By MASAKAZU HONDA22 April 2013 FUKUSHIMA (Asahi Shimbun) – Radioactive cesium levels exceeding 100,000 becquerels per kilogram were measured in mud accumulated at the bottom of swimming pools at two high schools in and around Fukushima city. Mud in the pool of a third high school in Minami-Soma, which is closer to the crippled Fukushima […]
[Part 1: ‘Skull is removed, brains eaten alive’: Like the drug trade, wildlife trafficking is big business in Asia] By Jerrie Demasi19 April 2013 (Sydney Morning Herald) – “Mum, you need to be more patient,” says nine year old Cambodian Bo Pa. Her adoptive mother sits across the table of a red-and-gold-clad Chinese Restaurant in […]
By Jeremy Hance16 April 2013 (mongabay.com) – A survey late last year found that the Yangtze finless porpoise (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis) population has been cut in half in just six years. During a 44-day survey, experts estimated 1,000 river porpoises inhabited the river and adjoining lakes, down from around 2,000 in 2006. The ecology of […]
[Part 2: Raiding the dark animal underbelly of wildlife trafficking – ‘4-star generals kept tigers in cages in their living rooms, bears were behind most restaurants waiting for their paws to be cut off’] By Jerrie Demasi19 April 2013 (Sydney Morning Herald) – Would you purchase an endangered tiger’s tooth as a cure for acne? […]
14 April 2013 (NPR) – It’s widely known that the world’s icecaps are melting. While most people are focused on what we’re losing, some have considered what might be gained by the disappearance of all that ice. In 2008, the U.S. Geological Survey released a report estimating that 13 percent of the world’s remaining undiscovered […]
By Jeremy Hance9 April 2013 (mongabay.com) – In the remote Russian far east, amid pine forests and long winters, a great cat may be beginning to make a recovery. A new survey estimates that the Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis) population has risen to as many as 50 individuals. While this may not sound like […]
Andrew Brandler, the CEO of CLP Group, Hong Kong’s biggest utility, talks about how Asia plans to balance its soaring energy demands with the planet’s need to wean itself from fossil fuels. By David Whitford, editor-at-large8 April 2013 (Fortune) – China Light and Power’s roots are more than a hundred years deep in Hong Kong. […]
By EDWARD WONG1 April 2013 BEIJING (The New York Times) – Outdoor air pollution contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths in China in 2010, nearly 40 percent of the global total, according to a new summary of data from a scientific study on leading causes of death worldwide. Figured another way, the researchers said, China’s […]
By Olga Dobrovidova25 March 2013 (RTCC) – Climate change was back in the spotlight for the Russian media last week, with doomsday-style predictions of more extreme weather events, rapidly warming Arctic and growing global average temperatures. The scary headlines literally say stuff like Arctic temperatures might rise by up to 7 degrees by 2100 compared […]
By Tasneem Raja19 March 2013 (Mother Jones) – Ten years later, the Bush administration’s projected price tag for the war in Iraq seems downright cute. According to the first-ever comprehensive count of the true toll of the combined wars, the estimate the administration used to sell the invasion in 2003 was about 100 times too […]
