http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/world/africa/02nigeria.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

By LYDIA POLGREEN
Published: January 2, 2008

DAKAR, Senegal — Coordinated assaults on two police stations, a hotel and a restaurant early Tuesday killed at least 10 people, the authorities said, shattering a brief New Year's Day calm in the violent and oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

At least four police officers were among the dead, along with several of the attackers, who were believed to be members of a street gang known as the Niger Delta Vigilante, police officials said. A security guard at the Presidential Hotel, a popular haunt of government officials in Port Harcourt, was killed as gunmen sprayed assault rifle fire at the lobby.

The gang is one of several heavily armed, violent groups, known in Nigeria as cults, that have played havoc on the streets of Port Harcourt, the capital of Nigeria's oil industry, in recent years.

The Niger Delta has always been a violent place, and militant groups have been trying for years, using tactics like kidnappings of foreign oil workers and bombings of oil production facilities, to force the government to hand a bigger share of the country's oil wealth over to the region that produces it. Despite pumping out an average of more than 2 million barrels of oil a day, the Niger Delta is one of the poorest and least developed parts of Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer and most populous country.

The gangs believed responsible for much of the recent violence, including the Tuesday attacks, are separate from the politically motivated militant groups but arose out of the same miasma of corrupt misrule that has characterized the region for decades. They have different leaders and aims, but share some of the same members, weapons and patrons.

The gangs have been fighting among themselves and against the country's security forces for dominance on the streets of Port Harcourt and the attentions of politicians, who have in the past two elections in Nigeria used the gangs as private militias to rig elections and provide security.

Editorial

Published: January 1, 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/01/opinion/01tue1.html

The overriding environmental issue of these times is the warming of the planet. The Democratic hopefuls in the 2008 campaign are fully engaged, calling for large — if still unquantified — national sacrifices and for a transformation in the way the country produces and uses energy. The Republicans do not go much further than conceding that climate change could be a problem and, with the notable exception of John McCain, offer no comprehensive solutions.
In 2000, when Al Gore could have made warming a signature issue in his presidential campaign, his advisers persuaded him that it was too complicated and forbidding an issue to sell to ordinary voters. For similar reasons, John Kerry's ambitious ideas for addressing climate change and reducing the country's dependence on foreign oil never advanced much beyond his Web site.

Times have certainly changed. It is not yet clear to what extent Americans are willing to grapple with the implications of any serious strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: more specifically, whether they are ready to pay higher prices for energy and change their lifestyles to reduce their consumption of fossil fuels.

Polls suggest, however, that voters are increasingly alarmed, and for that Mr. Gore is partly responsible. His film, "An Inconvenient Truth," raised the issue's profile. Then came four reports from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Mr. Gore, predicting catastrophic changes in weather patterns, sea levels and food production unless greenhouses gases can be quickly stabilized and then reduced by as much as 80 percent by midcentury.

There is also a growing appetite for decisive action — everywhere, it seems, except the White House. Governors in more than two dozen states are fashioning regional agreements to lower greenhouse gases, the federal courts have ordered the executive branch to begin regulating these gases, and the Senate has begun work on a bipartisan bill that would reduce emissions by nearly 65 percent by 2050.

Still, the country is a long way from a comprehensive response equal to the challenge. That is what the Democratic candidates are proposing. Senators Joseph Biden, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, former Senator John Edwards, Gov. Bill Richardson and Representative Dennis Kucinich have all offered aggressive plans that would go beyond the Senate bill and reduce emissions by 80 percent by midcentury (90 percent in Mr. Richardson's case), much as called for in the United Nations reports.

These plans would rest primarily on a cap-and-trade scheme that imposes a gradually declining ceiling on emissions and allows power plants, refineries and other emitters to figure out the cheapest way to meet their quotas — either by reducing emissions on their own or by purchasing credits from more efficient producers. The idea is to give companies a clear financial incentive to invest in the new technologies and efficiencies required to create a more carbon-free economy.

None of the Democrats trust the market to do the job by itself. All would make major investments in cleaner fuels and delivery systems, including coal-fired power plants capable of capturing carbon emissions and storing them underground. Every Democrat except Mr. Kucinich says that carbon-free nuclear power has to be part of the mix, although all are careful to say that safety issues and other concerns must first be resolved.

Internationally, the Democrats say they would seek a new global accord on reducing emissions to replace and improve upon the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Winning agreement among more than 180 nations will be slow-going, so several candidates, including Mrs. Clinton, have suggested jump-starting the process by bringing together the big emitters like China very early in their administrations. China and the United States together produce about 40 percent of the world's total emissions and neither has agreed to binding reductions.

The only Republican candidate who comes close to the Democrats with a plan for addressing climate change is John McCain, one of the authentic pioneers on the issue in the Senate. In 2003, along with Joseph Lieberman, Mr. McCain introduced the first Senate bill aimed at mandatory economywide reductions in emissions of 65 percent by midcentury. He also regularly addresses the subject on the campaign trail.

The other leading Republican candidates — Mitt Romney, Rudolph Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee — talk about energy issues almost exclusively in the context of freeing America from its dependence on foreign oil. All promote nuclear power, embrace energy efficiency and promise greener technologies. Only Mr. Huckabee has dared raise the idea of government regulation, embracing, at least theoretically, the idea of a mandatory cap on emissions. The rest prefer President Bush's cost-free and demonstrably inadequate voluntary approach, which essentially asks industry to do what it can to reduce emissions.

So far, the Democratic candidates seem more engaged with the issue than some of their interrogators in the news media. In a recent study, the League of Conservation Voters found that as of two weeks ago, the five main political talk-show hosts had collectively asked 2,275 questions of candidates in both parties. Only 24 of the questions even touched on climate change.

One result is that even the candidates who urge comprehensive change have not been pressed on important questions of cost: How do they intend to pay for all the new efficiencies and technologies that will be necessary? And what kind of sacrifices will they be asking of people who almost certainly will have to pay more for their electric bills and their greener cars?

Addressing these questions will require more courage of the candidates than simply offering up broad new visions. The voters deserve an honest accounting and the candidates should be prepared to give it.

Source: Irin News (http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76064) 

JOHANNESBURG, 2 January 2008 (IRIN) - The World Health Organisation (WHO) is warning of the possibility of above average malaria transmission levels in the region this season prompted by unusually high wet conditions because of the climate phenomenon called La Niña.

"Malaria is a climate sensitive disease and for this time of the year we have experienced uncommonly heavy rainfall and flooding in parts of southern Africa," said Joaquim Da Silva, WHO's Malaria Epidemics & Emergency Officer in the region.

La Niña is characterised by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, recorded every three to four years, which causes a ripple effect felt across the globe, making wet regions wetter and dry ones even drier.

