QUEBEC - The Quebec government has tabled legislation which could impose a moratorium on exploration for shale gas in the St. Lawrence River valley during the next five years. The bill would prohibit drilling, hydraulic fracturing — also known as fracking — as well as injection tests. Environment Minister Yves-Francois Blanchet tabled the legislation in the national assembly on Wednesday. The moratorium would last for five years or until new regulations on shale gas exploration are in place.

VIENNA, Ill. - This is the Illinois that many people never see — the sparsely populated southern tip where flat farmland gives way to rolling hills, rocky outcrops, thick forests and cypress swamps. Blacktopped county roads wend through no-stoplight towns. Locals speak in soft drawls and talk of generations who've lived on the same land or in the same villages. The remote and rugged Shawnee National Forest attracts hikers, campers and horseback riders, and offers a stark contrast to the rest of a state that largely has been plowed, paved or suburbanized.

LONDON (Reuters) - MPs criticised the government on Friday for unnecessarily delaying development of shale gas, saying it should now encourage companies to come up with more accurate estimates of recoverable reserves. The lack of progress over the past two years in exploration and development of UK shale gas is disappointing and needs to speed up, members of the influential cross-party Energy and Climate Change Committee in parliament said in a report.

Hundreds of Romanians protested in several cities on Thursday against plans for shell gas exploration, known as fracking, voicing concerns over environmental pollution and health hazards. "Exploiting shale gas threatens to contaminate ground water and I don't want us and our children to some day be forced to drink infested water," one of the protesters, Cristian Popescu, a 42-year-old public servant, told AFP.