Africa must foster a political and economic climate that encourages the foreign investment its economies badly need for growth, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said on Sunday. Chretien is in Africa to discuss the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), which will be prominent on the agenda of the next Group of Eight leading nations (G8) summit in Canada in June.

With the State Department's announcement Tuesday that the U.S. government will sponsor an Indian scientist as the new chair of an international climate change group, the Bush administration took another swipe at efforts to understand and combat global warming. Dr. Rajendra Pachauri would replace Dr. Robert Watson, a widely respected American scientist who has warned of the human causes of climate change for almost six years.

Scientists are launching a major study of "living fossils" in deep waters off South Africa with the help of a small submersible craft that can probe to depths of 1,300 feet. It is hoped that the minisub, which can fit only two people, will shed light on the elusive coelacanth, a curious looking fish that has been swimming the seas for an astonishing 400 million years.

As governments meet in New York to prepare the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, Friends of the Earth International, Greenpeace International, Northern Alliance for Sustainability(ANPED), Sierra Club and Third World Network have issued a statement calling upon the Johannesburg Summit to ensure that Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) are not subordinated to or undermined by the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

In the last 50 years, most of humanity has been transformed into urban dwellers, more at home in the city than any other environment. But this rapid rush towards urbanization has brought with it a host of problems, including air pollution, the consequences of which we are just beginning to recognize.