It’s true that train travel is one of the lowest impact ways to get from point to point short of walking, jogging or bicycling. In the early part of the 20th century, with car and air travel both in their infancies, taking the train was really the only practical way for Americans to get from city to city.

A dramatic plunge in international donor funding for family planning is threatening to undermine other humanitarian goals such as fighting poverty and hunger, as well as efforts to counter global warming.

Stronger China-US cooperation on clean energy will be the goal of two US officials who will be visiting China this week. US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Energy Secretary Steven Chu will be in China from Tuesday to Friday.

No strains of A/H1N1 have been found resistant to Tamiflu in Viet Nam, director of the National Institute of Infectious and Tropical Diseases Nguyen Van Kinh said yesterday.

In the Coal-creek river valley in Southern West Virginia actress Daryl Hannah and NASA climatologist James Hansen were arrested protesting continuation of mountain top – "surface" – mining, warning of dire environmental consequences and unfunded costs exceeding the value of coal mined.

No doubt human population growth is a major contributor to global warming, given that humans use fossil fuels to power their increasingly mechanized lifestyles. More people means more demand for oil, gas, coal and other fuels mined or drilled from below the Earth’s surface.

There is a very common view that the current financial crisis of the capitalist world, and its fall-out in the form of the most severe slump since the Great Depression of the 1930s, are a consequence of “greed” on the part of the financial sector.

Now they are out to nickel and dime us to death. Here in my home town the traffic and parking department has been prevailed upon to “step up” its enforcement activity – and maneuvering to have parking meters work far into the night – in order help cover some of the city’s budget deficit.

The US-Australian Talisman Saber 09 (TS09) military exercise started as The Guardian went to press. TS09 which began on July 6 at the Shoalwater Bay Training Area near Rockhampton will conclude on July 26. Military of both countries will be met by peace campaigners calling for the war games to be canceled.

Four former administrative vice foreign ministers in early June acknowledged the existence of a secret Japan-US agreement allowing US nuclear weapons to be brought into Japan.

Oscar Arias, the president of Costa Rica and the person who will serve as mediator of the crisis in Honduras, writes in an OpEd piece July 10th in the Miami Herald, “This coup demonstrates, once more, that the combination of powerful militaries and fragile democracies creates a terrible risk.”

While the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimated last week that as many as 1 million Americans may have contracted the H1N1 virus, it doesn't seem to be any more dangerous than the seasonal flu, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters on a teleconference call, July 10.

In a strongly worded letter to members of Congress, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) founder Morris Dees expressed serious concerns about growing signs that members of neo-Nazi groups are infiltrating the US military.

Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, today said that the goals agreed to by the members of the Group of the eight most industrialized nations of the world (G8) are insufficient to counter climate change.

Are you a Discovery channel junky? If so, a new radio show hosted by renowned astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson will hit the spot. Tyson has teamed up with Comedy Central's Lynn Koplitz for a new science-based radio talk show called Star Talk.

United for Peace and Justice grew out of the struggle to prevent the war in Iraq and it was the coming together of the traditional peace and disarmament groups nationally and a range of local peace and justice centers and coalitions and new grass roots groups that emerged in this struggle to prevent the war.

After a disappointing unemployment report earlier this month that saw the loss of 467,000 jobs in the month of June and a rise in the unemployment rate to 9.5 percent, predictions of an economic turnaround soon have fallen flat. Despite positive signs in housing and manufacturing activity, poor jobs number remain the "lagging economic indicator."

Charging the US Chamber of Commerce with supporting only the "interests of Fortune 500 companies," small business owners this week sharply criticized the business the group for refusing to endorse the Fairness and Transparency in Contracting Act.

Weakening health reform in exchange for bipartisanship is unacceptable, Senate Majority Harry Reid, D-Nev., warned Senate Finance Chair Max Baucus, D-Mont., July 7th, according to a report in Washington-based Roll Call.

Many observers think that “prosperity is around the corner” and that this recession, like others since World War II, will end as soon as the stock market, as a leading indicator, recovers and people start spending again. This is a myopic view of the current economic big picture.