Rhino poaching deaths set for record high in 2013 – Veterinarians race to save mutilated animals with horns and parts of their faces ripped away by poachers

By Alex Crawford, Special Correspondent, in the Eastern Cape20 September 2013 (Sky News) – The number of rhinos killed in South Africa looks set to exceed last year’s record total. With just three months left in 2013, the number of rhinos killed is more than 500 and appears almost certain to top 2012’s death toll […]

China battens down the hatches, crosses fingers as Typhoon Usagi strikes – Hong Kong officials warn residents of ‘astronomically’ high tides and storm surge

By Kenneth Rapoza 21 September 2013 (Forbes) – It’s 08:30 in southeast China. And people from Hong Kong to Shenzhen are bracing for what will likely go down as the strongest storm of 2013. Typhoon Usagi, called a “monster super storm” by the Washington Post, and the “hell storm” by the Drudge Report is already […]

Typhoon Usagi hits Taiwan, Philippines, nears Hong Kong, posing ‘severe threat’ to the city – Storm dumps 520 millimeters (20 inches) of rain along the eastern and southern coasts of Taiwan in 20-hour period

TAIPEI, Taiwan, 21 September 2013 (AP) – The most powerful typhoon of the year swept through the Luzon Strait separating the Philippines and Taiwan on Saturday, battering island communities with heavy rains and strong winds as it headed straight for Hong Kong. Typhoon Usagi weakened from a super typhoon – those with sustained winds of […]

Video: ‘Beast of a storm’ Typhoon Usagi to batter SE Asia – More than 1000mm (39 inches) of rain expected for the Philippines and Taiwan

20 September 2013 (BBC News) – Typhoon Usagi, which is likely to be the most powerful typhoon of 2013, is set to drench the Philippines and Taiwan with a month’s rainfall in just a few days. The tropical hurricane had speeds of up to 175 km/h (110 mph), and is expected to move north towards […]

Super typhoon Usagi, strongest storm on Earth in 2013, may strike Hong Kong Sunday

By Jason Samenow19 September 2013 (Washington Post) – In the last 24 hours, a cyclone in the west Pacific has explosively intensified, and is on a track towards Hong Kong. The storm – named Usagi – has achieved super typhoon status, after an amazing burst in its peak winds from 75 mph Tuesday to over […]

Butchering nature’s titans: Without the elephant ‘we lose an essential pillar in the ability to wonder’

By Jeremy Hance 12 September 2013 (mongabay.com) – Africa’s elephant poaching crisis doesn’t just threaten a species, but imperils one of humanity’s most important links to the natural world and even our collective sanity, according to acclaimed photographers and film-makers, Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson. Authors of the book Walking Thunder – In the Footsteps […]

Image of the Day: Satellite view of record heat wave in China, 5-12 August 2013

By Holli Riebeek16 August 2013 (NASA) – For the entire month of July and the first half of August, eastern China baked in a record-breaking heat wave. Nineteen provinces endured above-normal temperatures. Shanghai broke its all-time record high three times in as many weeks. The current record—40.8 degrees Celsius (105.4°F)—was set on 7 August 2013. […]

Image of the Day: Satellite view of record floods inundating Russia’s Far East, 8 September 2013

By Holli Riebeek10 September 2013 (NASA) – The extreme floods that have been threatening northeastern China and the Russian Far East are slowly moving north along the length of the Amur River. The bulge of flood water has now reached Komsomolsk-on-Amur, a Russian city of about 500,000 people. The flood overwhelmed a dam, and the […]

Giant fish kill along 19-mile stretch of central China river caused by ammonia release from chemical plant

By NEIL GOUGH4 September 2013 HONG KONG (The New York Times) – Thousands of dead fish floating along a 19-mile stretch of a river in Hubei Province in central China were killed by pollutants emitted by a local chemical plant, provincial environmental officials said Wednesday. Environmental protection officials said tests on water taken from the […]

Graph of the Day: Top ten countries with most internal displacement in 2012

13 May 2013 (IDMC) – The IDMC 2012 dataset includes displacement information reported on disasters in 82 countries. The ten countries with the most new displacement in 2012 also had at least one event recorded in the top 20 largest displacement events listed in section 3. In 2012, as for 2008-2012 overall, the same five […]

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