Updated: 2010-02-28 11:51:40
The number of women having babies has fallen for the first time in nearly 10 years, according to official figures. The drop in pregnancies follows a 10-year baby boom which saw the population pass 61 million, according to the Office of National Statistics. Pregnancy rates fell in all groups apart from those women aged over [...]
Updated: 2010-02-28 11:48:59
Ministers and officials from more than 135 nations converged on Nusa Dua, on the Indonesian island of Bali, this week for the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) annual meeting, the biggest grouping of environment officials since climate talks in Copenhagen last year. UNEP’s executive director, Achim Steiner, told reporters on Friday that environmental governance reform [...]
Updated: 2010-02-28 11:44:55
Parts of the UK could face water shortages, rapidly rising house prices and threats to wildlife and landscapes without major changes to how land is managed, a report warned today. The chief scientific adviser, professor John Beddington, said sticking with “business as usual” management of land was not an option in the face of pressures [...]
Updated: 2010-02-28 11:41:56
An iceberg the size of Luxembourg has split off from the Antarctic continent and could disrupt global ocean patterns and weather systems for decades, according to scientists. The 985 sq mile (2,550 sq km) block of ice was knocked off the Mertz Glacier Tongue, a spit of floating ice protruding from eastern Antarctica, on February [...]
Updated: 2010-02-28 10:57:31
U.N. agencies have warned they will have to start scaling back aid to a quarter of a million people uprooted by conflict in northern Yemen unless donors commit more money for the provision of food, water and other life-saving relief. Following a fragile ceasefire which came into effect on Feb. 11, aid agencies want to [...]
Updated: 2010-02-28 10:55:15
Chad lacks the human resources and health services needed to tackle a looming hunger crisis that threatens around 2 million people in the central African country, a senior U.N. official said on Friday. Drought has led to a 35 percent fall in crop production, with one-fifth of the population facing food shortages. The rate of [...]
Updated: 2010-02-28 10:52:28
There’s something a bit different about the three Rafik brothers as they show off their fields of lanky green trees, grown from the rich and rare soils of Wadi Dahr. Unlike three-quarters of Yemeni men on the afternoon of a day off, there are no little green flecks around the teeth of Abdullah, Nabil and [...]
Updated: 2010-02-28 10:48:30
‘New Scientist’ book review of ‘Among the Great Apes’ by Paul Raffaele :
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2010/02/stephanie-pain-contributor-the-washington.php
Updated: 2010-02-28 10:34:57
WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran on Friday urged doctors and medical experts to put their knowledge to work to support the battle against malnutrition, a factor in 10,000 child deaths every day. Speaking at the Royal Society of Medicine in London, Sheeran said that the world already had the ability and knowledge to tackle the [...]
Updated: 2010-02-28 00:09:29
India, the world’s second most populous country, announced today that it is coming on board the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) campaign to cover the world with billions of trees, pushing the total number planted so far to more than 10 billion since the movement started in 2006. The South Asian nation is one of [...]
Updated: 2010-02-01 17:53:39
Thanks to Tim Murray for this article from IPS News. Below it, see the reaction by environmental writer Leon Kolankiewicz.
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Marco Tulio Guerra went to work as usual that morning at the meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. But his life was turned upside down when immigration agents swept into his workplace and arrested him along [...]
