Cryosat, a sattelite of the European Space Agency (esa), plumetted north of Greenland close to the region of the Lincoln Sea near North Pole, with no consequences to populated areas. The us $168

Lithuania is up in arms against a recent gas pipeline agreement between Germany and Russia. The pipeline under the Baltic Sea would disturb stockpiles of Hitler's chemical weapons lying on the bed of

Russia is currently battling a strain of bird flu that can infect humans. On August 2, 2005, authorities of Novosibirsk in Siberia said they had decided to slaughter 65,000 birds at 13 locations; the

bird flu in russia: Russia's emergencies ministry declared on July 21, 2005, that the country's first case of bird flu, the strains of which can infect humans and be fatal, had been detected in a

Conservationists have disapproved as inadequate a recent move by oil major Shell to protect the western grey whales along the eastern shore of Russia's Sakhalin Island. Shell announced on March 30,

• Ukraine and Turkmenistan are going to propose the establishment of a consortium with Russia and Kazakhstan for transporting gas to Europe.

Sidelining widespread complaints, Russia's natural resources minister Yurii Trutnev has supported his government's move to ban the access of foreign companies to the country's mineral resources.

water distress: The Andhra Pradesh government has embarked upon a new programme to meet the water requirements of its parched villages. It is forcibly taking over private agricultural borewells to