Environment

• Friday, May 30th 2014 - 04:59 UTC

  Cold weather shrinks US economy growth in the first quarter

  

  The US economy shrank by an annualized 1% in the first three months of 2014, official estimates have shown. It is the worst economic performance since the first quarter of 2011 and a big fall on the 2.6% rise in economic output in the final quarter of last year.

• Wednesday, May 28th 2014 - 08:24 UTC

  State of emergency because of floods in Manaus, where England plays Italy

  

  Brazilian World Cup host city Manaus has declared a state of emergency as the waters of an Amazon River tributary swell, although officials say they do not expect it to flood.

• Monday, May 26th 2014 - 13:23 UTC

  Thousands march across the world to protest against Monsanto and GMO foods

  

  Hundreds of thousands people have united across the world to voice concern over the spread of GMO foods and crops and to raise awareness over the biotech giant Monsanto’s growing grip on the global food supply chain.

• Monday, May 26th 2014 - 13:14 UTC

  Spain supports EC proposal for an absolute ban on driftnets

  

  Spain's Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment (MAGRAMA) publicly announced its satisfaction with the proposed Regulation of the European Parliament and the Council presented by the European Commission (EC) for the banning of driftnet fishing.

• Saturday, May 24th 2014 - 00:37 UTC

  The California shale bubble just burst

  

  The great hype surrounding the advent of a shale gas bonanza in California may turn out to be just that: hype. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) – the statistical arm of the Department of Energy – has downgraded its estimate of the total amount of recoverable oil in the Monterey Shale by a whopping 96%. Its previous estimate pegged the recoverable resource in California’s shale formation at 13.7 billion barrels but it now only thinks that there are 600 million barrels available.

• Saturday, May 24th 2014 - 00:16 UTC

  Humpback whales in different oceans should be recognized as separate species, says genetic study

  

  A new genetic study has revealed that populations of humpback whales in the oceans of the North Pacific, North Atlantic and Southern Hemisphere are much more distinct from each other than previously thought, and should be recognized as separate subspecies.

• Thursday, May 22nd 2014 - 12:41 UTC

  History of whaling in South Georgia and its impact revealed with DNA samples

  

  Bones that have littered the beaches of South Georgia for a hundred years since the animals were killed by whalers are now being used to establish what species of whale were being hunted, reports South Georgia’s April Newsletter.

• Tuesday, May 20th 2014 - 08:27 UTC

  Hailstorm blankets Sao Paulo: good news for the city was running out of water

  

  An unusually heavy hailstorm in Brazil's largest city, Sao Paulo, has brought residents out onto to the streets to play with the ice it left behind. For many of them, it was the first time they had seen huge ice balls littering the streets of the subtropical city.

• Tuesday, May 20th 2014 - 08:19 UTC

  Antarctica ice sheet loss has doubled since 2010, shows CryoSat satellite

  

  The Antarctic ice sheet has lost ice twice as quickly in the past three years as when it was last surveyed between 2005 and 2010, say scientists. Results from the CryoSat-2 satellite mission, published Monday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, say the largest ice sheet on Earth is now losing 159 billion tons of ice each year.

• Friday, May 16th 2014 - 09:25 UTC

  YPF defends Chevron partnership; court orders investigation into accord with the US oil giant

  

  Argentine state-controlled oil company YPF on Thursday defended the partnership deal it reached with one of the world's largest energy corporations, Chevron Corp., two days after a court ordered a probe into alleged irregularities associated with the pact.