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September 17, Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was called into question the findings of a UN report that confirmed a chemical weapons attack in Syria that killed hundreds of people last month, suggesting the event was a "provocation" by anti-regime forces and calling for a wider investigation. After a meeting in Moscow with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, Lavrov's comments were made and these represent Russia's first public reaction to the report. It was released on Monday. It determinedly established the use of chemical weapons however stopped short of passing on blame. After what Russia has gone trough criticism for its perceived sheltering of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, it has repeatedly rebuffed Western allegations that his government deployed chemical weapons. "We have the most serious grounds to believe this was a provocation," Lavrov said, according to the RIA Novosti state news agency. "And some of our partners have unequivocally stated that only the regime could have used chemical weapons, but the truth must be established." He added that there was no information about where the weapons were made, and insisted on an "impartial, objective, professional investigation of the events of August 21." It is just then, Lavrov said, should a course of action be decided in the UN Security Council, where Russia has blocked several Western resolutions on action over the crisis. Additional reports from GlobalPost: Elton John to play Moscow concert despite Russia's anti-gay law. Previous weekend, a negotiation between Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry about a plan to transfer Syria's chemical weapons to international control and have them destroyed within a year. Some observers have showed doubt over the plan, with their opinion that the sheer manpower it requires makes it unrealistic.

Advocates of alternative energy have sustained that on a global rate, increasing energy consumption is connected to the renewed hostile extraction of natural resources from Africa to reach the target increasing demand in North America, Europe and the BRICS countries namely: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. They compete that despite of the growing demand for energy, more than 1.6 billion people has no electricity and about 2.4 rely only on fuel wood. According to the Executive Director, ERA/FoEN, Dr. Godwin Ojo, the event was conceived to deepen understanding of energy issues. It is the effort to find substitute to this irregularity that the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) working in concert with over 50 civil societies, community groups and energy experts organized the Africa Alternative Energy Transition forum recently. Ojo said the event that attracted participants from across Africa was organised to coincide with the Global Month of Action on Energy by a coalition of Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Actionaid, International Rivers, 350.org, and some other international Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) to reclaim power by resisting dirty and harmful energy and affirming the need for transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy. He said in Nigeria, about 70 percent of the population depend solely on fuel wood for energy, a development, which has put the country in the ranking of the countries with the highest deforestation rate. He stated that the country is said to be losing 3.5 percent of her forest annually. "The rising energy demand is also leading to violent resource conflicts at the site of extraction. The energy expansions to dirty energy frontiers and technologies such as coal, shale gas fracking, or energy from biofuels have deleterious consequences on farmers and fragile ecosystems. "It is also important to note that the newly released Intergovernmental Panel on C