For anyone interested in nuclear politics, Asia has been the focus from the beginning: since the time of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Everyone sat up and took notice of the power of the atom. Since then, there has been a mad scramble to harness it. And, almost always, countries have claimed that their nuclear programme was mainly for peaceful purposes.

The reason for the nuclear renaissance in Europe was the heavy dependence on Russian gas. But for Asia, power was not really the reason for going nuclear.

The FAO session on Tea has agreed on what discussion on climate change can be taken up for discussions here. The 20th session of the FAO has drawn up scope and the terms of reference of the climate change working group at its meeting on Sunday.

“This will be put forward to the Inter-Governmental Group on Tuesday,” said Kaison Chang, secretary, FAO-IGG, when asked about the progress of negotiations on climate change. Discussions on climate change will now start formally with all the producing and exporting countries, and consumers. Climate change formally made its way into the summit agenda at Mombasa.

The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and NTPC on Tuesday signed a joint venture and shareholder agreement here to set up a 500-MW (2 x 250 MW) coal-based power plant at Sampur in East Sri Lanka at an investment of $700 million. This will be NTPC's first overseas venture.