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#14 of 18 Posted 3/22/05 5:49 PM

From Gerard <Sysop> Posts 82654 Last 3/19/09
To Gerard <Sysop> [Msg # 193083.14 193083.1 ] (Unread)

       UN Pilot Project Aims to Give Africa Clean Energy

RTos 21/03/2005 23:55

Copyright 2005 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved.
The following news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of Reuters Ltd.

    By Jeremy Lovell
     BREADSALL, England (Reuters) - As heavily indebted Africa sinks under rising oil prices, a U.N.-sponsored project aims to give the continent access to vast reserves of cheap, clean energy.
     The African Rift Geothermal facility project aims to tap the heat trapped in rocks deep beneath the floor of the geological feature that runs from the Red Sea to Mozambique.
     "Oil today is $57 a barrel. That is sucking up every cent of development aid to Africa," a spokesman for the U.N. Environment Programme said on the margins of a meeting of environment and development ministers from the Group of Eight rich nations.
     "It is a huge problem for Africa. This really is a matter of life and death. This could be the answer to their prayers," he told Reuters.
     A recent report by the U.S. Geothermal Energy Association calculated that the hot rocks beneath the rift valley could produce up to 6.5 gigawatts of energy.
     But to date only Kenya is making any effort to exploit the resources that literally lie under their feet -- and even then there are only 121 megawatts of geothermal electric power installed.
     The Rift Valley runs through Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania and Malawi through Mozambique.
     "The potential benefit for these energy-starved countries is vast," the UNEP spokesman said.
     A paper prepared for the World Geothermal Congress in Turkey in April makes the point that not only is geothermal energy an environmentally clean power source, but in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti it is the only indigenous energy source.
     But there are huge technical let alone financial obstacles to overcome first.
     The existing drilling technology -- mostly based on oil exploration -- is not suited to the very high temperatures experienced when trying to tap geothermal sources and start-up costs can be prohibitive.
     The UN and its partners are busy raising the finance for the pilot project which they hope will get under way this year.

#15 of 18 Posted 3/22/05 5:50 PM

From Gerard <Sysop> Posts 82654 Last 3/19/09
To Gerard <Sysop> [Msg # 193083.15 193083.1 ] (Unread)

       Africa Is Last Hope for Big Asian Cats

RTos 21/03/2005 23:55

Copyright 2005 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved.
The following news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of Reuters Ltd.

    By Ed Stoddard
     LAOHU VALLEY RESERVE, South Africa (Reuters) - The big cat does not look out of place as it strides across the arid landscape, tail twitching and muscles rippling.
     But this is a remote corner of Africa and the animal is an Asian "import" -- a rare South China tiger.
     Born in a Chinese zoo and named "Hope," he was brought to South Africa as a cub with his mate "Cathay" for a groundbreaking experiment that may be the last chance to save the species from extinction -- a "rewilding program" aimed at encouraging the animals to hunt on their own.
     The ultimate goal is for them to breed and impart their hunting skills to their offspring -- who will be then be sent to a reserve in China.
     "We are giving them the opportunity to develop their survival skills," said biologist Gus van Dyk, who developed the "rewilding strategy."
     "I am confident it can work. If you look at how domestic cats hunt for birds you see that it is instinctive," he said.
     With only about 10 to 30 left in the wild and another 60 in captivity, the Chinese sub-species of the tiger clan is perched precariously on the brink of oblivion.
     All five tiger sub-species, including the Bengals of India and the huge Siberians of Russia's Far East, are highly endangered.
     Feared as man-eaters but revered as majestic symbols of the wild, there are only a few thousand of the striped cats left in Asia, where they are being squeezed out by habitat loss in the face of swelling human populations.
     Hence the decision to bring some to the land of the lion.
     Now two years old, Hope and Cathay began hunting birds but have moved onto bigger prey.
     They are now successfully killing blesbok, a white-faced African antelope that is similar in size to the deer species the tigers would encounter in the wild in China.
     The odds are stacked in the tigers' favor at the moment as they are in a 153-acre enclosure, into which the unsuspecting blesbok are periodically released.
     They will soon be moved to a 1,483-acre camp where they will have to work harder for their meals and where they will encounter a bigger variety of game, including wildebeest.

