USA - Soaring food prices and global grain shortages are bringing new pressures on governments, food companies and consumers to relax their longstanding resistance to genetically engineered crops.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, USA - Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing.
SYRIA - Former US President Jimmy Carter has said that Hamas is prepared to accept the right of Israel to "live as a neighbour next door in peace".
BEIJING - China has launched an "education" campaign in Tibet it says is designed to undermine support for the Dalai Lama and any separatist sentiment.
SCOTLAND - The shutdown of the Grangemouth oil refinery has started with the closure of a crude oil unit ahead of planned strike action over pensions.
LONDON - The Bank of England has announced details of a plan to help prevent the credit crisis causing more damage to the UK banking system and economy.
U.S.A - Foreclosure filings jumped 57 percent and bank repossessions more than doubled in March from a year earlier as adjustable mortgages increased and more owners lost their homes to lenders.
UNITED KINGDOM - Retail giant Tesco has rung up annual profits of £2.85 billion, despite "challenging" trading conditions and increased competition from rivals.
CHINA - China defended the use of security guards on the Olympic torch relay, described as "thugs" by Lord Coe, chairman of the London 2012 organising committee, after Australia and Japan said they would not be welcome when the flame passed through their countries this month.
LONDON - Millions of people face eviction from their land to satisfy demand unleashed by new rules requiring petrol and diesel from today to include a proportion of plant-based "bio-fuels" according to protesters.
USA - We drive, they starve. The mass diversion of the North American grain harvest into ethanol plants for fuel is reaching its political and moral limits.
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI - The United Nations' World Food Program has seen a startling increase in the cost of providing global food aid even since it made an emergency appeal for an extra $500 million in February, the organization's executive director said on Tuesday.
BOGOTA - Thousands of Colombians were evacuated around the Nevado del Huila volcano in the southwest part of the country on Tuesday after an eruption of ash and gas that caused no damage, but put authorities on high alert.
VATICAN - Pope Benedict XVI has said he is "deeply ashamed" of sexual abuse by clergy in the US Catholic Church. The Pope, speaking on his way to the US, vowed to work to prevent paedophiles from becoming priests.
BRUSSELS - In an interview with Warsaw Business Journal, Philip Cayla, boss of Euronews, the international media organisation funded by the EU, speaks at length about why it is good that the EU's powers are being increased by the Lisbon Treaty.