"Department of Agriculture researchers are working with rare plant pathogens that have the power to wipe out food crops that feed billions of people, or if harnessed and applied precisely, could control noxious weeds that have infested millions of acres of land."

Despite misleading and poorly sourced reports, it now appears that a successful and damaging cyberattack on a Springfield, Ill., water utility may have used a variant of the Stutznet worm. Reports have raised the question of whether the U.S. government, along with Israel, was involved in developing it.

"Up to three million people in Afghanistan are facing hunger, malnutrition and disease after a severe drought wiped out their crops and extreme winter weather risks cutting off their access to vital food aid, a group of aid agencies warned Friday."

"United Nations weapons inspectors have amassed a trove of new evidence that they say makes a 'credible' case that 'Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device,' and that the project may still be under way."

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says that four members of a fringe militia used a book written by Fox News 'expert' Mike Vanderboegh as a basis for a plot to commit domestic terrorism. Federal law enforcement authorities on Tuesday arrested four Georgia senior citizens for allegedly plotting to kill government officials and spread terror with guns, explosives and the toxin ricin."

"Dozens of chemical companies and other industrial firms worldwide were hit this summer by highly focused cyberattacks controlled by Chinese hackers, according to a new report."

Ten years after the anthrax attacks that followed 9/11, the nation has spent some $60 billion trying to put together a biodefense program. One reason Americans do not know the scale of the government's failure is the extreme secrecy with which the programs are conducted. Profits, politics, and the manipulation of public fears may be making the nation's vulnerability to the worst public health threats even  worse.

"ISLAMABAD -- Environmentalists are blaming climate change for the unprecedented massive monsoon rains in Pakistan, which so far this year have affected eight million people, claiming 350 lives and damaging 1.3 million homes."

"A sudden collapse of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could mean a breakdown in controls over the country’s weapons, U.S. officials and weapons experts said in interviews. But while Libya’s chemical arsenal consists of unwieldy canisters filled mostly with mustard gas, the World War I-era blistering agent, Syria possesses some of the deadliest chemicals ever to be weaponized, dispersed in thousands of artillery shells and warheads that are easy to transport."

"Top military brass, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the UN Secretary General have all warned that climate change will create conflicts in the future. But environmental shifts are already causing wars, argues a team of experts in a new paper in Nature published this month."

"The famine in the Horn of Africa is manmade - the result of artificially high prices for food and civil conflict, the World Bank's lead economist for Kenya Wolfgang Fengler told Reuters Tuesday."

"The Navy has obtained authority to blast and sink as many as two real ships a year in the Gulf of Alaska over the next five years to give pilots and gunners authentic targets for their sights."

"For aid donors and humanitarian agencies, it is a Faustian bargain: reach and save tens of thousands of people on the verge of starving to death. The price: come to an 'understanding' with one of the most active affiliates of al Qaeda, and perhaps help it retain control of large swathes of Somalia."

"Somalia's Al Qaeda-linked rebels, who banned foreign aid groups in regions under their control two years ago, have appealed for help for thousands of people devastated by a severe drought."

"A bloody outbreak of fighting that has ended a 17-year ceasefire between Burmese government forces and a tribal militia was partly caused by the expansion of Chinese hydropower along the Irrawaddy river, conservationists claim."