The Sudan government has been accused of engaging in ethnic cleansing operations in the vicinity of Talisman and Lundin oil installations in western Upper Nile. A senior official of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM), Taban Deng Gai, who is currently in the affected area, confirmed that the government launched a six-day offensive in Mayom and Leer counties last December 31, involving approximately1,500 ground troops supported by helicopter gun-ships.

Somalia lost many things as a result of having no government for over a decade during the 90s, but one of the least obvious was an ability to protect its environment. But one woman has been of critical importance in Somalia's environmental crisis. Now in her mid-fifties, Fatima Jibrell has made it her life's work to fight back. She founded the Horn of Africa Relief and Development Organisation (Horn Relief) in the early 1990s and also coordinates the Resource Management Somali Network (RMSN), which includes environmental groups throughout the Horn of Africa.

South African tourism could be affected due to loss of habitats and biodiversity as a result of climate change, according to a study produced by the Energy & Development Research Centre (EDRC), at the University of Cape Town. The study said tourism, which contributes as much as 10% of GDP, was the biggest potential economic loss to the country as a result of climate change. Other findings included a warning that forests, small but locally valuable in terms of commercial production of timber and non-timber products, stood to be “entirely lost”.

KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Agriculture and Environment Affairs Narend Singh is to visit the scene of a toxic spill in the Stanvac Canal, Merebank, South Durban.
Related Link:
* Residents overcome by gas
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A river and communities poisoned by a cyanide spill from a gold mine in 2001 may have been hit by another spill from the same mining company. Water from an abandoned underground mine within the mining concession of Goldfields Ghana Ltd. has seeped into the Asuman River in the Wassa West District of the Western Region, sparking fears of contamination and a worsening health situation for area communities.

Nowhere is southern Africa's food crisis more acute than in Malawi. Out of a total population of 11 million people, more than three million run the risk of starvation due to a combination of flooding and drought. But Malawi has a saving grace. Natural wonders of lake and mountain and wildlife are attractive to tourists, and the government is moving to enhance the country's tourist drawing power.

Honey Care Africa, an IFC-supported small business whose supply chain has doubled the incomes of some of Kenya’s poorest people, is the winner of a prestigious United Nations sustainable development award. The firm has received the Equator Prize, a US$30,000 cash award honoring community-based poverty reduction initiatives in countries on or near the Equator, home to the world’s greatest concentrations of both biological wealth and human poverty.

Sitting in a small compound of mud-brick houses, and shacks made of shrub branches and plastic, 24-year-old Adey Hillow may not look much like a trend-setter, but she is actually at the cutting edge of some innovative technology. The wood-box solar cooker she is using to prepare lunch for her husband, infant and three other relatives holds the promise of saving forests by using simple sunlight - instead of scarce firewood - to prepare traditional African meals.

The industrialised North continues in its attempts to send its hazardous waste ships to be scrapped in the shipyards of the developing South, threatening human health and the environment in those nations, charged activists as delegates gathered this week for the conference of the Basel Convention on hazardous waste trade.

Africa’s largest-ever scientific study of how the continent is gradually splitting apart was unveiled on Thursday. Experts from around the world have gathered in Addis Ababa for the international project which will reveal how Africa is breaking up along the East African Rift Valley.

A South African zoo is celebrating the birth of seven red pandas in a captive breeding program designed to save the species from extinction. Red pandas are smaller relatives of the better known giant pandas, which are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity. Several zoos around the world are successfully breeding red pandas, but fewer than 2,500 adults are believed to be left in the wild.

No action has been taken to remove a dozen drums of highly toxic calcium cyanide, which have been discovered at an abandoned mine, in the Namib Desert outside Swakopmund in October last year.

Environmentalists want the Government to protect the environment and to reclaim thousands of hectares of forest land, demanding a tangible policy on environmental protection and the cessation of forest destruction for human settlement and timber products.

Lack of funds and partial lack of awareness and the failure to commit full-scale attention to conservation of birds by Nigeria and many African countries in the past, may have stalled the interest of overseas non-governmental agencies' activities, a Daily Trust newspaper investigation has revealed.

A combination of bad weather, late deliveries of seeds and fertiliser could condemn Lesotho to another disastrous harvest this year, World Food Programme officials say.

A combination of bad weather and late delivery of seeds and fertiliser could condemn Lesotho to another disastrous harvest this year, World Food Programme officials say.

By the time police swept into the poshest suburb of Malawi's capital and surrounded the high red walls of house number 159 it was too late. Peter Wang had disappeared, leaving behind a family, a criminal empire and a gaping hole in what was supposed to be a triumph over elephant poaching.

An international scheme has been launched to try to stop the proliferation of "blood diamonds". The Kimberley Process aims at cracking down on the multi-billion dollar trade in the gemstones which have been mined in war zones.

Is the formal education system the best avenue for delivery of effective environmental education? Can Ethiopia's newly decentralised educational administrations work with other arms of government and farmers to tackle the short-term and unsustainable resource exploitation patterns which imperil prospects of ever achieving food self-sufficiency?

Work on a future rhino sanctuary in Nakasongola district has started. Rhino Fund Uganda Executive Director Yvonne Verkaik said in a statement that over 1200 square meters of bush had already been cleared for an airstrip where flown in rhinos, tourists and emergency veterinary supplies will land.