By Richard Black, Environment correspondent, BBC News13 July 2012 A new survey shows lemurs are far more threatened than previously thought. A group of specialists is in Madagascar – the only place where lemurs are found in the wild – to systematically assess the animals and decide where they sit on the Red List of […]
By Rohit Kachroo, NBC News in Niger, West Africa19 June 2012 One-and-a-half-million children are in imminent danger of starvation in West Africa, according to The United Nations Children’s Fund, despite recent pledges of international aid. As world leaders gathered for the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development, aid workers warned there were only four weeks left […]
By Clar Ni Chonghaile, www.guardian.co.uk25 May 2012 NAIROBI – Even as drought persists in parts of Kenya’s arid north, intense rains are claiming lives in other parts of the country – flooding slums in the capital Nairobi, sweeping away hikers in the Rift Valley, and destroying crops. Many Kenyans shake their heads in dismay at […]
By Katie Nguyen, AlertNet; Additional reporting by Laurie Goering in London and Katy Migiro in Nairobi2 May 2012 LONDON (AlertNet) – It was designed to increase production and exports of vegetable oil, a commodity in short supply after World War Two, and foster growth in post-war Britain and Tanganyika. Instead, Britain’s scheme to carve out […]
By Louise Sarant3 April 2012 Habib Ayeb is a Tunisian geographer and professor at the American University in Cairo’s Social Research Center. His domain of research includes social-geography, governance, poverty, marginality, hydro-politics and geopolitics. He shares his work between Tunisia and Egypt, where he has spent 15 years of his life, studying Egyptian farmers and […]
30 March 2012 (Médecins Sans Frontières) – The annual “hunger season” seems likely to be particularly serious in the Sahel this year, and a few particular regions may face acute nutritional crises in the coming months. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is therefore expanding its nutritional activities to address the seasonal “peak” in malnutrition […]
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN7 April 2012 ISN’T it interesting that the Arab awakening began in Tunisia with a fruit vendor who was harassed by police for not having a permit to sell food — just at the moment when world food prices hit record highs? And that it began in Syria with farmers in the […]
Global mean sea level has already risen by about 25cm since the 1800s, and the pace is accelerating. Levels rose by approximately 1.8mm per year over the last five decades, doubled to 3.1mm per year in the 1990s, and were 2.5mm per year in the period 2003–2007. Sea level rise is caused by melting glaciers […]
By Rachel Nuwer26 March 2012 Reeking of infection, the elephant stumbled into the Tanzanian camp where Thomas Appleby works as a safari manager. Its back legs festered with gangrene radiating from the open, pungent wounds that the animal had evidently endured for at least two long weeks. Ivory poachers had shot the elephant in both […]
By Olasunkanmi Akoni and Johnbosco Agbakwuru26 March 2012 Lagos – Following the prevalence of heat wave in Lagos State and other parts of the country in the past two weeks, the Lagos State Government has urged residents to reduce the time they stay in the sun by staying indoors more. Environmental experts have also blamed […]
