Oil companies from China, Norway, Japan and other nations are investing billions of dollars in U.S. shale projects so they can learn how to extract oil and gas from bedrock and use those technologies to tap into the large and mostly undeveloped shale deposits outside the U.S.
A victory by protesters against the expansion of a chemical plant in Ningbo proves the new rule in China: The authoritarian government is scared of middle-class rebellion and will give in if the demonstrators' aims are limited and not openly political.
To celebrate Chinese New Year last month, Dubai's swankiest hotel bathed its sail-shaped facade in red lighting accented with an image of a twisting golden dragon.
Off the coast of Rio de Janeiro — below a mile of water and two miles of shifting rock, sand and salt — is an ultradeep sea of oil that could turn Brazil into the world's fourth-largest oil producer, behind Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
A relatively minor corruption case — by Chinese standards — involving graft and alcohol recently spiraled into a major nationwide scandal that helped deepen widespread social discontent and protests against skyrocketing oil and gas prices.
