International

"BP paid out $1.1 million worth of shares on Feb. 15 to former chief executive Tony Hayward under a three-year incentive plan, even though Hayward resigned in the wake of the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010.

Hayward also earned $194,973 in fees in 2011 as a director of BP’s TNK-BP joint venture in Russia, according to the company’s annual report released Tuesday. The company’s stock price is down more than 20 percent since the spill.

"The largest solar storm in five years was due to arrive on Earth early Thursday, promising to shake the globe’s magnetic field while expanding the Northern Lights."

"As many as 12 of Britain's 19 civil nuclear sites are at risk of flooding and coastal erosion because of climate change, according to an unpublished government analysis obtained by the Guardian."

"FUKUSHIMA, Japan -- Yoshiko Ota keeps her windows shut. She never hangs her laundry outdoors. Fearful of birth defects, she warns her daughters: Never have children."

As the anniversary of the 2011 Japanese nuclear power plant disaster nears, the question is asked: would a disaster at Indian Point nuclear power station -- 38 miles north of New York City -- be any less likely? Any less catastrophic? Are plans for preventing or responding to a catastrophe any less realistic?

"Scientists and ecotourists visiting the continent are bringing in thousands of seeds, scientists say, that have a better chance of taking root as temperatures warm. Pristine ecosystems are at risk."

"President Barack Obama said on Tuesday he is concerned about oil output around the world as gasoline prices soar and is looking to ease bottlenecks at U.S. refineries to help ease prices at home."

"More than two billion people have gained access to better drinking water sources, such as piped supplies and protected wells, between 1990 and 2010, UN officials said on Tuesday. The figure means the world has met the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goal to halve the proportion of people with no safe drinking water well ahead of a 2015 deadline, UNICEF and the World Health Organization said."

Ice -- on both sea and land, near the poles and at high altitudes -- is connected in a number of ways with changing climate, as both a symptom and a cause. Several news stories about ice melt have come out recently. Charlie Petit at MIT's Knight Science Journalism Tracker has done a bang-up job of summarizing them. So we will save time and effort by linking directly to his work, which will richly reward the climate-curious.

Coltan ore is valuable as a source of niobium and tantalum, metals key to many kinds of electronics. Coltan mining has helped finance war in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo. Now new illegal coltan mining activity has sprung up in the remote Amazon jungles on the border between Venezuela and Columbia. It is controlled largely by armed militias and drug smugglers.