Alibaba makes offer for China's YouTube, Youku Tudou
Shanghai (AFP) Oct 16, 2015 -
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba on Friday made a multi-billion-dollar offer to buy the outstanding shares of online video company Youku Tudou - the country's equivalent of YouTube - the firms said, in its latest push into entertainment.
Alibaba, often described as China's eBay or Amazon, is king of e-commerce in the Asian country, but is making a string of acquisitions as it seeks to deve ...
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Leaders call for carbon pricing worldwide
Washington (AFP) Oct 19, 2015 -
A group of world leaders called Monday for countries around the world to put a price on carbon to strengthen the international fight against climate change.
As a week of talks on a global climate agreement opened in Bonn, the leaders of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Germany, France, Chile, Mexico, Ethiopia, and the Philippines called on others to back pricing schemes "to steer ...
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UN chief says 'no plan B or planet B' in climate talks
Bratislava (AFP) Oct 19, 2015 -
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged nations to look beyond narrow interests at an upcoming world climate conference, warning that "we don't have a planet B."
Complaining that global talks aimed at curbing climate change have so far been "slow" and "frustrating" due to negotiators focussing on "narrow national perspectives", Ban urged member states to work faster.
"We don't h ...
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Chinese firm invests in Mexican wind power projects
Mexico City (UPI) Oct 19, 2015 -
China's Envision Energy announced the acquisition of a majority stake in the wind energy projects of Mexico's ViveEnergia.
Low-speed wind and turbine manufacturer Envision Energy, based in Shanghai, sees itself as a competitor to the Spanish company Gamesa, which dominates Mexico's wind energy market with a 73 percent share.
Envision Energy's deal brings it a majority stake in a ...
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Bribery, Back Room Dealing, And Bullying' In Ukraine
London, UK (SPX) Oct 15, 2015 -
What's wrong with Burisma - an influential Ukrainian gas company with high-profile Westerners on its board - is what's wrong with Ukraine: Its origins are highly suspect and it is controlled by a recent fugitive accused of stealing the country's gas assets.
It is this type of situation in Ukraine that "kills productivity and smothers inspiration," according to U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Ge ...
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Study urges optimization of solar energy development
Riverside CA (SPX) Oct 20, 2015 -
On Oct. 7, Gov. Jerry Brown of California signed legislation aimed at increasing renewable-energy generation. Among renewable energy systems, solar energy has high potential for mitigating climate change, resulting in diverse technologies that capture the sun's thermal energy.
But big solar is far from transmission and demand loads, too close to protected areas, and is a driver of land-use ...
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Scientists demonstrate how to improve ultrathin CIGSe solar cells by nanoparticles
Berlin, Germany (SPX) Oct 20, 2015 -
Nanoparticles with sizes the order of a wavelength interact with light in specific ways. A young investigator group at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, led by Professor Martina Schmid, is inquiring how to use arrangements of such nanoparticles to improve solar cells and other opto-electronic devices. Now the scientists report in the Journal of the American Chemical Society ACS Nano a considerable succe ...
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