EARTH

Worries that China is throwing up obstacles to foreign business are misplaced, Commerce Minister Chen Deming said in an article published on Monday.

The former Soviet Central Asian republics are at a precarious crossroad today between accomplishing monumental progress, like Kazakhstan, and flirting with disaster and the prospects of civil war, like Kyrgyzstan.

Upgrades to a wastewater treatment plant in Colorado helped filter out gender-bending chemicals that were affecting fish, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

European Union countries will coordinate budget plans starting next year, rather than making their own national choices, Italy's Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti said on Sunday.

Hungary's government said on Saturday it aimed to meet this year's budget deficit target, seeking to draw a line under exaggerated talk of a possible Greek-style debt crisis that unnerved global markets a day earlier.

According to the research led by the Aged Care Team at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital, Chinese-speaking Australians may smoke and drink less than Australians of English-speaking backgrounds, but they are more likely to suffer from diabetes.

According to an Australian survey, more than 80 per cent of respondents said their high level of debt was a significant cause of stress.

Rare earths are indeed getting rare. I got wind of it only a few months back when doing a story on Canada Resource Group and their Blue River Project in British Columbia. It's President David Hodge in an interview said that tantalum that is used in cellphone, laptops, digital camerals and several modern industries is in short supply with Western supply totally eliminated.

According to latest findings released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), those living in country and remote areas are more likely to die or need hospital care for cardiovascular disease (CVD).

The world has become far too hot for the aptly named Exit Glacier in Alaska.

One of the most powerful earthquakes in decades battered Chile on Saturday, killing at least 147 people, knocking down buildings and triggering a tsunami that rolled menacingly across the Pacific.

U.S. President Barack Obama meets Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Thursday, a move that has been denounced by China.

Okay, so strictly speaking, Japan's wartime aim was control of the Pacific and not world domination. However, if by some freak accident they had ended up inheriting the human race, things may not have been that bad.

Greek customs officials began a three-day strike on Tuesday to protest against cuts in their income, in a further sign of discontent among public workers with an EU-backed deficit-cutting plan.

A judge in Haiti is likely to make a decision on Thursday on whether to release the group of U.S. missionaries arrested in connection with allegedly attempting to kidnap Haitian children.

A U.S.-registered helicopter which was participating in Haitian aid efforts crashed in the Dominican Republic on Thursday night, killing two Americans on board, Haitian aviation authorities said on Friday.

Ten U.S. missionaries detained in Haiti were charged on Thursday with child kidnapping and criminal association for trying to take children illegally out of the earthquake-hit country.

Ten missionaries from the U.S. who tried to take 33 children out of Haiti following the catastrophic earthquake, were charged Thursday with kidnapping children and criminal association.

Suppliers that fail to manage their greenhouse gas emissions could lose clients, said a report published on Monday.

The earthquake that shattered Haiti has unleashed fears that child-eating spirits, mythological figures entrenched in Haitian culture, are prowling homeless camps in search of young prey.

Russia's navy will strengthen its Baltic fleet in response to U.S. plans to deploy Patriot missiles in Poland, Russia's state RIA news agency reported on Thursday, citing an unnamed senior navy official.