Search Results for: South Africa

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FIRST phase of an Africa Stockpiles Programme has been approved by the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) – the initiative aims to eliminate in the continent stockpiles of obsolete pesticides, including persistent organic pollutants (POPs).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
LITTER collection and refuse disposal can pose environmental health hazards, so surely cities and towns would be cleaner if waste was sucked underground by a futuristic sucking mechanism. Sounds like the 22nd century, but actually, Swedish firm Envac Centralsug is already offering such a service.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SATELLITE images from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) have shown how evaporation and water abstraction are shrinking many lakes in Africa. Without such sustainable management, “we face increasing tensions and instability as rising populations compete for life’s most precious of precious resources,” it said.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SATELLITE images of the shrinking Aral Sea in central Asia have long horrified environmentalists, but now similar creeping disasters are threatening the many fresh water and brackish lakes of Africa. These are illustrated by disturbing satellite images within an atlas produced by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).…

BY MONICA DOBIE
AN ENVIRONMENTAL organisation has blamed American businesses for dodging safe, but costly recycling methods for their used computer equipment by shipping them to developing countries in an insincere show of philanthropy, which actually causes severe environmental damage.

A report called ‘The Digital Dump: Exporting Reuse and Abuse to Africa,’ written by the Seattle-based Basel Action Network, says the bulk of used computer equipment sent from the United States to developing countries for use in homes, schools and businesses is often neither usable nor repairable.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WITH the EU banning imports of poultry and poultry meat from Romania, Turkey and Croatia, because of outbreaks in these countries of bird flu, European and global health authorities are concerned about the disease moving to sub-Saharan Africa, where it would be almost impossible to stamp out.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
TRADITIONAL health practitioners could contribute significantly to HIV prevention in Africa by promoting safe birthing practices, condoms, and voluntary testing, while discouraging practices such as skin piercing, child and sexual abuse, says the World Health Organisation (WHO).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN AFRICAN Union (AU) sponsored expert meeting, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, has backed a ‘Plan of Action’ aimed at “the recognition; acceptance; development and integration of traditional medicine by all (AU) member states into the public health care system in the region by 2010”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN INTERNATIONAL alliance of environmental and conservation organisations is to develop a bird flu early warning system, alerting countries, and even communities, of a looming risk posed by migrating wild birds that may carry the disease. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), Wetlands International, Birdlife International and the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation are planning to help the scheme.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has renewed anti-dumping duties imposed upon imports into the EU of steel ropes and cables from India (30.8%), China (60.4%) including those routed through Morocco, Ukraine (51.8%) including Moldova-routed products and South Africa (38.6%).…