
A Spanair MD-82 jetliner broke up and caught fire after skidding off the runway at Madrid's Barajas International airport, killing 153 people in Spain's worst aviation accident in 25 years.

Chile's Health Ministry quarantined four more pork factories last Thursday after Canadian health officials confirmed high levels of the carcinogenic chemical dioxin in their pork meat products.

As of 2011 all cigarettes sold in the European Union will have to be self-extinguishing in a bid to combat thousands of fire-related deaths and injuries. EC officials said a meeting of experts from all 27 EU member states was expected to endorse proposals by Consumer Protection Commissioner Meglena Kuneva.
Brazil's environment minister Carlos Minc announced he had granted a license for an Amazon hydroelectric dam but attached stringent conditions to protect Indian reservations and nature preserves. However environmental groups anticipated a long legal battle.

The English Premier League team Arsenal took a massive step towards qualifying for the group stages of the lucrative European Champions League after beating the Dutch club Twente Enschede 2-0 in the 1st leg game in Holland.

Scientists are set to explore the world's deepest undersea volcanoes, which lie 6km down in the Caribbean. Delving into uncharted waters to hunt for volcanic vents will be Autosub6000, Britain's new autonomously controlled, robot submarine.

A Chilean court this week upheld a decision fining Shell Oil Company US$676,000 for contaminating beaches three years ago in the northern Chilean city of Antofagasta.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has provided urgently needed medical supplies to poor farmers in the Peruvian highlands whose livestock are suffering as a result of a severe unseasonable cold spell, known locally as El friaje.

A chunk of ice spreading across 18 square kilometers has broken off a Canadian ice shelf in the Arctic, scientists say. The sheet broke away last week from the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf off the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada's far north.

Bolivia, the world's No. 3 cocaine producer, will fund an anti-narcotics unit for the first time next year as it seeks to reduce foreign involvement in fighting trafficking, an official said yesterday.