As a result of La Niña's impact, which lasts for nine to 12 months, rains were unusually heavy in parts of eastern Africa in 2007.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Drought Monitoring Centre's latest report said a La Niña event was now well established and has forecast heavy rainfall for Angola, Zambia, northern Zimbabwe, Malawi, northern Mozambique, southern Tanzania and the southern coast of Madagascar until February.

"We are watching out for possible flooding in the river systems of the Zambezi [Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique], Okavango [Angola, Nambia, Botswana], Limpopo [South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique] and the Pungwe [Zimbabwe and Mozambique] in the region," said Da Silva. Seasonal flooding was common in these river systems, but this year the impact could be severe, he added.

"We are watching the situation; no epidemics have been reported yet," said Da Silva.

The WHO has asked countries in the region to distribute insecticide treated nets, ensure anti-malaria drugs were available in health facilities and organise social mobilisation to raise awareness about the high transmission levels expected this season.

WHO was particularly concerned about parts of the region where seasonal or epidemic malaria was common such as parts of Angola, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Madagascar, as adequate protective immunity may never build up and could lead to a number of deaths, said Da Silva.

In endemic areas, such as Mozambique with high levels of transmission, newborn children, who are protected in their first months of life by the antibodies of their immune mothers, could be more vulnerable.

Malaria is the second leading cause of deaths in southern Africa and kills an average 400,000 people every year in the SADC region. 

Concord Times (Freetown)

4 January 2008
Posted to the web 4 January 2008

Tanu Jalloh
Freetown

The Sunday Times has revealed how an energy company became embroiled in the "blood diamond" scandals of the 1990s in Sierra Leone and Angola.

Energem Resources which has just launched itself on the London stock market as a renewable-energy business is the same firm in which illegally traded diamonds were used to finance civil wars in Africa.

The company, with its head office in South Africa and registered office in Canada, used to be known as DiamondWorks. It changed its name in 2004 and gained its London AIM listing last month.

Canaccord Adams, the adviser that piloted it onto London's Alternative Investment Market (AIM), is headed by Tim Hoare, who sits alongside rock star and champion of Africa Bob Geldof on the board of the television-production company Ten Alps. Hoare has been a board member since March this year.

The hedge fund RAB Capital owns nearly 25% of Energem.

The stock-exchange announcement of Energem's AIM debut said the company was concentrating on oil distribution, biofuels and "procurement, supply and logistics management to industry in sub-Saharan Africa".

It referred to diamonds only in saying that last month Energem had decided to give up diamond-exploration rights in the Central African Republic.

Three of the directors were said to have had experience in mining diamonds.

There is no suggestion that the present management had any involvement in the blood diamond trade - an industry at one stage reckoned to be worth $1 billion (£500m) a year - in which civil wars, notably in Angola and Sierra Leone, were fuelled by selling the gems to buy arms.

For the full article, please visit: http://allafrica.com/stories/200801040760.html

IRIN In-Depth
Saturday 05 January 2008

(September 2007) Somewhere, some time this year, a baby will be born on the 25th floor of a city hospital or the dirt floor of a dark slum shack; a first-year college graduate will rent a cramped apartment in lower Manhattan or a family of five will finally concede their plot of farm land to an encroaching desert - or sea - and turn towards Jakarta or La Paz or Lagos in search of a new livelihood and a new home. The arrival of this family or graduate or baby will tip the world's demographic scale and, for the first time in history, more than half the human population will live in cities.

At present, 3.3 billion people live in urban centres across the globe. By 2030 this number is predicted to reach five billion, with 95 percent of this growth in developing countries. Over the next three decades, Asia's urban population will double from 1.36 billion to 2.64 billion, Africa's city dwellers will more than double from 294 million to 742 million, while Latin America and the Caribbean will see a slower rise from about 400 million to 600 million, according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).

While megacities appear more frequently in headlines and on development agendas, overall growth in urban centres of 10 million or more inhabitants is expected to level out. Instead, over the next 10 years, cities of less than 500,000 will account for half of all urban growth.

For the full article, please visit: http://www.irinnews.org/InDepthMain.aspx?InDepthId=63&ReportId=73996

Source: Science Daily
Accessed on January 7, 2008
URL: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080103144404.htm

ScienceDaily (Jan. 7, 2008) — Biofuels reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in comparison to fossil fuels. Smithsonian researchers highlight a new study that factors in environmental costs of biofuel production. Corn, soy and sugarcane come up short. The authors urge governments to be far more selective about which biofuels they support, as not all are more environmentally friendly than fossil fuels.

Because fossil fuels contribute to global warming and supplies are dwindling, more eco-friendly alternatives are required. However, biofuels may not be superior if their production results in environmental destruction, pollution and damage to human health, argue postdoctoral fellow Jörn Scharlemann and William Laurance, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

A new study by Zah et al., commissioned by the Swiss government, calculates the relative merits of 26 biofuels based on relative reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions and an environmental-impact index, which includes damages to human health and ecosystems and natural resource depletion.

The Swiss study identifies striking differences in the environmental costs of different biofuels. Fuels made from U.S. corn, Brazilian soy and Malaysian palm oil may be worse overall than fossil fuels. The best alternatives include biofuels from residual products, such as recycled cooking oil and ethanol from grass or wood.

The Zah et al. study falls short in that it fails to consider secondary consequences of biofuels, such as rising food costs, but it is a big step forward in providing a way to compare the environmental benefits and costs of dozens of different biofuels.

"Different biofuels vary enormously in how eco-friendly they are," said Laurance. "We need to be smart and promote the right biofuels, or we won't be helping the environment much at all."

Journal article: Scharlemann, JPW and Laurance, WF (2008); "How Green are Biofuels?" Science 319: 52-53

This Day (Lagos)
7 January 2008
Posted to the web 7 January 2008
URL: http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200801070008.html

By Fidelia Okwonu
Lagos

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has linked the Niger Delta crisis to rising crude oil prices, despite denials by Nigerian officials.

The latest rise in price had coincided with renewed violence in the Niger Delta on New Year's Day in which 16 people were killed following attacks in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

OPEC has also warned that the high price of oil would continue until the end of March 2008.

OPEC President and Algerian Energy and Mines Minister, Chakib Khelil, said at the weekend that the steady rise in prices was due to "escalating violence in Nigeria".

Khelil also said two other factors were responsible - tension in Pakistan following the assassination of former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, and a fall in oil inventories in the United States.

Algerian state news agency, APS, quoted Khelil as saying the world had sufficient oil supplies for now and no decision could be made to increase production before the next OPEC meeting in February.

"The surge in price will probably endure until the end of the first quarter of 2008, before stabilising during the second quarter," Khelil said on the sidelines of a conference on the security of hydrocarbon pipelines in the Algerian capital.

Khelil said a second quarter stabilisation was "probable".

On Wednesday, the price of a barrel of crude reached $100.09 in New York, before retreating at the close $99.18.

