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Archive for January, 2011
South Africa flood death toll rises as government declares 33 disaster zones
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 24th, 2011
Guardian: Flooding in South Africa has killed more than 100 people, forced at least 8,400 from their homes and prompted the government to declare 33 disaster areas.
With unusually heavy rainfall forecast until March, the UN has warned that almost every country in southern Africa is on alert for potentially disastrous flooding.
The government said that 88 deaths in the rising toll were in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province. The costs of damage to the infrastructure in the seven of the country's nine provinces...
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Comments Off on South Africa flood death toll rises as government declares 33 disaster zonesA Great Plains pipeline debate
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 24th, 2011
Washington Post: A massive feat of engineering by any measure, the Keystone pipeline expansion project would transport crude oil close to 1,700 miles from "oil sands" in the icy reaches of Hardisty, Alberta, down through the Great Plains to the refineries of Port Arthur, Tex. In doing so, the giant pipe also promises to allay some fears about U.S. energy security: The oil will come from a trusted ally, and its cross-continental path avoids visions of another deep-sea drilling disaster. But the decision on whether...
Indonesia delays deforestation ban
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 24th, 2011
Carbon Positive: Indonesia's planned two-year moratorium on deforestation to have begun this month has been postponed. Two government ministries are still trying to reach consensus and agree details of the moratorium on permits to convert natural forests and peatlands, according to the ITTO Tropical Timber Market Report. Views differ on how much and which types of forests should be covered in the moratorium and there is yet no consensus on whether current forest concession- holders will still be permitted to clear...
Crop warning over China drought
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 24th, 2011
BBC: Crop warning over China drought
More than 50% of land used to grow wheat in Shandong has been hit by the drought
A prolonged dry spell in parts of northern, central and eastern China is threatening both crops and water supplies, Chinese state media says.
Shandong province is experiencing its driest weather for 60 years.
Half the wheat-growing land there is affected, while almost a quarter of a million people face drinking water shortages, the China Daily said.
Beijing has also been...
China province hit by worst drought, warning on wheat
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 24th, 2011
Reuters: Most of China's wheat-growing areas in the north are suffering from drought with some seeing no rain for more than three months while the second most important wheat province of Shandong is facing its worst drought in a century.
Experts say that if the drought goes on over coming weeks, with no effective measures to combat it, the winter wheat crop, which accounts for more than 90 percent of the country's wheat harvest, could be hurt significantly.
Guo Tiancai, deputy chief of the agriculture...
Wild bears in Russia – in pictures
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 24th, 2011
Guardian: Wildlife Wild bears in Russia – in pictures
The photographer Sergey Gorshkov has spent six years following bears as they hunt for salmon, paddle in a lake and walk for miles through forests in Kamchatka, Russia, home to more than 18,000 bears
Some 7.27 million hectares of forests in C Kalimantan damaged
Posted by Antara News: None Given on January 24th, 2011
Antara News: Deforestation and barren land in Central Kalimantan. (www.greenpeace.org)Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan (ANTARA News) - About 7.27 million hectares of forests in Central Kalimantan are damaged due to deforestation, a lecturer said here Tuesday.
"Deforestation and barren land in Central Kalimantan cover more than 7.27 million hectares, while rapid forest degradation is less than 150 thousand hectares per year in the area," Sidik R Usop, the lecturer, said here Tuesday.
According to him, forest...
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Posted by Kaieteur News: None Given on January 24th, 2011
Kaieteur News: Europe has passed new legislation to counter the flow of illegal timber into its markets. With Guyana last year exporting timber to the tune of US$5M ($1B) to the European Union, the market is one that the country could ill-afford to lose.
Next Wednesday, the Forest Products Association of Guyana (FPA) will be holding a workshop with the assistance from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, to increase awareness of the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Guyana considers implications of new EU’s laws on illegal timberCan the sea solve China’s water crisis?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 24th, 2011
Guardian: The highest-tech effort yet to ease China's water crisis sits between a wide, flat grid of salt farms and two giant cooling towers that rise up from a vast expanse of reclaimed land on the western shore of the Bohai Sea.
Odourless, quiet and billowing clear white smoke into a sharp blue sky, the Beijiang desalination and power plant contrast sharply with the tangled pipes, dirty chimneys and foul waterways more usually associated with China's traditional industrial landscape.
The 12.1bn yuan...
United Kingdom: Activists plan Scotland Yard blockade to expose spies who used sexual tactics
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 24th, 2011
Guardian: Women activists are to blockade Scotland Yard today, intending to demand to know the identity of any undercover police who have infiltrated their organisations.
As evidence continued to emerge of police officers having had sexual relations with people they were monitoring, the women said they wanted to know if they had been "abused" by police.
Though senior police insisted that sleeping with activists during such operations was banned, a former agent claimed such "promiscuity" routinely had...
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