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Archive for August 14th, 2010
Nigeria: NOSDRA Set to Inaugurate Committee On Oil Pollution in Niger Delta
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 14th, 2010
Leadership: As part of the growing efforts to check oil spillage in oil-producing communities of the Niger Delta, the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) is set to formally inaugurate a committee on Environmental Sensitization/Awareness campaign in the region. According to the Head of Public Affairs of NOSDRA, Mr. Henshaw Ogubike, in a statement in Abuja, the resolutions was reached after the recent meeting of the Minister of Environment, John Odey, with captains of Oil and ...
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Rwanda: From bad to worse to what?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 14th, 2010
Ottawa Citizen: In the highlands of northwest Rwanda, heavy summer rains have led to floods, landslides and the expansion of a body of water now known as Lake Nyirakigugu. The lake was named by the local people who live and farm here. During the past few decades it claimed their fields. Now it is taking their homes. Thomas Bizimana, a displaced farmer in Nyabihu District where the lake was born, calls it a "damned curse," remembering when it started to rise and invade the farmland bequeathed ...
Russian Wildfires Threaten With Radioactive Smoke
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 14th, 2010
National Public Radio: SCOTT SIMON, host: With hundreds of wildfires burning across Russia, environmentalists in Moscow sounded a new alarm this week. They say fires could spread into forests that were contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 and release radioactive smoke. NPR's Dan Charles reports that scientists who've been studying this risk say it's a real problem, but not as big as people feared. DAN CHARLES: The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone covers a thousand square miles of Ukraine. ...
Impact of Pakistan floods as bad as 1947 partition, says prime minister
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 14th, 2010
Guardian: Pakistan's government has compared the impact of the country's devastating floods to the country's partition from India as it revealed more than 20 million people had been made homeless by the disaster. The prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, said the country faced challenges similar to those during the 1947 partition of the subcontinent into Hindu-dominated India and Muslim-majority Pakistan in which about 500,000 people were killed in mass violence and thousands of families were ...
Dalai Lama sounds alarm over global warming amid floods
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 14th, 2010
AFP: The Dalai Lama said global warming could be to blame for devastating flooding and mudslides across Asia as he offered prayers on Saturday for victims of the disasters. The Buddhist spiritual leader said he was "deeply saddened" by the loss of lives and destruction of property in Pakistan, India and China, and added he was concerned that the disasters may have been caused by global warming. He also expressed concern about Russia, which is battling its worst-ever forest ...
‘Our job is not finished’ in Gulf oil spill: Obama
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 14th, 2010
AFP: President Barack Obama took a dip in the Gulf of Mexico, and reassured Americans that the government will stand by coastal residents as the massive oil-spill cleanup forges ahead. The president, First Lady Michelle Obama, and their younger daughter, Sasha -- daughter Malia is away at summer camp -- traveled to this Florida panhandle city to talk to local officials and business leaders, and highlight the region's tourist attractions. "Oil is no longer flowing into the Gulf," ...
Pakistan floods: Aid trickles in for victims as cholera spreads in Pakistan’s worst-ever floods
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 14th, 2010
Observer: Two weeks into the worst natural disaster in its history, Pakistan is braced for further flooding as waters in the upper reaches of the swollen Indus river reach critical levels. With more than 1,600 people confirmed dead and as many as 20 million made homeless, the country is reeling from the scale of the catastrophe wrought by torrential monsoon rains. The prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, said Pakistan now faced challenges similar to those during the 1947 partition of the ...