An explosion in a northeastern coal mine left 18 workers dead and 7 missing, the State Administration of Work Safety said Tuesday.

The blast occurred Monday at the Baijiagou Mine in Faku County, Liaoning Province, it said, and 56 miners escaped without injury.

Officials said last month that safety had improved, though China's mines remained the world's most dangerous. The death toll for each million tons of coal produced fell to 1.05 people in the first half of2008, compared to 1.485 for all of 2007 and 3.08 for 2005, officials said.

We were cheered to learn that the U.S. Navy and conservation groups have reached a court-approved settlement that allows the military ample opportunity to test its low-frequency sonar systems while protecting the habitats of marine life. So it is especially disturbing that the Bush administration is still trying to block the courts' ability to mediate future agreements between the military and environmentalists.

QUITO: President Rafael Correa of Ecuador says he plans to meet with officials and lawyers from Chevron on behalf of 30,000 jungle residents who are suing the U.S. oil giant for up to $16 billion over environmental damage.
Peasants and Indians are suing Chevron in an Ecuadorean court over charges its Texaco unit polluted the jungle and damaged their health by dumping 68 billion liters, or 18 billion gallons, of oil-laden water from 1972 to 1992.

FLAMANVILLE, France: It looks like an ordinary building site, but for the two massive, rounded concrete shells looming above the ocean, like dusty mushrooms.

Here on the Normandy coast, France is building its newest nuclear reactor, alongside two older ones. It is the first reactor to be built in the country in 10 years and will cost $5.1 billion. And President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced that France will build yet another.

HANOI: Torrential rains and overflowing rivers have brought some of the worst flooding in decades to Vietnam and its neighbors, flooding cities and farmlands in five nations.

At least 130 people were killed, dozens were missing and thousands were driven from their homes in northern Vietnam and hundreds of tourists were evacuated near the hill tribe resort area of Sapa.

Flooding has also hit parts of Thailand, Cambodia and Laos as well as Myanmar, where waters rose in the Irrawaddy Delta, which is still recovering from a cyclone that left 38,000 people dead or missing in May.

BEIJING: Days before the opening ceremony, the Beijing Olympics seemed beset with problems, none potentially more worrisome than air quality. Pollution levels remained high, despite government edicts that had removed two million vehicles from the city's streets and had closed down factories.

But as of Sunday, halfway through the Olympics, the Games were operating smoothly and pollution levels have remained low, with previous days seeing either bright sunshine or clouds with sporadic showers.

TRAVERSE CITY, Michigan: General Motors said Thursday that it had "essentially finished" designing its first plug-in hybrid car, the Chevrolet Volt, and would have production-ready prototypes within 10 days.

The automaker still has considerable work to do on the car's lithium-ion battery and other technology in the two years before the Volt is scheduled to go on sale, but completing the design is a milestone for what is arguably the most crucial car in decades for GM.

Two solar power plants to be built in California together will put out more than 12 times as much electricity as the largest such plant today, a fresh indication that solar energy is starting to achieve significant scale.

The plants will cover 12.5 square miles, or 32 square kilometers, of central California with solar panels, and in the middle of a sunny day will generate about 800 megawatts of power, roughly equal to the size of a large coal-burning power plant or a small nuclear plant. A megawatt is enough power to run a large Wal-Mart store.

As the world heats up, the sea levels are rising. Many experts warn that dramatic sea-level rise is global warming's biggest danger. Two main factors are behind this: thermal expansion of the ocean and melting Ice.

First, as the ocean gets wanner from global warming, its volume expands. This is basic science: water expands as it heats up. Thermal expansion has raised the oceans about 10 to 20 centimeters (4 to 8 inches), according to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Is global warming causing more extreme weather? Many people seem to think that the last decade's heat waves, hurricanes and droughts did not happen just by chance, but were linked to the phenomenon of global warming.

In 2003, for instance, a ferocious heat wave settled unexpectedly across Europe and killed 35,000 people. Nobody saw it coming.