"TOKYO -- Japan's plans to phase out nuclear power and boost reliance on renewable energy are likely to be reversed with the victory of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in parliamentary elections."

"As economic activity and populations continue to expand in coastal urban areas, particularly in Asia, hundreds of trillions of dollars of infrastructure, industrial and office buildings, and homes are increasingly at risk from intensifying storms and rising sea levels."

"The operator of a Japanese nuclear power plant that blew up after a tsunami last year said on Friday its lack of safety and bad habits were behind the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years, its most forthright admission of culpability."

"When a government deadline for new safety management programs at offshore drilling rigs and wells approached in November 2011, oil and gas industry leaders were bracing for tough scrutiny and plenty of penalties. But that scrutiny never materialized."

"Drought continued to expand through many key farming states within the central United States in the past week, as scattered rainfall failed to replenish parched soils, according to a report issued Thursday by state and federal climatology experts."

"Superstorm Sandy killed 80 people on the U.S. East Coast while entire neighbourhoods, including Lower Manhattan, were flooded. Power failures affected 4.6 million homes and there was an estimated $50 billion in damage. While B.C. is not prone to hurricanes, climate change experts say the province will likely see similar violent weather, including more frequent, more intense storms as the planet gets warmer."

"Contractors worked throughout the night to remove and replace an 800-foot swath of Interstate 77 that turned from asphalt to cinder in a massive natural gas line explosion that also flattened four homes and damaged five more but caused no deaths."

"Fears that the world will end on 21 December are rife, despite there being no evidence. So, why are we so fixated with end of the world theories?"

"LOS ANGELES -- A federal board Friday ordered the operator of a shuttered nuclear power plant in California to turn over dozens of pages of documents that were withheld when the company submitted a plan to restart one of its damaged twin reactors."