AP - The Group of Eight leading industrial nations on Tuesday endorsed halving world emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050, edging forward in the battle against global warming but stopping short of tough, nearer-term targets.

AFP - Cairn India, a unit of British exploration firm Cairn Energy Plc, plans to invest 100 million dollars to explore oil and natural gas deposits off Sri Lanka's coast, officials said Monday.

Reuters - The first hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic storm season formed on Monday, hundreds of miles (kilometers) away from the United States and the Caribbean islands, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

AP - Forecasters say Tropical Storm Bertha likely will become the Atlantic season's first hurricane on Monday.

AFP - A giant panda evacuated after China's devastating earthquake in May gave birth to twins on Sunday, state media reported.

Reuters - South Korea said on Sunday it was implementing a multi-stage contingency plan aimed at reducing energy consumption before the skyrocketing oil prices push Asia's fourth-largest economy into a full-fledged crisis.

AFP - At least 16 people were killed and more than 20,000 marooned as heavy rains over the past week triggered landslides and floods in southeast Bangladesh, an official said Monday.

AP - The knock on Brian Hart's door came at 6 a.m. An Army colonel, a priest and a police officer had come to tell Hart and his wife that their 20-year-old son had been killed when his military vehicle was ambushed in Iraq.