Khelil estimated that the oil market is currently "sufficiently supplied" but did not rule out an increase in production by the cartel at its next meeting in February.

That meeting will take place in Vienna on February 1. It will closely study predictions for world economic growth, notably in the US, which has been seriously affected by the credit squeeze from the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

"If a US economic recession takes hold, OPEC is not going to increase its current offering only to be called upon, later, to reduce it," he said.

OPEC, which currently produces 27.2 million barrels per day, accounts for about 40 per cent of world oil output, the rest coming from producers who are not part of the organisation.

At the last OPEC meeting, at Abu Dhabi on December 5, OPEC decided to leave its current level of production unchanged.

Meanwhile, the Saudi Oil Minister, Ali al-Naimi, said yesterday that the rise in oil prices to a record high had been determined by market forces.

"The market fixes the price of oil," Naimi told reporters at an energy conference in Riyadh when asked to comment on oil's surge to a record above $100 last week.

Naimi declined further comment on the price or what the OPEC would decide at its next meeting. Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil exporter and the most influential voice in OPEC.

High energy costs have caused concern among some members of OPEC about the potential impact on the global economy. But ministers say there is little they can do to tame the price, which is driven by political tension and speculators and not supply and demand fundamentals.

Libya's top oil official, Shokri Ghanem, said last week that the producer group could do little about $100 oil as most members were already pumping flat out.

Source: IRIN News

NAIROBI, 4 January 2008 (IRIN) - Two large orange-coloured zones indicate where the worst of Kenya's rural post-election violence has occurred in a new UN map created by focusing civilian satellite cameras onto some of the country's clash-hit areas and revealing the number of fires burning.

The UNOSAT map shows two hotspots of trouble in Kenya's Rift Valley Province - around the town of Eldoret, and a smaller one around the town of Timboroa to the south, along the main road leading to Nairobi.

Other scattered locations in the province are shaded yellow, indicating a lesser but noticeable number of fires.
 

For the full article and image please visit: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76102 

By David L. Phillips
January 2, 2008

Source: Boston Globe 

URL: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/01/02/sustainable_peace_in_sudan/

The United States is threatening Sudan with more sanctions unless the Khartoum government stops obstructing the deployment of a peacekeeping mission to Darfur. While peacekeepers are desperately needed to provide safety and humanitarian access, more will be required to achieve conditions for sustainable peace. With the Darfur Peace Agreement in tatters and political talks at a standstill, refocusing on a development horizon would not only yield practical benefits to today's humanitarian emergency. It could also positively influence the UN's efforts to bring Darfuri factions together and broker an accord with Khartoum.

Darfuris, UN officials, representatives from donor countries, and humanitarian and post-conflict experts recently got together to discuss new approaches to overcoming the current impasse. They agreed that Darfur's extreme poverty is one of the prime sources of unrest and that a lasting solution will need to address the root causes of the conflict.

Darfuris support the international community's three-pronged strategy - security, relief, and recovery - but insist that focusing on development must not be put on the back burner. Instead of sequencing, they believe activities should be syncopated so they occur simultaneously and are mutually reinforcing.

This might be possible in an ideal world. However, the ongoing spiral of deadly violence makes this multitrack approach nearly impossible. Darfuris are trying to overcome this challenge while remaining steely eyed about their predicament.

The ongoing violence has discouraged many countries from contributing troops. No country wants to pour manpower into a problem with no end in sight.

The international community is unlikely to start the process of planning and investing in post-conflict until after a peace deal has been negotiated and Darfur has been stabilized.

Even if there is an accord and peacekeepers are deployed, it could take years to see an improvement of conditions on the ground.

Donor countries will have to evaluate security before conducting assessment missions. Then the United Nation and World Bank would convene a donor's conference launching a consolidated appeal. Once pledges are made, they will have to be collected. Based on a determination of local capacity, experts will be recruited and rollout plans put in place. Even then, scaling up field operations will proceed only as cash-flow and security permits. Many times before, we have witnessed a cessation of hostilities that is undermined by those who benefit from ongoing conflict.

Right now Darfur has the world's attention. However, another disaster in the Congo is already upon us - and more disasters are not far behind.

To capitalize on the moment and make the most of scarce resources, Darfuris want the United Nations to focus on the transition from relief to development, and engage donor and front-line states in envisioning post-conflict conditions.

Darfuris are exploring ways to bridge the gap between current conditions and the post-conflict phase. They are identifying quick impact projects that can be implemented immediately in relatively stable parts of Darfur less affected by the conflict. Darfuris have concluded that now is the time to define a peace dividend that addresses poverty and hunger, water, energy and infrastructure, health and education.

They make a compelling case for front-loading economic development. It costs $2.6 billion each year to support peacekeepers in Darfur - $300 per Darfuri. Even if the international community comes up with troops and bears this cost, its commitment will not be open-ended. Once the bill for peacekeeping is paid, experience shows that few funds will be available for development activities - a bargain at about $60 per person.

There is also an intangible value to incorporating the development dimension into peace talks for Darfur. Darfuris might believe that peace is possible once they see wells and latrines built, trees planted, and veterinary services being provided to livestock.

Not only could confidence-building measures energize political "consultations" and kick-start real negotiations. If the idea of initiating post-conflict arrangements during an ongoing conflict can help the current catastrophe in Darfur, the approach could also inform future efforts in other seemingly intractable conflicts.

Peace can not be just an abstract notion. It must also yield practical benefits if combatants are going to lay down their arms and agree to turn swords into ploughshares.

David L. Phillips is a visiting scholar at Columbia University's Center for the Study of Human Rights and a former senior adviser to the State Department.

 © Copyright  2008 The New York Times Company

Source: Worldwatch Institute

Date: January 14, 2008 

This Christmas marked the third anniversary of the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of December 26, 2004. While reconstruction has inched forward in the affected countries, in Sri Lanka, one of the hardest-hit areas, progress remains challenging. Unlike Indonesia's Aceh province, which in the disaster's aftermath was able to overcome a decades-long armed conflict, Sri Lanka actually lapsed back into internal fighting a little more than a year after the waves struck.

Over the last two years, the fighting between the country's Sinhala majorityand Tamil minority has intensified, and both the government and the Tamil Tiger rebel group (LTTE) have engaged in a vicious tit-for-tat of air strikes, bus bombings, assassinations, and terror tactics against civilian populations. A ceasefire agreement, dating to February 2002, was reduced to little more than a piece of paper. Then on January 2, the government announced its decision to officially end the agreement.

For the full article, please visit: http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/29228

January 14, 2008 

MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippine Supreme Court will designate special courts to speed up a backlog of environmental cases and ensure polluters are penalized for breaking the law, a spokesman confirmed on Monday.

Manila's decision came as experts from the Asia-Pacific region began a conference in Bangkok aimed at improving enforcement of environment laws.

