The report says renewables are now the fastest-growing types of power generation and will comprise almost 25% of global energy by 2018. Only two years ago, renewables made up about 20% of the planet’s power sources. The amount of non-hydro energy generated by wind, solar, bioenergy and geothermal is expected to double, from 4% in 2011 to 8% by 2018.   read more

The controversy began after the developers of a mall in Ariel (population: 18,000), located ten miles beyond the Green Line that has divided Israel and its neighbors between 1949 and 1967, offered McDonald’s a spot in the new retail project. The owner of McDonald’s Israel, which has 180 franchises, said no thanks, citing the company’s policy of avoiding the West Bank.   read more

Now the U.S. is on a tight deadline to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, and bringing home all 11,000 MRAPs from the conflict would not be cost effective, military experts say. Leaving them with the Afghan military also appears out of the question, due to concerns that the Afghans wouldn’t be able to maintain them. So, it’s on to the scrap yard. About 2,000 of the vehicles will be shredded and their metal sold for pennies on the pound on the Afghan scrap market.   read more

The British targeted the finance minister and more than a dozen delegates from Turkey in an attempt to assess their position on a deal “to coordinate the global economic recovery to avoid the recession becoming a depression,” according to one of the documents. The latest disclosure surfaced just as representatives of the Group of 8 industrialized nations prepared to meet in Northern Ireland. Among those attending the meeting are some leaders who were spied on in 2009.   read more

In 2003, as President George W. Bush prepared to invade Iraq, his administration used the NSA’s capabilities to spy on diplomats from countries undecided about voting to support the United Nations’ authorization for the American-led attack against Saddam Hussein’s regime. The NSA intercepted the home and office telephone and email communications of the U.N. delegates   read more

The nations with the most technically recoverable shale gas resources are said to be China, Argentina, Algeria, the United States, Canada and Mexico. The nations with the most technically recoverable shale oil resources are Russia, the United States, China, Argentina and Libya.   read more

In Germany, the issue of government snooping is especially sensitive, given the decades of domestic spying by the East German Stasi during the Cold War. Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague informed Parliament that British intelligence services have not colluded with the U.S. to circumvent the country’s laws. Some observers suspect that the leaders of foreign allies have known all along what the U.S. government was up to and are just posturing publically for domestic consumption.   read more

The memo reportedly addressed eight troubling episodes involving officials, including the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, suspected of routinely patronizing underage prostitutes in a public park. The incident was investigated in 2011 and Gutman was recalled to Washington, D.C. He was instructed to meet with Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy, but was then allowed to return to his post.   read more

In July 2009 Obama told CNN that “if it appears that our conduct in some way supported violations of the laws of war, I think that we have to know about that.” When asked recently by ProPublica about the state of the investigation, the White House said it was still “looking into” the ordeal. Susannah Sirkin, director of international policy at Physicians for Human Rights, told ProPublica that the Obama administration’s effort was “half-hearted and cynical.”   read more

Twenty years after the Cold War, the U.S., Russia, Britain, France, and China are holding onto their nuclear arsenals and even expanding them despite their commitments to non-proliferation. In 2013, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said those nations plan to or are currently deploying new nuclear weapons and delivery systems.   read more

After dismissing his legal defender, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army officer accused of killing 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, four years ago, said he did so in order to protect Taliban leaders from the American military. He claimed “defense of others” to explain the killings.   read more

After the George W. Bush administration launched the 2003 invasion of Iraq, officials promised that with access to its oil the war would pay for itself. However, almost half of Iraq's oil is now bought by Chinese companies, which intend to purchase even more in the near future, including one of Iraq’s largest oil fields, which is owned by Exxon Mobil.   read more

Zakaria Kandahari, identified as the chief interpreter for an American Army Special Forces A Team stationed in Wardak Province, is wanted in connection with the deaths of 17 Afghans. Afghan officials want to arrest Kandahari on murder, torture and abuse of prisoner charges, and they have accused the American military of shielding him from capture.   read more

“War without reflection is mechanical slaughter,” Heyns said, claiming today’s casualties from drone warfare will pale in comparison if robots are let loose in future conflicts. For instance, will robots be able to recognize soldiers surrendering and not kill them, Heyns wondered. He also theorized that they may make it easier for nations to engage in war, and could be used by repressive governments to suppress domestic rebellion.   read more

With a price tag of $4.7 billion, the deal is the largest ever takeover of an American company by a Chinese one. Shuanghui will take the company private. However, there is another American component in the deal because one of the investors in Shuanghui is Goldman Sachs, which bought out the Chinese government’s share of the company in 2006. Goldman now owns 5% of Shuanghui. Morgan Stanley is also said to be involved in the current deal.   read more

The short answer—that overseas utilities are buying the wood to burn in their power plants as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—naturally raises the question of whether that is a good idea or not. As environmentalists try to block the growth of this transatlantic trade in American wood-fuel, others argue that wood-burning, like expanded use of natural gas, can be a temporary alternative to burning oil or coal until new technology allows a shift to zero or near-zero carbon emissions.   read more