MANADO, Indonesia (AFP) — The destruction of the world’s oceans due to climate change and overuse is a “life and death issue” for humanity, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Thursday. “We must come to the rescue of the oceans. We must save them from the ravages of abuse and over-exploitation by humankind, from the […]
In this year’s updated IUCN Red List on birds, six species were down-listed from Critically Endangered to Endangered, but eight species were up-listed to Critically Endangered, leading to the highest number of Critically Endangered birds ever on the list. In all 1,227 bird species (12 percent) are currently considered threatened with global extinction. … Updated […]
From Calculated Risk: The first graph shows weekly claims and continued claims since 1971. The four-week moving average is at 630,500, off 28,250 from the peak 5 weeks ago. Continued claims are now at 6.56 million – an all time record. … Unemployment Claims: Continued Claims Surge Past 6.5 Million Technorati Tags: financial collapse
By Lucy Williamson BBC News, Manado, Indonesia The world’s most important coral region is in danger of being wiped out by the end of this century unless fast action is taken, says a new report. The international conservation group WWF warns that 40% of reefs in the Coral Triangle have already been lost. The area […]
By Jeremy Hance A few weeks into the bluefin tuna fishing season and Turkey has decided to go it alone. Breaking international agreements, the Turkish government has announced that it will ignore agreed-upon bluefin tuna quotas. The news is not good for the survival of the critically-endangered fish species, since Turkey operates the largest Mediterranean […]
By Catherine Brahic Millions of frogs are shifted around the world each year for sale as pets and food. Now research shows, for the first time, that this global trade is spreading two severe diseases – one of which is blamed for driving amphibians towards extinction. Last year the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) […]
By Andy Coghlan THE ongoing degradation of the Amazon rainforest has obscured the plight of its smaller sibling: the Atlantic forest in Brazil, which is a biodiversity hotspot. Once covering about 1.5 million square kilometres, the rainforest has been reduced to about one-tenth of its original area in the past 500 years, a new study […]
Rio De Janeiro, Brazil (AFP) May 7, 2009 – An acute drought in Brazil has hit the famed horseshoe-shaped Igauzu falls which straddle two countries, cutting back the tumbling waters to reveal the rocky sides. Only a third of the usual volume of water is now flowing over the top of the stunning falls, which […]
Beijing (AFP) April 23, 2009 – Air pollution in China’s cities remains very serious, state media on Thursday quoted a minister as saying, amid an ongoing battle to clean up the skies in the world’s largest coal-consuming nation. … China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal and its appetite for the cheap […]
Following the loss of an ice bridge on the Antarctic Wilkins Ice Shelf, the northern ice front is now becoming unstable. The first icebergs broke off at this point on 20 April 2009. This was observed by scientists using the TerraSAR-X Earth observation satellite operated by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und […]
