India has embarked on a policy to balance its need for accessing strategic energy resources from the African continent with Africa's aspirations for greater skills and sustainable development. Sudan has turned out to be the gateway for India's energy quest in Africa. India's age-old ties with Sudan have been crucial in accessing oil from the country. New Delhi's close relations helped to assuage the initial hiccups; however conflict between the Sudanese government and that of Southern Sudan have created some problems.

The energy sector since the mid-2000s has acquired top priority in Russian state affairs, but since late 2008 it has also become the epicentre of the economic disaster that still continues to affect Russia. President Medvedev has effectively discarded the notion of Russia as an 'energy super-power' and is now focusing on 'modernisation' for Russia's development. But coherence of this course is problematic because the bulk of new investments must go into the energy sector in order to sustain the high revenues.

Following the recent economic crisis, concerns over the revival of trade protectionism have surfaced, with some countries imposing or threatening to impose highly trade-distorting legislation to help their domestic industries compete in world markets, raising the spectre of a potential trade war. This paper looks at the attempts by some of the developed countries to introduce trade measures using the issue of climate change as a Trojan horse, to ensure that they do not lose out to the emerging economies.

With the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expiring in 2012, time seems to be running out for a new successor agreement. The Protocol remains the most comprehensive attempt to negotiate binding limits on anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The long-term challenge, defined by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is to stabilise GHG concentration in the atmosphere at levels that would prevent interference with the climate system. There are, however, economic and social realities that drive anthropogenic GHG emissions.

Most of the countries in West Asia have expressed an interest in developing nuclear energy. For them their growing demand of electricity owing to the increasing population, growing industries, their eternal reliance on the desalinated water and environmental protection are the major drivers of their decision to produce nuclear energy. Importantly, they would like to use nuclear energy for domestic consumption and supply oil and gas to earn more revenues.

The article analyses international politics surrounding the Iranian nuclear crisis, and its implications for stakeholders such as the United States and its western allies as well as for emerging market countries including India, China, and Turkey which are especially interested in Iran's energy resources. Given the existence of multiplicity of interests of these countries, often conflicting, the article analyses three possible scenarios of how the Iranian nuclear crisis is likely to be addressed.

Energy ties between India and Australia are centuries old and can be traced back to the days of East India Company of the British–Indian era. From the first commercial export in the form of a shipment of coal to India from Australia in 1797, energy cooperation has come a long way. For instance, apart from making unswerving attempts to get Australian yellowcake, attempts have been made by India to ensure greater supply of coal and natural gas.

Let's face the facts: we are not going to regulate our way out of either climate change, or a peaking of fossil fuels. Even if we could imagine that individuals and nations were capable of accepting significant reductions in their lifestyle for long-term self-interest or the interests of their grandchildren, no amount of increased efficiency of those already using energy is going to make up for the Other Three Billion (O3B) citizens of the world moving to developed lifestyles and their accompanying energy demand.

Nuclear energy is undergoing a global renaissance. While nuclear energy has been contributing between 14 and 16 per cent of the total electricity in the world in recent years, most of the countries that are operating nuclear power reactors are expanding and/or reviving their nuclear energy development programmes, including countries such as the US and the UK. At the same time, several new countries and regions, many of which are rich in other energy resources, are also opting for nuclear energy.

Nuclear energy, as we know it, was unleashed by nature at Oklo in Gabon, Africa, when uranium formed rings on its mountains billion of years ago. Natural uranium contains at least three per cent uranium. This uranium formed rings around the mountain and acted as fuel rods in a reactor. When rain water was run across the fuel rod, it acted as a reactor. The Oklo phenomenon was discovered only in 1972. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) saw fit to run an international conference on the subject.