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Archive for May 27th, 2010
Palestinians seek slice of agribusiness “gold mine”
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 27th, 2010
Reuters: Palestinian farmer Nasser Ismail hopes the dates he is growing in the Jordan valley will win him supermarket shelf space in Europe from his Jewish settler neighbors who sell the same crop at a premium. More and more Palestinians are turning to date palms in the search for ways to make a living from West Bank land farmed by their families for generations. Today, many struggle to survive. West of the biblical river, a sluggish, 100-km (60-mile) stream which forms the border with ...
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Namibia: Biodiversity Loss Increasing
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 27th, 2010
AllAfrica: IT is sad that world leaders have failed to significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss, Environment and Tourism Minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah said on Friday. This, she said, is according to the third edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook officially launched by UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon on May 10. Nandi-Ndaitwah said the targets have not been met and instead biodiversity loss is on the increase. "The consequences of this collective failure, if not ...
United States: Analysts expect little price effect from shutdown
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 27th, 2010
Associated Press: The flow of oil through the trans-Alaska pipeline system could resume as early as Thursday after the 800-mile line was shut down this week due to a contained spill. Operator Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. reported "significant progress," with power restored to a pump station, crews beginning to drain oil from a storage tank that overflowed, and cleanup and oil recovery under way. "The next step is startup," spokeswoman Michelle Egan said, though she noted that needs to be a ...
Singapore closes popular beaches after oil spill
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 27th, 2010
Agence France Press: Emergency crews on Thursday rushed to clean up popular public beaches stained by an oil slick on the eve of Singapore's summer school holidays. A pungent chocolate-coloured sludge marred the seawater and sand in parts of the East Coast Park after crude spilled from a tanker damaged in a collision on Tuesday in the Singapore Strait slipped out of a floating cordon. Officials said that most of the spill was still far from the shores of the city-state, which has one of the world's ...
Teaming Up To Fight Climate Change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 27th, 2010
Voice of America: The U.S., Mexico and Canada are teaming up to fight another environmental threat linked to human activity: global climate change. Scientists in the U.S. believe that phasing out HFCs would produce environmental benefits equal to removing the greenhouse gas emissions of 420 million cars each year through 2050. In 1985, research scientists in Antarctica discovered a thinning of the layer of ozone gas above the earth that protects life here from the sun's ultraviolet rays. ...
Bridge to Drive Urban Growth in Heart of Amazon
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 27th, 2010
Inter Press Service: The 74 pillars that will hold up the bridge over the Negro river to join this major city in Brazil's Amazon jungle to nearby urban districts have mostly been laid, without environmental protests or major debates on the impact of a fast-growing metropolitan area in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. The 3,595-metre long bridge is a symbol of the triumph of the automobile over river transport in an area where rivers have historically been the only highways. The bridge will join ...
Wishing upon a czar: Experts want oil-spill chief
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 27th, 2010
Associated Press: A White House once ridiculed for having too many czars is now being criticized by disaster experts and a former oil company president for not having one: an oil-spill czar. Obama administration officials find that criticism hard to stomach. They say there is clearly someone in charge, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, and he's been cleaning up oil spills and other messes for decades, including the aftermath of 2005's Hurricane Katrina. His title is national incident commander, and even ...
Obama suspends Arctic oil drilling plans
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 27th, 2010
Guardian: The Obama administration is suspending proposed exploratory drilling in the Arctic Ocean. The US interior secretary, Ken Salazar, will say in a report to the White House today that he will not consider applications for permits to drill in the Arctic until 2011. Shell Oil was poised to begin exploratory drilling this summer on leases as far as 140 miles offshore. An administration official familiar with the plan said Salazar wanted to allow further study of proposed drilling ...
Indonesia to halt deforestation
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 27th, 2010
BBC: Indonesia will introduce a two-year moratorium on deforestation to help tackle climate change, the country's president has said. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono made the announcement in Norway on the eve of a climate conference in Oslo. The decision is part of a deal reached with Norway, which has agreed to contribute up to $1bn (£694m) to help preserve Indonesia's forests. Deforestation can lead to significant levels of carbon dioxide emissions. "We will conduct a ...
Indonesia puts moratorium on new forest clearing
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 27th, 2010
Reuters: Indonesia will place a two-year moratorium on new concessions to clear natural forests and peatlands under a deal signed with Norway aimed at reducing greenhouse gases, the government said in a statement. Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday witnessed the signing of an agreement in Oslo under which Norway will invest $1 billion in forest conservation projects in Indonesia. "In the second phase of the ...