     STRONG AND HEALTHY
     In preparation for that move, the cats were recently tranquilized and fitted with collars with radio tracking devices.
     They were also examined by a vet who declared them to be healthy and strong. Hope weighs around 200 pounds and could grow to 264 pounds or so.
     This is small compared to other members of the tiger group but he looks no less intimidating.
     "In the bigger area we will need to monitor their movements with the collars as it is very hilly," said Li Quan, the founder of the "Save China's Tigers" foundation and the driving force behind the rewilding effort.
     The entire preserve -- known as the Laohu Valley Reserve -- is a huge 81,540 acres and is comprised of 17 former sheep farms tucked in a dry and dusty corner of South Africa's Free State province.
     Its fairly open and rocky landscape differs markedly from the forested reserves where the animals will probably be sent to in China.
     But if they can hunt in open spaces then experts say they should find it even easier to stalk their prey in thick bush.
     Laohu means "old tiger" in Chinese but the reserve only has young ones at the moment.
     Another breeding pair, Madonna and Tiger Woods, arrived in October. Both are around a year old and are in the early stages of their "rewilding" program.
     Every few days they are fed a freshly shot springbok -- a small antelope abundant in the area -- which the male eagerly grabs by the neck, wrenching it from his keeper's hands.
     "It is revealing that they instinctively know to go for the neck," said Quan.
     The entire experiment may ultimately not work. But as Tiger Woods tears into the springbok, his mouth crimson with blood, he looks to have all the makings of a natural-born killer.

#16 of 18 Posted 3/22/05 5:50 PM

From Gerard <Sysop> Posts 82654 Last 3/19/09
To Gerard <Sysop> [Msg # 193083.16 193083.1 ] (Unread)

   Gyroscope Problem on Space Station No Threat :NASA

RTos 21/03/2005 23:54

Copyright 2005 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved.
The following news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of Reuters Ltd.

    By Irene Klotz
     MELBOURNE, Fla. (Reuters) - The loss of a gyroscope on the International Space Station poses no threat to the orbiting outpost, a NASA official said on Thursday, adding the space agency planned no immediate servicing mission.
     The gyroscope shut down on Wednesday after a circuit breaker popped. Its failure left the space station with just two of its four positioning gyroscopes working.
     "We don't see an immediate need to go change (the circuit breaker)," space station program manager Bill Gerstenmaier told reporters during a teleconference.
     Only two of the devices were needed to keep the station properly positioned in orbit, he said.
     The breaker is located outside the station in a truss assembly and would require a spacewalk for servicing. The failure is believed to be due to a design flaw, as about 12 other identical components had failed over the years, Gerstenmaier said.
     If another gyroscope should fail, the station would automatically switch over to using its thrusters for alignment. Using the small rockets would eat into the station's limited supply of fuel.
     NASA wants to conserve propellant -- as well as oxygen, air purifiers, water and food -- to build up a stockpile of supplies in case space shuttle astronauts have to use the station as an emergency shelter, a plan proposed by the board that investigated the shuttle Columbia accident.
     Shuttle flights, which have been on hold since the February 2003 accident that killed seven astronauts, are scheduled to resume in May. The station's circuit breaker failure and loss of the gyroscope would have no impact on the shuttle flight schedule, Gerstenmaier said.
     Columbia was destroyed as it flew through Earth's atmosphere for landing. NASA did not realize the ship had a hole in its wing, caused by a piece of foam insulation that had fallen off the shuttle's fuel tank during launch.
     Even if engineers had realized the danger to Columbia, the crew, which was on a free-flying research mission, had no place to go. After the accident, NASA decided to fly shuttles to the space station for use as a haven in case of trouble.

#17 of 18 Posted 3/22/05 5:53 PM

From Gerard <Sysop> Posts 82654 Last 3/19/09
To Gerard <Sysop> [Msg # 193083.17 193083.1 ] (Unread)

      G8 Agrees Need for Action on Logging, Africa

RTos 21/03/2005 23:54

Copyright 2005 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved.
The following news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of Reuters Ltd.

