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UK government needs stronger response to VW emissions scandal: Committee The British government should take a tougher stance against   Volkswagen   (VW) after its emissions fraud, as well as increase the use of electric cars and reduce air pollution from transport, a parliamentary environment committee said on Thursday. Almost a year after US regulators found that VW had cheated in diesel emissions tests, the British government has yet to decide what action to take against Europe's largest automaker, even though it faces criminal investigations in the United States, South Korea and elsewhere. The worldwide scandal, dubbed "Dieselgate", has hurt VW's reputation and business, and already cost it billions of dollars. VW last September admitted to using a sophisticated secret software in cars to cheat on exhaust emissions tests. The Environmental Audit Committee, whose conclusions are not binding on the government, said VW had only just started to recall cars ...

Two-day G7 summit starts in Japan A two-day Group of Seven (G7) summit started at Ise-Shima in Japan on Thursday. The meeting is being attended by   G7   country heads – US President Barack Obama, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, public broadcaster NHK reported. Abe is chairing the summit. The group will first visit Ise Jingu, a huge shrine of Japan's Shintoism. The leaders are expected to discuss the values of the   Japan G7 , solidarity and the global economy. Other subjects will be discussed at five subsequent sessions, including how to sustain global economic growth, the response to terrorism, the refugee crisis and climate change. The leaders will aim to clearly express their solidarity on policy in their summit declaration on Friday.

Deadly extreme weather  on at least five continents is driven in large part by a record-breaking El Nino, but climate change is a likely booster too, experts said. The 2015-16 El Nino, they added, is the strongest ever measured. “It is probably the most powerful in the last 100 years,” said Jerome Lecou, a climate expert at the French weather service Meteo France, noting that accurate measurements have only existed since the mid-20th century. Flooding and mudslides unleashed by torrential rains have killed at least 10 people and driven more than 150,000 from their homes in Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay in recent days. In central and southwestern United States – where temperatures in Texas are forecast to drop from a balmy 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit) Saturday to zero (32 F) on Monday – clashing weather fronts have given rise to snow-packed blizzards, freezing rain and a spate of tornadoes that have claimed at least 43 lives. Across the Pacific, meanwhile, wild...