EU/ERBD News
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Emergency workers battling to limit the damage at Japan’s quake-stricken Fukushima nuclear plant were temporarily pulled back on Wednesday as radiation levels spiked to dangerous levels, said the New York Times. Panic buying was reported in Tokyo, sparked by fears leaked radiation could reach the city, while foreign embassies advised their citizens...
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New research from NASA has boosted the evidence that ice loss from Antarctica and Greenland is accelerating and will soon become the biggest driver of sea-level rise, the BBC reported. Satellite data and climate models indicate the two polar sheets are losing enough ice to push up sea levels by 1.3mm each year. Despite intense lobbying from business, the...
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Burundi has become the sixth upriver Nile country to sign up to an agreement to alter historic water-sharing arrangements, Reuters reported. Egypt, which is almost entirely dependent on the Nile for its water and is under interim military rule, has said it welcomes development cooperation with other basin states, on condition that its own water shares...
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In New Zealand’s worst natural disaster since 1931, at least 75 people were killed when an earthquake struck the South Island city of Christchurch, The Guardian reported. The tremor severely damaged buildings, disrupted water and gas lines and, Reuters said, sent 30 million tonnes of ice from the Tasman Glacier crashing into a nearby lake. ...
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A boom in livestock numbers is fuelling new animal epidemics worldwide and posing more severe problems in developing countries as their food security is threatened, Reuters said, citing a report by the International Livestock Research Institute. The researchers noted a lack of capacity in Africa and Asia to track and control disease outbreaks despite “rapid...
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Saudi Arabia may not have enough reserves to prevent oil prices escalating and may already have achieved “peak oil”, US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks and quoted by The Guardian show. The documents urge that a Saudi oil executive’s warning that crude reserves may have been overstated by nearly 40% be taken seriously. Johannesburg...
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Malaysia is destroying large areas of carbon-rich peat-swamp forests on the island of Borneo to expand oil-palm plantations, Reuters said, citing research by Wetlands International and the Dutch remote-sensing institute Sarvision. Palm-oil companies are under western pressure to halt expansion through forest clearance. India and China remain the oil’s...
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International accords on saving vulnerable forests are having little impact because they do not address core deforestation issues, such as the growing demand for biofuels and food crops, according to the International Union of Forest Research Organisations, Agence France-Presse said. In a report to be presented to the UN Forum on Forests, the group said too...
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A global environmental update
After weeks of massive flooding in Australia’s north-eastern state of Queensland, floodwaters spread south into Victoria, threatening communities along the Lodden River, the Associated Press reported. In Queensland, the waters swamped two-thirds of the state, devastated the country’s lucrative...
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A global environmental update
Australia's third-largest city, Brisbane, was slowly being submerged as unrelenting floodwater swept down the Brisbane River, inundating thousands of homes and businesses, Reuters reported. The central business district in the city of two million people was “a watery ghost town of high-rise towers”,...
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