    By Jeremy Lovell
     BREADSALL, England (Reuters) - Environment and development ministers from the Group of Eight rich nations agreed on Friday on the need to act against the scourge of illegal logging and to help Africa survive global warming.
     But the two-day meeting, the first of its kind, committed the G8 members only to voluntary bilateral actions to end the multi-billion dollar trade in illegal timber.
     Environmental groups reacted angrily to the declaration, saying it was a "missed opportunity."
     The meeting had never been expected to take any action on Africa, as this will be the task of the G8 summit in July. And U.S. opposition to any concerted action on tackling the illegal timber trade meant that agenda item, too, was never going to produce any concrete results.
     "What was most noticeable was the degree to which everyone was singing from the same hymn sheet -- everyone understanding the links between dire poverty and environmental degradation," British Environment Minister Margaret Beckett told reporters.
     But environmentalists saw the outcome differently.
     "From our point of view this is another missed opportunity. They know what needs to be done but just lack the political will," Stephen Tindale, the head of Greenpeace in Britain, told Reuters.
     Tony Juniper, head of Friends of the Earth, said: "This statement follows a long tradition of disappointments from the G8 over environmental policy. It is predictably short of details," he said.
     TOUGH MEASURES
     Britain, as head of the G8 this year, had wanted the group to agree a series of tough measures including new trade laws to curb the illegal timber trade that is estimated to be worth $15 billion a year -- 40 percent of which enters G8 countries.
     But the United States, while agreeing there should be help given to the logging nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America to end the illegal side of the lucrative business, was adamant there should be no change to existing trade rules.
     In the end the meeting agreed that each would act according to their own circumstances under existing WTO rules to bring an end to the trade that is devastating rain forests in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
     The ministers met in a country hotel 120 miles north of London that was surrounded by a wall of steel and 2,000 police to deter protesters.
     British Prime Minister Tony Blair has put Africa and global warming at the top of the agenda for the G8 summit at the Gleneagles golf resort in Scotland in July, and most of this week's meeting was in preparation for that.
     Central to the discussions on Thursday and Friday was Blair's Africa Commission report published last week with ambitious plans to slash debts, make world trade fairer and give millions of dollars more in better directed aid.
     Acknowledging the report, the meeting agreed on the need for unspecified international action to combat climate change and mitigate its effects in Africa.
     The United States has dismissed calls for massive debt relief and British plans for a major new aid financing vehicle, which are the core of the Africa Commission report.
     The Anti-G8 movement, in a dry-run for Gleneagles, had offered a prize for anyone hitting a minister with a pie, planting a skull and cross-bone flag on the 18th hole of the hotel's golf course or invading British environment minister Beckett's room. In the end, no one even tried.

#18 of 18 Posted 3/22/05 5:54 PM

From Gerard <Sysop> Posts 82654 Last 3/19/09
To Gerard <Sysop> [Msg # 193083.18 193083.1 ] (Unread)

   S.America Wetlands May Be 'Next Everglades'-Report

RTos 21/03/2005 20:21

Copyright 2005 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved.
The following news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of Reuters Ltd.

    By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
     OSLO (Reuters) - Giant South American wetlands are under threat from farming and house building and could shrink like Florida's Everglades last century, a study by U.N. experts said on Tuesday.
     The report also said that global warming of 3-4 degrees Celsius could wreck 85 percent of the world's remaining wetlands from Bangladesh to Botswana, home to thousands of animal and plant species.
     Soybean and sugar cane farming, gas pipelines, roads, factories and towns are squeezing the Pantanal, the world's largest freshwater wetlands, that straddles parts of Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia, the report said.
     "When you talk about environmental problems in Brazil you think about the Amazon. But people underestimate the importance of the Pantanal," Paulo Teixeira, leader of the report and head of the Pantanal Regional Environment Programme, told Reuters.
     "The Pantanal is under threat from climate change and human pollution."
     Large parts of the Pantanal, an area bigger than Greece measuring 63,710 sq miles, are pristine, he said.
     But there were worries that it could become the "next Everglades," the wetlands in the U.S. state of Florida, withering under farms and homes since the 1940s and whose national park covers a fifth of their historic territory.
     The remote Pantanal, however, does not face comparable pressures from millions of people drawn by Florida's balmy climate and dazzling beaches.
     The Pantanal act as a sponge regulating flows to the Paraguay River and Parana River. Teixeira urged the three nations sharing the wetland to cooperate closely and avoid damaging a region which is home to 650 species of birds, 190 species of mammals from jaguars to giant anteaters, 270 types of fish and 1,100 different butterflies.
     "Climate modification may cause some wetlands to dry up, and others to increase in size, fundamentally altering their ecology, biodiversity and species composition," said the report, published on World Water Day.
     The scientific panel to the United Nations projected in 2001 that world temperatures could rise by 1.4-5.8 C by 2100. That could in turn trigger catastrophic droughts, floods and storms and raise sea levels by melting icecaps. Some scientists dismiss those projections as based on unreliable models.

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2008 World News Archive

AP:RT:Environ Science Computers 22 Ma...

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