Europe

"The Arctic could become a site of future turmoil, and not just because of the emerging geopolitical tensions and militarization in the region. Beyond concerns of a frozen conflict in the icy north, there is the additional fear that the Barents and Kara Seas could become the location of a slow-motion nuclear disaster. Until 1991 the Soviet Union used the seas as a junkyard where it would dispose of its nuclear waste."

"LONDON — Cleaning up an oil field in a forbidding environment like the North Sea may be almost as formidable a task as developing one, and in the coming years, those waters are likely to serve as a laboratory for what happens when the useful lives of oil fields expire."

"LONDON -- A committee of British lawmakers demanded a national moratorium on fracking due to environmental concerns on Monday, ahead of a crucial vote intended to boost the shale gas industry."

"New legislation to allow member states of the European Union to restrict or ban the cultivation of crops containing genetically modified organisms on their own territory, even if this is allowed at the EU level, was passed by the European Parliament on Tuesday."

"Up to 70,000 homes have been left without power in Scotland and trains canceled after high winds battered the northern parts of Britain on Friday."

"Bacteria that is destroying ancient olive groves in the Apulia region of southern Italy is very likely to spread to other areas of Europe, says report."

"Farmers in western Poland are warning of civil unrest if a vast coalmine and power plant are given the go-ahead, with thousands of people at risk of being forcibly relocated."

"President Vladimir V. Putin said Monday that he would scrap Russia’s South Stream gas pipeline, a grandiose project that was once intended to establish the country’s dominance in southeastern Europe but instead fell victim to Russia’s increasingly toxic relationship with the West."