Natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and mechanical failures at pumping stations have highlighted the limited availability and unstable supply of fossil fuels.

President Bush's nominee to be the next head of the World Bank Robert Zoellick is on a three-continent trip aimed at familiarizing himself with some of the Bank's financiers and customers. Zoellick is in Europe after visiting three African countries last week.

Russian President Vladimir Putin used an address at an international economic forum in St. Petersburg yesterday to call for a revolution in world economic relations. Putin said current institutions created by the West were "archaic, undemocratic, and inflexible."

Europe's most important investment forum for nano and microtechnology/ Forum to be held in Frankfurt for the third time on 11 and 12 June

A report released Friday by the Council of Europe confirms that the CIA has used interrogation centers in Europe, including in Romania and Poland, to secretly hold and torture prisoners captured in Afghanistan, Iraq and other parts of the globe.

Russia's foreign minister said Saturday the U.S. should put on hold moves to deploy a missile shield in Europe pending talks on Moscow's recent offer to jointly use a radar in Azerbaijan.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says U.S. missile-defense interceptors could be located in Turkey, Iraq, or on sea platforms. Putin made his comments at a press conference at the close of a Group of Eight summit in Heiligendamm, Germany.

The U.S. says its proposal to base ballistic missile defense systems in eastern Europe is designed to deter what U.S. officials label as "rogue states," particularly Iran. As VOA correspondent Gary Thomas reports, Western analysts believe Iran's missile program is still far from posing any threat to Europe or the United States.

U.S. President George Bush is in Poland for talks with that country's president, Lech Kaczynski, and other officials, expecting to focus on U.S. plans for deploying a missile defense shield in Europe.

NATO's secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer urges swift ratification of the adapted Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty and stated that Moscow's threat to aim missiles at Europe in response to similar U.S. plans was "unhelpful and anachronistic."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered the United States to deploy a joint antimissile radar base in Azerbaijan. The surprise proposal, made on the sidelines of the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Germany, could bring some warmth to the chill in ties over Washington's plans to build a missile-defense shield in Central Europe.

Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to use a Soviet-built radar base in Azerbaijan as part of a U.S. plan for a missile defense system in Europe. VOA White House Correspondent Scott Stearns reports, the Russian leader had previously characterized the U.S. plan as the start of a new arms race.