Discussions continued Friday in Moscow on Russia's offer to host a second Middle East peace conference. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was in Russia's capital where he met with several officials, including President Vladimir Putin.

A major international conference on the prevention of torture is being held in Cape Town from 3 to 4 April 2008. The event will bring together high-profile experts and representatives of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the South African Human Rights Commission, the UN Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture, governments, national institutions and NGOs from across Africa and further afield.

Jonathan Porritt CBE, Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, will speak at Queen’s University Belfast this week as part of the largest planning research conference in the UK and Ireland.

The impact of poverty, culture and environment on minority health is the topic of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s 29th annual Minority Health Conference, which will be held Friday (Feb. 29) at the William and Ida Friday Continuing Education Center.

Leading Muslim groups attending an anti-terrorism conference in northern India have denounced terrorism as "un-Islamic."

The 2008 Oxford and Cambridge Student Conferences are filling up fast as schools and colleges around the country book places for their most able pupils.

The New Zealand government says a disarmament meeting going on in the country will be a crucial step in establishing a meaningful ban on cluster bombs. The weapons have killed tens of thousands of people in conflicts around the world, and activists say they primarily harm civilians. From Sydney, Phil Mercer reports.

Meeting the world's demand for electricity and reducing pollution from coal-fired electric generating plants is a major topic at the annual conference sponsored by Cambridge Energy Research Associates, or CERA in Houston this week. Costs for building new plants are going up dramatically, as VOA's Greg Flakus reports from Houston.

President Vladimir Putin says Russia has common peaceful interests with the United States and Europe, but will be forced to target missiles against neighbors if threatened by NATO expansion. The Russian leader expressed these and other views of Russian foreign and domestic affairs during his annual Kremlin news conference, which lasted four hours and 40 minutes. VOA Moscow Correspondent Peter Fedynsky reports.

Around 1,900 people have gathered in Houston, Texas for the annual conference sponsored by Cambridge Energy Research Associates, or CERA, a Massachusetts-based firm that brings major energy players together every year to examine the world's energy picture. This year's focus includes some issues that are not strictly energy related such as climate change and the US housing crisis. VOA's Greg Flakus has more from Houston.

King’s hosted the London International Model United Nations (LIMUN) for the first time in the conference's nine year history. The conference is the largest of its kind in Europe and was organised by students. It attracted more than 800 students from 80 universities spanning 25 countries.

The Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE) and the Centre for Financial and Economic Studies (CEFS) at the University of Glasgow are organising conferences on ‘Economic and Financial Linkages’. The conferences will take place at the Kelvin Conference Centre (Garscube Campus) on 21 and 22 February 2008.