Illegal mining, logging and overfishing are serious problems in the Philippines but few violators are punished either because they pay off officials or because overworked judges tend to prioritize civil and criminal cases over environmental disputes.

For the full article, please visit, http://www.enn.com/business/article/29196  

Source: Reuters

By Sybille de La Hamaide

January 14, 2008

PARIS (Reuters) - The recent price rally in farm commodities such as grains, oilseeds and sugar beet can be attributed partly to higher biofuel demand but their share of the blame has been exaggerated, a top official of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Loek Boonekamp, a division head in the Agro-food Trade and Markets Division at the Paris-based OECD, said the surge in farm product prices -- with cereals more than doubling last year -- would have happened even without the rise in biofuel production.

"Closing your eyes and blaming the current high prices to biofuels is just too simplistic," he told the Reuters Global Agriculture and Biofuel Summit. Boonekamp said a sharp drop in supply mainly due to adverse weather conditions in top producing countries such as Australia, tight stocks worldwide and higher demand for food in developing countries were playing the biggest role in the rally.

For the full article, please visit: http://www.enn.com/agriculture/article/29220

Source: Christian Science Monitor 

By: Jacqueline M. Klopp

Date: January 14, 2008 

NEW YORK - Hundreds have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in the three weeks since Kenya's hotly disputed presidential elections. Once considered an island of stability in Africa, the country is suffering what the media has called a "shocking outbreak of violence" and "tribal clashes."

The key questions we should be asking are: Who is responsible for this violence? How is it happening? But we will not ask these questions if we continue to see the current violence as simply a spontaneous outburst of anger at the election rigging or "tribal warfare."

The international community must realize that Kenya's violence today is fueled by strongmen on both sides of the political divide. They are exploiting ethnic identity, pitting one community against another, as a means to gain power. It is a practice with a long history in Kenyan politics.

The fury of the violence may look like "tribal warfare" linked to election anger, especially in the worst instances of ethnic cleansing - as in Eldoret, where women and children were burned alive in a church. A common explanation is that members of the Kikuyu community are facing retaliation from others for their longtime "dominance." Like Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta, President Mwai Kibaki is Kikuyu; opposition leader Raila Odinga is Luo.

Part of the violence is not directly organized and is instead linked to confrontations between protesters and police, who have a history of brutality. Many understandably feel rage at the election fraud carried out on behalf of Mr. Kibaki. But much of the ethnicized violence is linked to organized efforts by political strongmen who have experience playing divide-and-rule.

For the full article, please visit: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0114/p09s02-coop.html?page=1

Source: IRIN

Date: January 15, 2007

NAIROBI, 15 January 2008 (IRIN) - As Kenya counts the human and material cost of the political violence, hospitals are reporting an increase in reported rapes during the immediate post-election period, spurring the government and health organisations to find ways to treat these cases as well as protect the displaced from further incidents of sexual violence.

"In the first two days of the violence, 56 people were treated for rape and admitted; there are so many other victims back in the slums who have not received any medical attention," Lucy Kiama, chief nurse at the Nairobi Women's Hospital, which specialises in sexual violence, told IRIN.

She added that the number of rape survivors seeking treatment at the facility had doubled during the violence. Many women who came to the hospital, she added, reported that there were many more in the slums who had failed to seek treatment because of security reasons or fear of stigmatisation.

For the full article, please visit: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76247

ScienceDaily (Jan. 15, 2008) — The Rwandan government, Great Ape Trust of Iowa and Earthpark have announced that the Gishwati Forest Reserve is the future site of the Rwanda National Conservation Park, setting into motion one of Africa's most ambitious forest restoration and ecological research efforts ever. The selection of Gishwati as the location for Rwanda's first national conservation park comes less than three months after the project was unveiled at the Clinton Global Initiative by Rwanda President H.E. Paul Kagame and Ted Townsend, founder of Great Ape Trust and Earthpark.

The Gishwati Forest, in Rwanda's Western Province, was deforested in the 1980s by agricultural development and in the 1990s during the resettlement of people following the civil war and genocide.  Human encroachment, deforestation, grazing and the introduction of small-scale farming resulted in extensive soil erosion, flooding, landslides and reduced water quality - as well as the isolation of a small population of chimpanzees.

For the full article, please visit: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080115085344.htm

Source: UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

16 January 2008
Posted to the web 16 January 2008

Bulawayo

After six years of drought, the forecast was that Zimbabwe was set for good rains and a decent harvest this season - and then came the deluge.

The country has been pounded by torrential rains, with December 2007 the wettest month in 127 years, according to the metrological department. Localised flooding has claimed 21 lives, affecting around 5,000 people along the southeastern border with Mozambique, and a further 3,000 in Muzarabani district in the northeast of the country.

At the end of December the government declared a national disaster, with emergency units keeping a close watch on flood prone areas, UN agencies reported.

Farmers in flood-affected districts, who had planted early, trying to take advantage of the predicted good rains, have seen their crops drowned, along with hopes of a marketable surplus.

"We prayed for the rains but the rains have now caused us pain and suffering," said a despairing Esther Chiwodza, a communal farmer in the low-lying district of Chiredzi in Midlands Province.

We prayed for the rains but the rains have now caused us pain and suffering

For the full article, please visit: http://allafrica.com/stories/200801160753.html  

Leadership (Abuja)

Accessed at: http://allafrica.com/stories/200801150231.html 

15 January 2008
Posted to the web 15 January 2008

By: Edward Ukpebitere

Hundreds of youths yesterday shut down the operations of the Warri Refinery, heightening fears that the refinery may not pump crude as expected to the Kaduna Refinery.

This was as a result of the breakdown of talks between youths of the refinery's host communities.

Scores of aggrieved Itsekiris from three oil-producing communities in Warri South Local Council area of Delta State yesterday chased out workers of the Warri Refining and Petro-chemical Company (WRPC) in their area, insisting that the management must pay them N1.7 billion approved for clean-up contract.

The protesters from Ifie Kporo, Aja-Etan and Ijala-Ikenren communities barricaded the major entrance leading to the company premises and prevented workers from having access to their respective offices.

According to a statement signed by Dr Bruce Menekpo and Wallace Tosan Wumi, secretary and treasurer respectively, the people condemned the NNPC's refusal to approve and pay adequate compensation for the July 3, 2007 oil spills and the cancellation of the contract awarded by the Obasanjo administration for the clean-up of the oil impacted areas.

"Since their operation started thirty years ago, there have been negative effects on the host communities, occasioned by perpetual oil spills in our creeks, leading to complete destruction of our land, eco-system and means of livelihood," said the embittered people, lamenting that the scourge has led to serious famine in the three communities.

They lamented that the NNPC management is insensitive to their worsening plight, regretting that their operation has not only brought woes to the communities, but has also brought neglect and pains to the people.

The aggrieved people want an acceptable and workable formula to accommodate the indigenous contractors' interest and a planned yearly developmental scheme for the host communities.

