Kenya: Panic in Mau as eviction nears

Nairobi — With exactly a week to go before a deadline for those settled in a section of the Mau Forest complex expires, thousands of anxious settlers are grappling with the inevitability of eviction. A two-pronged plan in the past week has cleared any doubts on the government’s determination to get the settlers out and […]

Goodbye, snows of Kilimanjaro

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com, November 02, 2009 The most recent survey among the ice fields atop Mount Kilimanjaro found that the ice atop Africa’s most famous mountain could be gone in twenty years—and maybe even sooner. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science the study [pdf] was conducted by a team of […]

China seeds clouds in wheat-growing areas to ease drought

BEIJING (Reuters) – Many Chinese wheat-growing provinces in the north seeded clouds over the weekend to help end a persistent drought and encourage the growth of winter wheat. In Shandong, one of the country’s major wheat-growing areas, jets and rockets were used to bring rain and ease the drought that had hit 800,000 hectares of […]

Kenya: Floods Displace Hundreds of Families

Posted Thursday, October 29 2009 at 14:13 More families were displaced in Mandera Central district as heavy rains continue to pound the area for the last three days in row. Millions of property including food rations were destroyed in flash flood that also cut off many roads in the North-Eastern Province. The displaced families who […]

Kenya: after drought comes deluge of floods and destruction

By Standard Team Flooding has claimed three lives, displaced hundreds and cut off towns following heavy rainfall, even as meteorologists warn it would get worse. The most affected areas are Coast and North Eastern provinces, which have seen a sudden increase in rainfall in line with the Meteorological Department’s forecast in August that flooding, would […]

Strategy to save koalas from extinction 'laughable'

By DARREN CARTWRIGHT, November 1, 2009 NEW Queensland Government planning laws to protect dwindling koala numbers in the state’s south-east are laughable, the Australian Koala Foundation says. Climate Change and Sustainability Minister Kate Jones yesterday announced measures to protect the marsupials’ habitats. The measures include spending $15 million to buy new habitats or rehabilitate existing […]

Graph of the Day: 24-month Precipitation Surplus/Deficit for Texas

The image, from the state climatologist’s report, shows 24-month precipitation surplus/deficit expressed as standard deviations at the peak of the drought. Darkest red shows 3 standard deviations, and corresponds to the areas of record-setting drought. At that moment, (late August) San Antonio had received less than two feet of rain over the preceding two years. […]

Gaza thirsts as sewage crisis mounts

By Heather Sharp, BBC News, Gaza Gaza’s aquifer and only natural freshwater source is “in danger of collapse,” the UN is warning. Engineers have long been battling to keep the densely populated strip’s water and sewage system limping along. But in September the UN Environment Programme warned that damage to the underground aquifer – due […]

Fleeing drought in the Horn of Africa

A new kind of refugee has arrived: Those forced from their home regions not by war or persecution, but by the climate. A Kenyan camp is bursting with the displaced, some of whom share their stories. By EDMUND SANDERS, October 27, 2009 DADAAB, Kenya: For centuries, Adam Abdi Ibrahim’s ancestors herded cattle and goats in […]

Ethiopia demands urgent food aid for 6.2 million people

By Staff Writers, Addis Ababa (AFP) Oct 22, 2009 Twenty-five years after Ethiopia’s famine killed a million people and spurred a massive global aid effort, the government appealed Thursday for help for more than six million facing starvation. State Minister for Agriculture Mitiku Kassa said the drought-stricken country needed 159,000 tonnes of food aid worth […]

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial