International

• Monday, February 4th 2008 - 20:00 UTC

  Bahamas accedes to two UN marine pollution treaties

  

  The Bahamas, home to the world's third-largest registered fleet of ships, has acceded to two key International Maritime Organization (IMO) conventions that aim to discourage environmental pollution on the high seas, the United Nations agency announced today.

• Monday, February 4th 2008 - 20:00 UTC

  RFA Lyme Bay has sailed on a mission to Tristan da Cunha

  

  The MoD reported that RFA Lyme Bay was preparing to sail to Tristan da Cunha, where urgent repairs to the main harbour are required.

• Monday, February 4th 2008 - 20:00 UTC

  UN: More effective strategies to prevent global conflicts.

  

  Despite a wide range of tools available to the United Nations in the areas of preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peace building, a new United Nations calls for measures to boost the world body's capacity to prevent conflicts.

• Monday, February 4th 2008 - 20:00 UTC

  World Said to Be on Brink of Cancer Epidemic

  

  International health agencies say the world is on the brink of a cancer epidemic. The World Health Organization reports 7.6 million people died of the disease in 2005. It predicts the number of cancer deaths and new cases of the disease will rise astronomically in the coming years, unless action is taken now to reverse smoking trends and provide treatment to patients in developing countries.

• Monday, February 4th 2008 - 20:00 UTC

  Bernanke Makes Bulls From Dollar Bears Seeing Growth

  

  Ben S. Bernanke's decision to lower interest rates 1.25 percentage points last month will end the dollar's two-year slide, according to the world's biggest currency traders.

• Sunday, February 3rd 2008 - 20:00 UTC

  Norway determined to have its share of Antarctic fisheries

  

  It had always been technically difficult to harvest the abundant valuable krill known to populate the ocean waters around Antarctica and preserve their quality in the process. In recently breaking in a new trawling technology, however, Norwegian company Aker Biomarine ASA has made the feat suddenly possible.

• Saturday, February 2nd 2008 - 20:00 UTC

  Bali conference: “major setback” for fight against corruption

  Transparency International (TI) and a broad civil society anti-corruption coalition have labelled as a major setback the failure of the Bali international corruption conference to agree on how to independently assess country progress in implementing the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC).

• Saturday, February 2nd 2008 - 20:00 UTC

  Maradona's “hand of God” apology “too little, too late”

  England's goalkeeper Peter Shilton has branded Diego Maradona's apology for his sly “Hand of God” goal in the 1986 World Cup as “too little, too late”.

• Saturday, February 2nd 2008 - 20:00 UTC

  At least ten days to repair disrupted global net services

  A submarine cable in the Middle East has been snapped, adding to global net problems caused by breaks in two lines under the Mediterranean on Wednesday, reports the BBC.

• Friday, February 1st 2008 - 20:00 UTC

  Alcoa and China up stakes in mining premier league

  China has teamed up with US aluminum giant Alcoa to buy a 12% stake in Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto for 14 billion US dollars. The state-owned Aluminum Corp of China (Chinalco) said the purchase was the largest Chinese investment overseas.