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Archive for August 5th, 2010
Russia struggles against spreading wildfires
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 5th, 2010
Agence France-Presse: Russia struggled Thursday to contain the worst wildfires in its modern history that have killed 50 people, with the blazes spreading to the country's south and raising concerns about radiation levels. With the severest heatwave in Russia in decades impacting areas as diverse as sales of anti-pollution masks and agricultural yields, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin dramatically banned grain exports until December 31. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = ...
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Debate on Dead Sea Divides and Unifies
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 5th, 2010
New York Times: As I write in Thursday`s issue of The Times, the Dead Sea and its depleted waters have become a rare symbol of regional cooperation among the people that share its shores, which stretch across Israel, Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Officials and activists in Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority have joined forces in trying to find solutions to a drop in the water level of the salt lake even as diplomatic progress on other fronts has stalled. But as with most things ...
Brazil: A bridge too far? Brazil’s Manaus-Iranduba crossing
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 5th, 2010
Guardian
Consumers Not Buying Seafood’s Clean Bill Of Health
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 5th, 2010
National Public Radio: Certain areas of the Gulf of Mexico have been given permission to resume commercial fishing. Consumers, however, are still leery about eating seafood from the Gulf since all the oil hasn't been cleaned up yet. Steve Inskeep talks to Ewell Smith, director of the Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board in Louisiana, about the challenge of managing public perceptions about seafood. Don Kramer, acting deputy director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, ...
United Kingdom: From reclaimed islands to urban meadows, nature nurtures us all
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 5th, 2010
Guardian: There is a piece of land – known as Fearns Island – in the middle of the River Aire, just down from Crown Point bridge in Leeds. It used to be home to the Sea Scouts, but now their old huts and weeds and plants wrestle for control. A group of local residents want to turn it into a nature reserve, and I am supporting them. The regeneration of the waterfront in Leeds has been remarkable in the last 20 years, but one thing we need much more of is green places, flowers, plants and ...
Pakistan flood: Sindh braces as water envelops southern Punjab
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 5th, 2010
Guardian: Floodwater rushing down through Pakistan devastated new areas today, flooding parts of southern Punjab and forcing mass evacuations in Sindh. The UN estimated more than 4 million people are now affected by Pakistan's worst flooding in 80 years, which has washed away homes, infrastructure and crops. Parts of southern Punjab were described as "a giant lake". In Sindh, 350,000 people were moved from their homes in low-lying areas near the river as the authorities issued a flood ...
Russia wildfires still spreading – 50 dead
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 5th, 2010
BBC: Russia is still fighting to extinguish nearly 600 wildfires in an emergency that has now claimed 50 lives. Foreign reinforcements are arriving, Russian officials say, including two Canadair water-bombing planes from Italy. Ukraine and Belarus are also sending firefighters. One fire threatens a shelter housing some 1,000 animals in the Moscow area. The Moscow smog eased on Thursday, though an acrid smell persisted from peat fires burning outside the city. The Bim ...
UN incineration plans rejected by world’s rubbish-dump workers
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 5th, 2010
Guardian: The waste-pickers who scour the world's rubbish dumps and daily recycle thousands of tonnes of metal, paper and plastics are up in arms against the UN, which they claim is forcing them out of work and increasing climate change emissions. Their complaint, heard yesterday in Bonn where UN global climate change talks have resumed, is that the clean development mechanism (CDM), an ambitious climate finance scheme designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries, has led ...
Pakistan’s floods are not just a natural disaster
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 5th, 2010
Guardian: First came the Taliban. Then the army. And now the floods. The people of the Swat valley – synonymous with beauty and peace just a few years ago – have cause to wonder if they are the most benighted people in the world. The oppressive and murderous rule of the Taliban, who had almost total control of the north Pakistan valley by the end of 2008, followed by the army's retaliatory operation last year, which seemed to consider civilians entirely incidental to the matter of military strategy, ...
BP gets nod to seal runaway well in Gulf of Mexico
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 5th, 2010
Agence France-Presse: BP got the go ahead to cement over its runaway well in the Gulf of Mexico Thursday, one of the final steps needed to plug the oil spill at the center of the worst US environmental disaster. US officials said oil was rapidly disappearing from the Gulf, but cautioned that a great deal of clean-up work remained and that the long-term impact of the disaster could be felt for years, even decades. In the long-awaited breakthrough, BP brought the well under control Wednesday after ...