New proposals on rules for operating the Kyoto Protocol create a good opportunity for finally agreeing the climate treaty at next month's global climate summit, according to WWF, the conservation organization.

If governments do not act quickly to discourage the building of cities for cars, the international effort to control global warming will become much more difficult, reports a new study by the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization. Sprawling urban areas are helping to make road transportation the fastest growing source of the carbon emissions warming the earth's atmosphere.

The newly-created International Consortium for Cooperation on the Nile (ICCON) held its first meeting on 26 through 28 June in Geneva, bringing together the international donor community and NGOs in support of the Nile Basin Initiative, a cooperative programme to address poverty, environmental degradation and instability.

Are people in low-income areas aware of the risks of drinking dirty water? What can be done to improve the quality of drinking water for poorer people? Researchers from Population Services International and the Zambian Society for Family Health report on the results of a survey in low-income neighbourhoods in Lusaka, Zambia.

Environmentalists in Kenya have threatened court action to stop the filming of the American television show "Survivor Series III" that formally begins on July 1 and runs to September 30. They accuse the filmmakers of damaging the fragile ecosystem of Shaba National Reserve in the semi-arid eastern province of Kenya.