ScienceDaily (Jan. 16, 2008) — Cool, wet conditions in the Northwest, frigid weather on the Plains, and record dry conditions in the Southeast, all signs that La Niña is in full swing.
With winter gearing up, a moderate La Niña is hitting its peak. And we are just beginning to see the full effects of this oceanographic phenomenon, as La Niña episodes are typically strongest in January.

A La Niña event occurs when cooler than normal sea surface temperatures form along the equator in the Pacific Ocean, specifically in the eastern to central Pacific. The La Niña we are experiencing now has a significant presence in the eastern part of the ocean.

The cooler water temperatures associated with La Niña are caused by an increase in easterly sea surface winds. Under normal conditions these winds force cooler water from below up to the surface of the ocean. When the winds increase in speed, more cold water from below is forced up, cooling the ocean surface.

"With this La Niña, the sea-surface temperatures are about two degrees colder than normal in the eastern Pacific and that's a pretty significant difference," says David Adamec of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "I know it doesn't sound like much, but remember this is water that probably covers an area the size of the United States. It's like you put this big air conditioner out there -- and the atmosphere is going to feel it."

For the full article, please visit: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080114085128.htm  

Source: Reuters 

Retrieved on January 1, 2008 from http://www.enn.com/climate/article/29396

By Huw Jones

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso hit back on Wednesday at criticism from member states and industry of planned radical proposals to fight climate change and save energy.

A week before the European Union executive unveils a fiercely contested package of proposals to cut greenhouse gas emissions, boost renewable energy sources and promote biofuels, Barroso said the EU must "put our money where our mouth is."

"We knew from the very beginning that transforming Europe into a low-carbon economy is not an easy task. But this is the moment to be serious, responsible and coherent with our commitment," he told the European Parliament.

He was responding to letters from leaders such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the main EU business lobby that have warned Brussels against inflicting damage on industry or treating member states unfairly.

In a letter published in part on his official website on Tuesday, Sarkozy cautioned Brussels against "unnecessarily penalizing the prospects of growth."

Barroso said that by taking the lead in fighting climate change, Europe would give its industries "first mover advantage" in clean energy technologies, boost its economic competitiveness and create jobs.

The proposals would meet ambitious targets set by EU leaders last March to cut emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) -- the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming -- by 20 percent in 2020 from 1990 levels and use 20 percent of renewable energy in power production by that date, he said.

Member states would be treated fairly, recognizing different starting points, different circumstances and the fact that some are more able than others to finance investment in adaptation.

NUCLEAR CREDIT

According to draft proposals obtained by Reuters, the Commission will vary the effort demanded of each country according to its gross domestic product per capita.

The richest states will be expected to cut a further 20 percent of CO2 emissions from their 2005 levels while the poorest will be allowed to increase emissions by up to 20 percent to enable them to catch up economically.

Sarkozy proposed a different method, saying the aim should be convergence towards a situation where emissions of CO2 per person were uniform across Europe, and noting that France's emissions per citizen were 25 percent below the EU average.

That would be a way for Paris to gain credit for its nuclear energy program, by far the biggest in Europe. Other EU states which eschew nuclear power oppose any such allowance.

Barroso said the Commission would seek to minimize the costs of adaptation for European industry and to address the special challenges faced by energy-intensive industries such as steel and aluminum.

But he insisted: "It is a mistake to oppose the fight against climate change to the competitiveness of European industries."

(writing by Paul Taylor, editing by Darren Ennis)

17 Jan 2008
Source: NOAA
NOAA
Website: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/

The Zambeze (Zambezi) River in central Mozambique was still rising when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite captured the top image on January 15, 2008. Compared to conditions on December 26, three weeks earlier, the river was kilometers wider than normal. Early rains fell over the Zambeze River basin in Zimbabwe throughout December, taxing the massive Cahora Bassa reservoir meant to control flooding on the Zambeze. By January, water was being discharged from the reservoir, and this led to flooding downstream.

The images show the Zambeze River downstream from the Cahora Bassa reservoir near the border of the Sofala, Tete, and Zambézia provinces. Water is dark blue or black in the images, which were made with infrared and visible light. The surrounding plant-covered land is bright green, and scattered clouds are pale blue and white. Bare earth is tan. Not only is the Zambeze River flooded in the January 15 image, but its tributaries, including the Shire River, are also swollen. Twice-daily images of the floods in Mozambique are available from the MODIS Rapid Response System. Summer flooding is common on the Zambeze, but in 2007-2008, the floods rose a month earlier than normal. By January 15, water levels already rivaled those seen during the devastating floods of 2000-2001, which killed 700 and displaced 500,000, reported the Deutsche Presse Agentur. Resettlement, preparation, and evacuation prevented a similar disaster in 2008, said the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Despite the flood danger, the Zambeze flood plain is an attractive place to live because of the fertile soils it offers subsistence farmers. As of January 13, approximately 62,000 people had been evacuated from the Zambeze River Valley in Mozambique, said the Mozambique News Agency. The government planned to evacuate thousands more by airlift and boat. The floods could persist or worsen as the rainy season progresses through February and March. Late summer could also bring flood-inducing tropical cyclones from the southern Indian Ocean.

For the article and image, please visit: http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/satelliteimages/120058031481.htm

(This article was published on December 17, 2007)

ScienceDaily (Dec. 17, 2007) — Climate advocate Al Gore accepted the Nobel Peace Prize this December 10th. New Norwegian research suggests, however, that there is no connection between environmental crises and armed conflict.

"Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind. They may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth's resources. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world's most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states."

A broader concept of peace

This is an excerpt from the Nobel Committee's explanation for the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, shared equally by the former US Vice President Al Gore Jr. and the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

The Nobel Committee interprets "working for peace" as including saving the Earth's environment. Researchers, advocacy groups, politicians and the media have all highlighted local resource crises as the reason for a host of armed conflicts around the globe. The premise underlying the Nobel Committee's expanded definition of peace is that there is a causal connection between natural resource shortages and violent conflict.

But is that true? Not according to a new study from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

Surprising results

A series of case studies in recent years from areas stricken by conflict has helped develop a theoretical basis for the claim that natural resource scarcity leads to armed conflict. Darfur, Sudan, is a recent example of this presumed causal connection, with Rwanda, Haiti and Somalia as other examples.

Helga Malmin Binningsbø, Indra de Soysa and Nils Petter Gleditsch, from NTNU's Department of Sociology and Political Science, looked at the environmental pressures in 150 countries in the period from 1961 to 1999. By using an internationally recognized technique for measuring a country's environmental sustainability -"The Ecological Footprint" - the researchers were able to compare these numbers with statistics on armed conflict during the same period.

