fight against biotech giant Monsanto, but they are still at battle stations, aware that winning the war is still a long way off. For four months activists in Malvinas Argentinas, a town in the central province of Cordoba, have maintained a blockade of the constructi ...