Into a high-rise apartment steps a domestic help who has been engaged to spring clean.

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For the past three years, the group has visited Memphis, Tennessee, each spring to help clean up a harbor on the Mississippi River where the waters are thick with debris.

CNN: Taking out the rivers' trash, one piece at a time

Last spring Zimbabwe's government launched an operation to clean up slums, houses were demolished and some 700, 000 people displaced, drawing condemnation from the U.N.

NPR: Zimbabwe Government Goes After Media

Mr Cameron also focused on the need to clean up politics at Westminster in his spring forum speech, in the wake of recent scandals over MPs ' expenses.

BBC: NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Cameron in 'family friendly' push

The resort prides itself on its environmental initiative, which has led to the generation of clean electricity from geothermal heat produced by the hot spring.

CNN: 'Dancing lights' draw thousands to frozen north

Last spring, Page and Co. retired iGoogle, Google Mini and other services as part of a 'spring cleaning' initiative to help it better focus its efforts, and another clean-up round has just begun.

ENGADGET

Smart grid company Silver Spring Networks, which set the terms of its IPO earlier this week, is the latest clean-tech company aiming to provide a jolt to the industry.

FORBES: Silver Spring Networks Preps For $63 Million IPO With Roadshow

The clean-energy glut was predictable, given the tendency of snow to melt in the spring and given whopping increases in the region's wind-generating capacity.

ECONOMIST: Teething troubles in the clean-energy sector

The meeting also covered topics which the EU-US largely agree on - including worries about Iran's nuclear programme, efforts to increase clean energy technology and avoid climate change, as well as supporting democracy after the Arab Spring.

BBC: Eurozone crisis: Debt fears loom at White House summit