By Stephanie Busari, CNN4 January 2012 (CNN) – Car tires were set on fire and gas stations blockaded as hundreds of Nigerians took to the streets to protest the removal of fuel subsidies that saw the price of petrol more than double virtually overnight. Angry Nigerians chanted anti-government slogans and brandished placards in a largely […]
Nairobi, December 30 (allafrica.com) – Severe drought, exacerbated by poverty and conflict, hit at least four countries in 2011 – Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia – displacing hundreds of thousands of people. Thousands in Somalia and Ethiopia began the year by making the dangerous journey to Yemen. Others from these two countries headed for South […]
Video by David Blair22 December 2011 The United Nations says that 250,000 Somalis are suffering from famine in three regions including Mogadishu, a fact that Abdiweli Mohammed Ali, who leads Somalia’s officially recognised government, has denied. “I don’t believe there’s a famine in Mogadishu. Absolutely no,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “You know the aid […]
Contact: Dr Michael Taylor, m.taylor@landcoalition.org, Programme Manager, Global Policy and Africa International Land Coalition Secretariat at IFAD, Tel: +39 065459 2267 The most comprehensive study of large land acquisitions in developing countries to date — published online on 14 December by the International Land Coalition (ILC) — has found more evidence of harm than benefits. […]
In this world of 7 billion people, the global rural-urban balance of populations has tipped irreversibly in favour of cities. But what, exactly, is a “city” in 2011? Hania Zlotnik, the director of the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs cautions against assuming too easy a definition because governments […]
December 21 (AFP) – Ecologists have warned production of frankincense, one of the three gifts the Wise Men gave to the baby Jesus in a key part of the Nativity story celebrated at Christmas, is in dramatic decline. A research team from the Netherlands and Ethiopia says a new study has shown numbers of the […]
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com 19 December 2011 Drought and erratic rains could lead to further food scarcities in Africa warns the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). The WFP singles out South Sudan, the world’s newest nation, and Niger as nations of particular concern. Earlier this year famine killed scores of people, including an estimated […]
By Alan Buis, Alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov, 818-354-0474, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CADecember 14, 2011 PASADENA, California – By 2100, global climate change will modify plant communities covering almost half of Earth’s land surface and will drive the conversion of nearly 40 percent of land-based ecosystems from one major ecological community type – such as forest, grassland or […]
In Ethiopia, a low-income country with 39 per cent of its 82.9 million people living below the international poverty line of $1.25 a day, according to the World Bank, hardship rather than rising expectations and better living standards may be the major factor in motivating young women and men in cities when family choices are […]
By Rachel Cernansky16 December 2011 Over the last decade, more than 200 million hectares of land in developing countries have been sold off in large-scale land transactions that tend to benefit “national elites” while harming the world’s poor and rural populations, according to a new report from the International Land Coalition (ILC). The group calls […]