Their conclusion may seem paradoxical---lands where resources are heavily exploited show a clear connection to a lack of armed conflict. Or alternatively, nations troubled by war during the research period had lower exploitation rates of their natural resources. The findings give researchers solid empirical support for stating that environmental scarcity is not the reason behind violent conflict.

--A higher Ecological Footprint is negatively correlated with conflict onset, controlling for income effects and other factors, the researchers say in their article, published in the peer-reviewed journal Population and Environment.

-- Of course people fight over resources, that's not our argument. We believe, rather, that we have a strong scientific case against the Neomalthusian model, says Binningsbø.

For the full article, please visit: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071216133126.htm  

Source: Reuters 

Accessed at http://www.enn.com/energy/article/29461

Date: January 17, 2008 

By Alex Lawler

LONDON (Reuters) - World oil production may peak in the coming years, but it will be because of a decline in demand for petroleum rather than constraint on supply, a BP economist said on Wednesday.

The comments come in the wake of remarks from other industry officials who in recent months have questioned mainstream supply forecasts, suggesting a peak in output may be closer than the industry has previously admitted.

"I believe there is a realistic possibility that world oil production will peak within the next generation as a result of peaking demand," BP Special Economic Advisor Peter Davies told a meeting at parliament organized by a group of lawmakers looking into peak oil.

A rally in oil prices, which hit a record high above $100 a barrel earlier this month, is leading to growing interest in peak oil -- the view that supply has reached, or will soon reach, a high point and then fall.

London-based BP, the world's third-largest fully publicly traded oil company by market value, dismisses the view that there is a problem with the amount of oil left in the ground.

Statistics complied by BP show the world has proven oil reserves of 1.2 trillion barrels, enough to sustain current output for 40 years.

Rather, Davies said environmental regulations, including efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, could cause consumers to move away from oil.

"I think we will run out of demand before we run out of supply," he said. "There's a distinct possibility that global oil consumption could peak as a result of climate policies."

The BP economist said there were also concerns whether there is enough investment. Many major producing countries ban foreign investment in their oilfields or allow it on terms the oil firms deem uncompetitive.

"An imminent peak in oil production is not likely," Davies said. "Valid concerns remain over investment, especially in resource-rich regions."

Davies said it was possible to boost world oil production to 100 million barrels per day, a rate senior figures, such as the chief executive of French oil company Total, have questioned in recent months.

The world is expected to need more than 100 million bpd of oil later this century, according to forecasts from the International Energy Agency and others, up from around 86 million bpd now.

"I believe 100 million barrels per day is achievable," Davies said. "This is achievable in resource terms but it does come down to how much investment is going to take place."

(Reporting by Alex Lawler; editing by Marguerita Choy)

Source: IRIN

Date: January 18, 2008 

EPUPA FALLS, 18 January 2008 (IRIN) - Asking the local Himba people where on the Cunene River in northern Namibia they would choose to site a hydroelectric dam "is like asking me which of my three children do you want me to kill", a Himba elder told IRIN.

In the event, the announcement by President Hifikepunye Pohamba late last year that construction on "the Baynes hydropower project [on the Cunene River] as soon as possible", was made without consulting the Himba, stirring simmering tensions over land ownership and ethnic chauvinism that first rose to the surface in the 1990s, when the ruling South West African Peoples Organisation (SWAPO) government attempted, but failed, to construct a dam at Epupa Falls.

About 25,000 Himba live in the arid regions of southern Angola and northwestern Namibia, straddling the Cunene River, which is central to the Himba's existence and their continued survival as a homogenous people. The river rises at Nova Lisboa in Angola's central highlands near the city of Huambo and flows 700km south before turning west to demarcate part of the Angolan/Namibian border for its last 340km or so before spilling into the Atlantic.

In the successful resistance mounted by the Himba to thwart construction of the dam at Epupa Falls, the Himba's main protagonist, Chief Hikuminue Kapika, travelled to the donor countries of Germany, Sweden, Norway and England to drum up support for their cause. The result was a steep learning curve on the impact of such construction projects on a pastoralist economy reliant on the delicate management of one of the continent's last remaining wildernesses.

A feasibility study accompanying the proposal to build the dam at Epupa Falls cited the Baynes Mountains as an alternative site for the hydroelectric plant, which would substantially reduce the impact on the Himba's cultural heritage. However, Tako Hunga, a Himba elder, told IRIN that "We never agreed [to a dam on the Cunene] and we will never agree; we will never allow the government to do this."

At a temporary bush camp about 100km south of Epupa Falls, where hundreds of Himba were gathering for a funeral in temperatures slightly shy of 40 degrees Celsius, Mutjinduika Mutambo, another Himba elder, explained the significance of the river to an IRIN reporter: "As we are sitting here under the shade of a mopane tree, the Cunene is for us a big tree to which we can go when it is hot, for ourselves and for our animals - that is the beauty of it."

For the full article, please visit: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76311

The Nation (Nairobi)

Accessed at http://allafrica.com/stories/200801180277.html

18 January 2008
Posted to the web 18 January 2008

Nairobi

More than 2,000 exotic and indigenous trees worth more than Sh1.2 million have been destroyed by illegal loggers.

Bomet District forest officer William Cheptoo said the loggers had taken advantage of the post-election violence to deplete the Chepalungu government gazetted forest.

He explained that the forest was left unguarded after forest guards fled.

Three months ago, members of the local community said to have opposed the conservation of the forest, invaded Chelelach forest station, which is part of the expansive Chepalungu forest block, and killed a forest guard.

Speaking to journalists in his Bomet town office Thursday, Mr Cheptoo said the loggers were extracting timber and fencing poles from the felled trees.

More than 100,000 tree seedlings planted six months ago were uprooted, he added.

The forester appealed to the local community to stop the destruction.

The Nation (Nairobi)

19 January 2008
Posted to the web 20 January 2008

Accessed at http://allafrica.com/stories/200801200098.html  

Nation Correspondent
Nairobi

The Lake Nakuru National park has recorded reduced revenue due to the post-election violence that has seen the number of visitors decline.

A Kenya Wildlife Service official told the Saturday Nation that the park hosted 11,682 tourists between January 1 and 16 last year but has managed only 5,513 this year.

Revenue, the official said, has fallen to Sh6.7 million compared to Sh19.5 million during the January 1-16 period last year. Mr Charles Muthui, the park's senior warden, said that they were currently receiving an average of 100 visitors daily compared to the past years when they would host up to 600 tourists in a day.

Below capacity

Most of the tourists visiting the park are from Britain, US and Australian. Hotels in the park are now recording only 15 per cent bed occupancy, said Mr Joseph Muya, a director with Lake Nakuru Lodge.

He said they had been forced to lay off some staff because they were operating below capacity.

A Saturday Nation visit to the park met some 18 tourists from Australia at one of the camp site who arrived into the country on New Year's eve.

