Jean Claude Gandur, a Swiss commodities trader, made a fortune during the 1990s buying oil concessions in Africa that others did not want or could not hold.

Now a billionaire, he is poised to swim against the tide again with a major expansion into ethanol in Sierra Leone, the West African country still recovering from a decade-long civil war that ended in 2002.

One of his companies, Addax Bi

International energy ministers and officials of nuclear agencies pledged support Tuesday for a global push to improve safety tests at nuclear power plants.

The pledge emerged from a meeting in Paris that also highlighted divergent national approaches to the sector following the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan.

The meeting, described as an

Expressing

PARIS: Weakening growth, huge investment needs and a highly contentious policy framework are just a few of the reasons why European Union member states may not get close to their goals for reducing carbon emissions in the next decade or so.