By John Roach for National Geographic News December 10, 2009 A decade ago, global climate change was largely considered a problem for the distant future. But it seems that future has come sooner than predicted. One of the most remarkable, and alarming, environmental changes to occur over the last decade is the melting of Antarctic […]
(AAP) — Australia has recorded its hottest six months ever, and is well on track to have the second hottest year since records began, the Bureau of Meteorology says. The World Meteorological Organisation’s annual climate statement released today at Copenhagen found temperatures in 2009 reached 0.44 degrees above the 1961-1990 annual average. “The decade 2000-2009 […]
A major cull of camels is taking place in Australia after residents from a remote outback town complained the animals were destroying their community. The media had been barred from filming the cull but early reports suggested hundreds had been killed only a few hours into the slaughter. Nick Bryant reports from Sydney. Camels culled […]
By Mohamed Ahmed, Reuters Published: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 HARADHEERE, Somalia — In Somalia’s main pirate lair of Haradheere, the sea gangs have set up a cooperative to fund their hijackings offshore, a sort of stock exchange meets criminal syndicate. Heavily armed pirates from the lawless Horn of Africa nation have terrorized shipping lanes in […]
By Holli Riebeek The Ewaso Nyiro River flows down from Mount Kenya to water the dry plains that stretch east from the Great Rift Valley in Kenya. The sparsely populated plains are a haven for wildlife, which rely on the Ewaso Nyiro River as a source of water. Multiple public and private wildlife reserves, including […]
For the week ending 2 December there was welcome rain across the lower half of the Murray-Darling Basin (see Map 1). The highest rainfall was recorded in the Snowy Mountains at Charlotte Pass with 80 mm and in the Victorian Alps with Mt Buffalo receiving 72mm. Notably, many regions such as the Riverina, the western […]
Murray Bridge (AAP) —A mass exodus of dairy farmers is threatening small communities around the lower reaches of the River Murray in South Australia. In the past few years more than 80 per cent of the industry in Murray Bridge has collapsed, taking with it farm employment, property values and even entire families whose spending […]
Phil Mercer, Foreign Correspondent, Last Updated: December 06. 2009 7:47PM UAE / December 6. 2009 3:47PM GMT SYDNEY // Water thieves in Australia are to be targeted by tougher penalties as the authorities promise to protect declining supplies amid a long-standing drought and the threat of climate change. Officials have said vast that amounts of […]
By Staff WritersSydney (AFP) Dec 3, 2009 The rotting carcasses of thousands of wild camelswho have died of thirst in Australia’s desert Outback are polluting vital waterholes and sacred sites, a report said Thursday. The Central Land Council, which administers Aboriginal land in the nation’s arid centre, said the corpses were poisoning water supplies, describing […]
India has long been plagued by unscrupulous moneylenders who exploit impoverished farmers. But with crops failing more frequently, farmers are left even more desperate and vulnerable. By Mark Magnier, 1 December 2009 … Here in the Bundelkhand region in central India that is among the nation’s more impoverished areas, the problem is exacerbated by climate […]