Chris McGreal in Johannesburg
Wednesday January 23, 2008
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/congo/story/0,,2245139,00.html

A decade of fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo is continuing to kill about 45,000 people each month - half of them small children - in the deadliest conflict since the second world war, according to a new survey.The International Rescue Committee said preventable diseases and starvation aggravated by conflict have claimed 5.4 million lives since the beginning of the second Congo war in 1998, equivalent to the population of Denmark. Although the war officially ended in 2002, malaria, diarrhoea, pneumonia and malnutrition continue to claim thousands of lives.

 ...

Congo has endured two foreign invasions and protracted civil war since the aftermath of Rwanda's genocide spilled across the border in 1994 with an influx of more than a million Rwandan Hutu refugees. The years of conflict resulted in millions of people fleeing their homes, sometimes to live for years in forests where many died, and the collapse of what infrastructure still remained after decades of neglect under Mobutu Sese Seko.

Those who returned home found water sources, health clinics and farms destroyed. Marauding bands of armed men were responsible for mass rape, particularly in the east of the country, which made it much more difficult for women to venture into fields to grow food.

"When war destroys a country's economy and infrastructure, there's no quick fix," said Dr Richard Brennan, one of the survey's authors. "Significant improvement in Congo's health and mortality will require years of unwavering commitment from the government and the international community and substantial financial investment. Sadly, the humanitarian crisis in Congo continues to be overlooked and funding remains disproportionate to the enormity of need."

From: , Environmental Graffiti, More from this Affiliate
Published January 22, 2008 08:35 AM

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/29736

There are no real winners in Africa's many tribal and political conflicts and the list of losers keeps growing.

Animal conservation groups say they have found a link between the decline of African wildlife, much of it threatenedor endangered, and refugee camps. It appears that a thriving black market in illegally caught meat has grown up in the camps due to the lack of animal protein provided by the international aid organizations that provide food for the camps.

Traffic, an organization that monitors the trade in wildlife, has found that bush meat is widely sold, cooked, and eaten in Tanzanian refugee camps. The animals affected are thought to include buffalo, chimps, and zebras.

Tanzania is host to the largest refugee population in Africa, mostly in camps along its western border. Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Burundi have all had violent conflict in recent years and all lie very close to Tanzania, making the country a natural choice for fleeing refugees. But many of the country's wildlife refuges are in the same area as the refugee camps.

The true scale of the bush hunting issue is not yet known, but there have been sharp drops in animal numbers in wildlife parks after influxes of refugees in the past. After 600,000 refugees fled Rwanda in 1994 for a Tanzanian camp near Burigi National Park, animal numbers dropped significantly. Buffalo numbers went from more than 2,600 to just 44, and the 324 Liechtenstein Hartebeest antelopes completely disappeared from the park.

Mark Tran and agencies
Wednesday January 23, 2008
Guardian Unlimited

http://www.guardian.co.uk/egypt/story/0,,2245408,00.html

Click on link for video of the event. 

Tens of thousands of Palestinians today poured into Egypt from Gaza after militants blew up part of the wall between the two territories in protest at an Israeli blockade.

On foot, in cars or riding donkey carts, Gazans burst into the Egyptian border town of Rafah to buy cigarettes, plastic bottles of fuel and other supplies that have become scarce and expensive after months of economic isolation.
"I have bought everything I need for the house for months. I have bought food, cigarettes and even two gallons of diesel for my car," Mohammed Saeed told Reuters.

Many of the Palestinians, some travelling from the northern Gaza Strip, found transport towards the Egyptian coastal town of El Arish, about 40km away.

Others stayed on the Egyptian side of Rafah and clamoured to buy merchandise that has been in short supply in Gaza, even going as afar as emptying some shops.

Hamas, which has controlled the narrow coastal strip since last June, did not take responsibility for knocking the border wall down, but its militants quickly took control as Egyptian border guards stood aside.

Hamas police funnelled the crowds through two sections of the border and inspected bags, confiscating seven pistols carried by one man returning to Gaza.

Palestinian gunmen began blowing holes in the border wall running through Rafah at dawn. There were 17 explosions in all, Hamas security officials said. About two-thirds of the 12km wall was demolished, at one point with the help of a bulldozer.

Hamas expressed support for the move, saying: "Blowing up the border wall with Egypt is a reflection of the ... catastrophic situation which the Palestinian people in Gaza are living through due to the blockade."

By REUTERS
Published: January 24, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-leone-diamonds.html

KOIDU, Sierra Leone (Reuters) - The battle for Sierra Leone's eastern diamond fields fuelled its 11-year civil war, but now the muddy pits are being returned to farming under a scheme funded by U.S. luxury jewelers Tiffany & Co.

As normal life broke down at the start of the 1991-2002 war, farmers tore up their crops around the eastern town of Koidu in the hope of finding precious stones. People dug up their gardens, the roads, even the floors of their homes.

Many residents, who fled as the army and Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels clashed for control of the diamond pits, returned to find a ravaged landscape dotted with craters.

From: ReutersENN News
Published January 23, 2008 08:21 AM

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/29488

By Chris Buckley

BAODING, China (Reuters) - Dusty villages far from China's capital are paying their own price for the government's plan to stage a postcard-perfect Olympic Games, enduring shrunken crops, drained wells and contention over lost land and homes.

China is rushing to finish canals to pump 300 million cubic meters of "emergency" water to Beijing for its "green" Games, ensuring a lush, sparkling host city greets the world in August.

The 309 km of channels and pipes cut into Hebei province, next to the capital, will take water from farming country already beset by drought and environmental strains.

Villagers watching a frantic "100-day battle" to complete the main canal by a late-April deadline wondered how much of the price of a leafy Beijing they should bear.

"For the country, it's a good thing. It will bring water to Beijing so everything runs smoothly," said Shi Yinzhu, herding sheep near the 100-metre wide canal in Tang county.

"But for us here, they had to pump away underground water to dig the canal and we've lost a lot of land too ... Sometimes you wonder if they need all the water more than us here."

China is determined to make 2008 a live-to-air affirmation of its economic miracle. But Beijing's plan to draw water from its parched neighbor also dramatizes the environmental blowback from the country's explosive, city-skewed growth.

"There have been many basic problems with the geology and local circumstances that just weren't anticipated," Dai Qing, a Beijing environmental activist long critical of government policy, said of the Olympics water project.

"But the fundamental one is they don't have enough water in northern China to begin with. Why should they pay such a heavy price for Beijing?"

Monday January 21 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jan/21/environmental.debt1 

The environmental damage caused to developing nations by the world's richest countries amounts to more than the entire third world debt of $1.8 trillion, according to the first systematic global analysis of the ecological damage imposed by rich countries.

The study found that there are huge disparities in the ecological footprint inflicted by rich and poor countries on the rest of the world because of differences in consumption. The authors say that the west's high living standards are maintained in part through the huge unrecognised ecological debts it has built up with developing countries.

