Biofuel targets abandoned
ENERGY Minister Eamon Ryan has said the Government has abandoned targets to have biofuels make up almost 6pc of transport fuel by 2010.
Mr Ryan's predecessor Noel Dempsey set the ambitious targets of making biofuels 5.75pc of total transport fuel just 15 months ago.
However, the plans have been dropped after growing doubts about the benefits of biofuels, which have been blamed for steep rises in global food prices as well as for exacerbating climate change rather than combating it.
China bends one-child rule
Parents whose children died or were disabled in China's devastating earthquake will be allowed to have more children after lawmakers in the hardest-hit province waived strict family-planning controls.
The Sichuan provincial legislature passed exemptions to relax family-planning laws that are commonly referred to as the one-child policy.
Under the exemptions, families whose only child died or was disabled or whose two children were both disabled may now have another child, as may families in which one parent was disabled.
Torrential rains take seven lives
Torrential rains that lashed South Korea this week have led to the deaths of seven people and left six others missing.
Six people were also injured, with one in a critical condition, in landslides and flash floods triggered by heavy rain that started battering the country on Wednesday.
The rainfall also damaged or flooded about 620 houses across South Korea, prompting 1,240 people to seek refuge elsewhere.
Trans fats get 'terminated'
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation on Friday making California the first US state to prohibit restaurants from preparing food with trans fats, which clog arteries and raise the risk of heart disease.
The bill will be phased in starting in 2010 across California, a trend-setting state where diet-conscious legislation has been rapidly gaining momentum in recent years.
