TV News LIES

BP has been forced to abandon hopes of drilling in the Arctic, currently the centre of a new oil rush due to its tarnished reputation following the Gulf of Mexico spill.

The company confirmed tonight that it was no longer trying to win an exploration licence in Greenland, despite earlier reports of its interest. "We are not participating in the bid round," said a spokesman at BP's London headquarters who declined to discuss its reasons for the reverse.

Iran has crossed a new nuclear threshold, but it's one the Obama administration isn't worried about. On Saturday, technicians began loading low-enriched uranium fuel supplied by Russia into Iran's first civilian nuclear reactor, and if all goes smoothly, the Bushehr plant could start producing electricity under United Nations monitoring late this year or early next.

"The International Atomic Energy Agency regularly inspects the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in Iran. Iran began moving fuel assemblies to the plant's reactor compartment on 21 August 2010," Ayhan Evrensel, a press officer for the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in a statement Saturday. "The agency is taking the appropriate verification measures in line with its established safeguards procedures."

In the past few weeks Iran’s gas infrastructure, which is central to the country’s energy requirements, has been hit by a series of unexplained explosions.

The series of mysterious explosions began at the end of July when the state-owned Tehran Times reported that a pipeline carrying gas from Iran to Turkey had exploded near the eastern Turkish town of Dogubayazit. Iranian officials blamed the blast on Kurdish rebels.

In conjunction with a national program known as "FreeWays to Fuel" ( freewaystofuel.org), researchers at N.C. State University are working to grow canola and sunflower crops along the wasted edges of highways and other marginal areas.

The national program, which began in Utah and has spread across the United States, originally used municipal zones to plant crops for biofuels. Utah's first harvests are now being used to power Department of Transportation vehicles in Salt Lake County.

British media are reporting that BP chief executive Tony Hayward is negotiating the terms of his departure ahead of the oil company's results announcement later this week.

Citing unidentified sources, the BBC and Sunday Telegraph reported detailed talks regarding Hayward's future had taken place over the weekend. The BBC said a formal announcement on Hayward's exit is expected in the next 24 hours.

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A Senate committee approved two proposals today to boost plug-in hybrid vehicles and expand a $25-billion loan program for fuel-efficient vehicles to include commercial trucks and possibly more money.