"At least to some extent, the rich nations have developed at the expense of the poor and, in effect, there is a debt to the poor," said Prof Richard Norgaard, an ecological economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the study. "That, perhaps, is one reason that they are poor. You don't see it until you do the kind of accounting that we do here."

Using data from the World Bank and the UN's Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the researchers examined so-called "environmental externalities" or costs that are not included in the prices paid for goods but which cover ecological damage linked to their consumption. They focused on six areas: greenhouse gas emissions, ozone layer depletion, agriculture, deforestation, overfishing and converting mangrove swamps into shrimp farms.

The team calculated the costs of consumption in low, medium and high income countries, both within their borders and outside, from 1961 to 2000. The team used UN definitions for countries in different income categories. Low income countries included Pakistan, Nigeria and Vietnam, and middle income nations included Brazil and China. Rich countries in the study included the UK, US and Japan.

From: BMJ-British Medical Journal
Published January 25, 2008 09:30 AM

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/30011 

See Full Article

Climate change will have a huge impact on human health and bold environmental policy decisions are needed now to protect the world's population, according to the author of an article published in the BMJ today.

The threat to human health is of a more fundamental kind than is the threat to the world's economic system, says Professor McMichael, a Professor of publichealth from the Australian National University. "Climate change is beginning to damage our natural life-support system," he says.

The risks to health are many, and include the impact of heat waves, floods and wildfires, changes in infectious disease patterns, the effect of worsening food yields and loss of livelihoods.

The World Health Organisation estimates that a quarter of the world's disease burden is due to the contamination of air, water, soil and food — particularly from respiratory infections and diarrhoeal disease.

Climate change, says Professor McMichael, will make these and other diseases worse. While it is unlikely to cause entirely new diseases it will alter the incidence, range and seasonality of many existing health disorders. So, for example, by 2080 between 20 and 70 million more people could be living in malarial regions due to climate change.

The adverse health impacts will be much greater in low-income countries and vulnerable sub-populations than in richer nations.

Wednesday, January 30
Institute of Latin American Studies
Brownbag: Ecological Consequences of Land Use Change in the Sonoran Desert with Professor Alejandro Castellanos, Universidad de Sonoro, Mexico
12:00 pm to 2:00 pm
IAB, Room 802

Ethnic conflict takes hold in Kenya's slums

http://www.guardian.co.uk/kenya/story/0,,2248971,00.html

Xan Rice in Kibera, Nairobi
Wednesday January 30, 2008
The Guardian

Some carried golf clubs: an old fairway wood, a lofted iron, a silver putter. A young man swung a hockey stick. Others clutched pieces of plumbing pipe, rubber whips, slingshots made of rope, melon-headed clubs straight from an Asterix comic, hammers, axes, and bows and arrows. But the weapon of choice was the panga, or machete, sharpened against the railway track as if it were a whetstone.

"Everybody has to have something to defend themselves," said Jacob Otieno, a member of the Luo ethnic group, standing among a large group of angry men in the Mashimoni area, deep in Kibera, Kenya's largest slum. "They cannot just wait to be killed like a chicken in a hotel kitchen."

http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2008/01/25/l-eau-ou-l-alimentation-seront-des-sources-de-conflits-potentiels_1003643_3234.html?xtor=RSS-3208 

LE MONDE | 25.01.08 | 15h19  •  Mis à jour le 26.01.08 |

Dans son rapport sur les risques mondiaux 2008, le Forum économique mondial a mis en avant la crise financière, mais aussi l'insécurité alimentaire, face à l'envolée des prix constatée en 2007. Quel message êtes-vous venu délivrer aux participants du sommet de Davos ?

Je veux leur faire prendre conscience que, pendant longtemps, nous avons ignoré une question fondamentale : tout être humain a besoin de manger chaque jour. On a considéré qu'il était évident qu'on aurait suffisamment d'aliments, alors que de nombreux facteurs auraient dû nous préoccuper. La demande alimentaire mondiale ne cesse d'augmenter avec la population, et le changement climatique provoque sécheresses et inondations. Début 2007, les stocks mondiaux étaient au plus bas depuis 1980, et, début 2008, ils avaient encore baissé de 2 %.

Rappelons quelques chiffres : 854 millions d'humains ne mangent pas à leur faim, la population mondiale va passer de 6 à 9 milliards d'ici à 2050, et 70 % des pauvres sont des ruraux. Pourtant, aucune priorité n'a été accordée à l'agriculture.

Nous sentons une préoccupation croissante à Davos. La FAO _(Organisation pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture)_va proposer deux grandes réunions durant l'année 2008, une conférence de chefs d'Etat sur la sécurité alimentaire mondiale et le défi du réchauffement climatique en juin, et une seconde sur le thème "comment nourrir le monde en 2050 ?" en novembre. Parce que gouverner le monde, c'est prévoir. Notre rôle en tant qu'agence de l'ONU est d'offrir les conditions de la réflexion aux leaders mondiaux.

Quel impact peuvent avoir des prix alimentaires élevés ?

Si nous ne trouvons pas de mécanismes de régulation techniques et économiques, l'eau ou l'alimentation seront sources de conflits potentiels. En juin 2007, la FAO a mis en garde contre des crises sociales que pourrait provoquer la hausse des denrées agricoles. Des manifestations ont d'ailleurs eu lieu en Indonésie, en Mauritanie, au Sénégal, en Guinée ou au Yémen.

Quelle solution préconise la FAO pour calmer les tensions ?

Il faut discuter tous ensemble de ce contexte très complexe. Il est lié à la demande en biocarburant, elle-même liée au prix du gaz et du pétrole, et aussi à la demande alimentaire des pays émergents, qui évolue en quantité et en qualité. Le fait que de plus en plus de personnes consomment de la viande et du lait aura un gros impact sur les quantités d'eau et de céréales nécessaires. Toutes ces demandes s'exercent sur des ressources limitées. Il faut prendre des décisions politiques et stratégiques à ce sujet, collectivement.

Vous semblez regretter que certains pays, comme l'a fait la Chine, prennent des mesures isolément...

Pour des raisons structurelles, la situation (sur les marchés agricoles)_ne va pas changer du jour au lendemain. En 2007, l'envolée des prix a eu un impact sur les capacités d'importation de produits alimentaires de certains pays. La facture totale a atteint un record, à 747 milliards de dollars _(506 milliards d'euros). Pour les pays en développement, elle a augmenté de 25 %. Parallèlement, nous avons vu des Etats prendre des mesures restrictives avec des taxes aux exportations ou des fixations de prix. Ce n'est pas avec des décisions unilatérales que le problème se réglera.

La FAO a, pour sa part, lancé un programme catalytique pour encourager des donateurs bilatéraux et multilatéraux à aider les agriculteurs des pays pauvres à acquérir des semences et des engrais, dans le but d'augmenter la production.