Disasters

"LONDON -- A gas cloud has encircled Total's Elgin Franklin platform in the North Sea after failed attempts to shut a problematic production well caused a leak, an RMT union official said, based on eyewitness accounts from workers on nearby rigs."

"There is a particularly sensitive accusation reverberating through online discussion boards and social media in Japan: that Emperor Akihito's speech on the one year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami was censored on TV for his comments about the nuclear disaster at Fukushima."

"NEW ORLEANS -- After months of laboratory work, scientists say they can definitively finger oil from BP's blown-out well as the culprit for the slow death of a once brightly colored deep-sea coral community in the Gulf of Mexico that is now brown and dull."

"Extreme weather events over the past decade have increased and were 'very likely' caused by manmade global warming, a study in the journal Nature Climate Change said on Sunday."

"World leaders may pledge tighter controls over nuclear materials to keep them out of the hands of terrorists, according to the draft of a communique to be released at the end of their two-day meeting in Seoul."

"Securing vulnerable nuclear material before the next Nuclear Security Summit in 2014 is the top priority, according to a copy of the six-page working document obtained by Bloomberg News. The draft, completed at a March 23 meeting of nuclear advisers attending the meetings in the South Korean capital, will be subject to debate at the gathering that ends tomorrow.

"Fresh water supplies are unlikely to keep up with global demand by 2040, increasing political instability, hobbling economic growth and endangering world food markets, according to a U.S. intelligence assessment released on Thursday."

"The state spends a fraction of what countries like Mexico and Japan spend on their systems. One reason for the lack of interest, experts say, is that California has not experienced a catastrophic quake in more than a century."

"ROBERT LEE, Texas -- All the cars in this town are dirty. Gripped by drought, the lake that has provided the town's only source of water has just about dried up -- as of last month, it was less than 1 percent full. And as a result, residents are prohibited from using water to wash cars, water trees and lawns and irrigate plants."

"A severe drought in Mexico that has cost farmers more than a billion dollars in crop losses alone and set back the national cattle herd for years, is just a foretaste of the drier future facing Latin America's second largest economy."