By Jaymi Heimbuch, San Francisco, California on 04.12.10 In Mundaka, an area west of Delhi, India, the largest plastics scrap market in Asia was set on fire. The entire area, about 4 kilometers, burned and goods worth Rs 50 crore were lost to the flames. The fire appears to have been set deliberately, potentially a […]
By KYM AGIUSApril 13, 2010 – 9:35AM Maritime authorities have pulled off an incredibly complex salvage operation without spilling any more oil into Great Barrier Reef waters. Nine days after the coal carrier Shen Neng 1 ran aground on Douglas Shoal off Rockhampton it’s been refloated, and is now anchored in safe waters. Maritime Safety […]
Upstream and lower dams could render the Mekong Delta unviable, and China’s intransigence in building them and refusing to share information about their operations will negatively impact the lives of more than 60 million people. “China has plans to construct up to eight dams in total, some sources say the number could rise to fourteen. […]
April 7, 2010 – 12:35PM (AAP) A marine expert says part of the Great Barrier Reef faces a damaging double whammy from an oil leak and chemicals used to disperse it. Associate Professor Peter Harrison, the director of Marine Studies at Southern Cross University, says coral spawning could be affected later this year. Several tonnes […]
By Staff WritersVientiane (AFP) April 4, 2010 Fisherman Phimmalang Sengphet paddles his boat to the sandy banks of the Mekong River in Laos and inspects his meagre haul. “We can’t even catch enough to feed ourselves,” he says wearily. The 38-year-old was able to net more than 10 kilos (22 pounds) of fish a day […]
Kevin Rudd, the Australian prime minister, has promised to review shipping rules after a Chinese coal ship ran aground as a result of taking an “outrageous” short cut through the environmentally sensitive Great Barrier Reef. By Bonnie Malkin in SydneyPublished: 12:33PM BST 06 Apr 2010 Mr Rudd, who on Tuesday flew over Douglas Shoals where […]
SAFFRON HOWDEN, TOM ARUP AND BEN CUBBYApril 6, 2010 A PLUG made of compressed coral and held in place by water pressure is likely to be the only thing stopping more than 900 tonnes of oil gushing from a grounded bulk coal carrier onto the Great Barrier Reef. Salvage experts – some from the team […]
In this photo taken on Friday, March 19, 2010, a farmer works in a poppy field in Marjah, Afghanistan. When U.S., Afghan and NATO forces stormed Marjah in February, they were instructed to seize large opium stashes but leave farmers’ poppy fields alone. (AP Photo / Dusan Vranic) The Big Picture: Afghanistan, March, 2010 Technorati […]
By John Platt Traditional Ayurvedic medicine could face an uncertain future as 93 percent of the wild plants used in the practice are threatened with extinction due to overexploitation, the Times of India reports. The Botanical Survey of India recently prioritized 359 wild medicinal plant species and conducted an assessment throughout the country to determine […]
The government of Norway announced on April 1st, perhaps hoping the unseemly news would be lost amid the fictitious headlines of the day, that the country’s whale hunting quota would be raised to the highest level in 25 years: 1286 whales can be killed this season. The announcement has some animal protection groups scratching their […]
