We begin with a number from the Associated Press:
UN: Fight against Ebola to cost $600 million
At least $600 million is needed to fight West Africa’s current Ebola outbreak, the World Health Organization announced Wednesday, as the death toll shot up by about 400 in a week to more than 1,900 people.
Experts warn Ebola could spread beyond the five West African countries that are already hit: Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone.
The top priority is providing protective gear to health workers in the affected areas and ensuring that they receive hazard pay, said Dr. David Nabarro, who is coordinating the U.N. response to the unprecedented outbreak.
More numbers from Reuters:
West Africa Ebola death toll accelerates to more than 1,900: WHO
More than 1,900 people have died in the world’s worst outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, the head of the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, marking a major acceleration in fatalities from just over 1,500 last week.
Margaret Chan told a news conference in Washington that 3,500 confirmed or probable cases of Ebola have been reported in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia as of this week. The death toll from this outbreak is now higher than in all the previous epidemics since the disease was first detected in 1976.
International Business Times questions:
Ebola Outbreak 2014: How Bad Could It Get?
The Ebola outbreak currently gripping West Africa has killed over 1,550 people out of 3,069 known cases in five countries – Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone – and could affect some 17,000 more before the epidemic is over, according to the World Health Organization. Riots have broken out in quarantined areas, isolation centers are overwhelmed, experimental vaccines are still far from ready and health workers who have not fled the region are either getting infected or are already sick.
“It is the world’s first Ebola epidemic, and it’s spiraling out of control,” Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Tuesday. A CDC spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
The fatality rate of the disease is, on average, just 50 percent, but some outbreaks of Ebola have had a fatality rate of up to 90 percent. Experts warn that the virus could spread beyond the handful of West African countries where it has already taken hold. A coordinated response to the historic Ebola outbreak – the largest and deadliest in human history – is underway, but health officials fear the ongoing effort to contain the virus is not enough.
Reuters charts expansion:
Guinea detects Ebola in new region as U.S. warns outbreak out of control
Guinea’s government said on Wednesday that Ebola had spread to a previously unaffected region of the country, as U.S. experts warned that the worst ever outbreak of the deadly virus was spiraling out of control in West Africa.
Guinea, the first country to detect the hemorrhagic fever in March, had said it was containing the outbreak but authorities announced that nine new cases had been found in the southeastern prefecture of Kerouane.
The area, some 750 km (470 miles) southeast of the capital Conakry, lies close to where the virus was first detected deep in Guinea’s forest region. The epidemic has since spread to four other West African countries and killed more than 1,500 people.
From Agence France-Presse, a first-person account:
In bed with Ebola
At 4:00am in an Ebola hot zone — when you feel flushed, a little run-down and itchy from the prickly rash developing on your ankle — paranoia can creep in.
Did that kid touch me on the arm? Did that old guy who was spitting everywhere look sick? Did I touch my face before washing my hands after that interview? Is this a headache coming on? Is this a fever?
“Hot zone” is a term virologists use for the centre of an outbreak of a maximum Level Four Biological Hazard — a “hot agent”, the kind of pathogen than can end civilisations.
Ebola is in exulted company in the “hot agent” category, along with weaponised anthrax and smallpox. It’s not much of a choice, but I’d rather be exposed to either of those.
From Al Jazeera America, a trial run:
A dummy run for deadly work: Bridging the Ebola care gap
In Brussels, NGO staffers are being trained to fill the shortfall of field workers in West Africa
In a mocked-up isolation unit in the back of an empty industrial lot, a plastic dummy was sprayed with disinfecting chlorine, carefully lifted and placed in a body bag. Four health care workers shouldered the burden, each dressed head to toe in protective gear and taking a limb as they disposed of the body.
Such precautions may seem out of place in the Belgian capital, but for the volunteers tasked with removing the makeshift corpse at an Ebola training session last week, the dangers could become very real very soon. While a mistake here, during a mock scenario with a mannequin, would not mean much in terms of personal danger, out in the field in West Africa it could very well lead to death.
The Ebola outbreak ravaging parts of West Africa has taken a heavy toll on medical professionals. To date, more than 120 health care workers have died, and at least 240 have contracted the disease in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, according to World Health Organization (WHO) figures.
Shortages of protective equipment and a lack of field-experienced medical practitioners deployed in the region have contributed to the high death rate, the United Nations’ health body said. But others have blamed the international community for a response to the crisis they deem inadequate.
The World Health Organization documents spread:
Ebola situation in Port Harcourt, Nigeria
The Minister of Health of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, has now reported 3 confirmed cases of Ebola virus disease in Port Harcourt, the country’s oil hub. Additional suspected cases are being investigated.
Ebola virus was imported into Nigeria via an infected air traveller, who entered Lagos on 20 July and died 5 days later. One close contact of the Lagos case fled the city, where he was under quarantine, to seek treatment in Port Harcourt.
The close contact was treated, from 1 to 3 August, at a Port Harcourt hotel, by what would turn out to be the city’s index case. This case was a male physician who developed symptoms of weakness and fever on 11 August and died of Ebola on 22 August. His infection was confirmed on 27 August by the virology laboratory at Lagos University Teaching Hospital.
The male physician in Port Harcourt is therefore indirectly linked to Nigeria’s first case.
Punch Nigeria indirect victims:
Orphans as newest victims
The latest outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease is driving up the number of orphans and vulnerable children around the world. But the statistics, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund, is worse in West Africa where the death rate is still rising.
Reports from international organisations say that more than 3000 people have been infected with more than 1,500 mortalities recorded so far. In countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone, the disease has been said to wipe out whole families. In other cases, however, majority of the deceased persons were also parents or people who leave one or more children behind.
Before the latest outbreak of the EVD, described as the worst occurrence since it was first discovered in 1976, the population of orphans and vulnerable children, according to UNICEF, stood at 163 million globally. That is more than the population of Nigeria.
And from Punch Nigeria, a reminder of other dangers:
Seven health workers abducted in Rivers
Gunmen suspected to be kidnappers have abducted seven health workers working for the Niger Delta Development Commission in Abua/Odual Local Government Area of Rivers State.
The health workers; four medical doctors, a pharmacist, one dentist and a nurse, were said to have been taken away by their captors at about 11pm on Saturday in Okolomade Community.
It was gathered that the gunmen, who stormed the community with AK-47 rifles, shot sporadically to scare away indigenes before going for their victims.
From TheLocal.at, another European alarm:
Suspected case of Ebola in Vienna
A 45-year-old woman with a suspected Ebola infection has been admitted to hospital in Vienna.
The Nigerian woman was suffering a high fever and headache and had recently returned to Austria from a trip to Nigeria.
She is currently being treated and tested in isolation. Blood samples have been sent to the Bernhard-Nocht Institute in Hamburg for diagnosis. Results should be available within the next 48 hours.
The New York Times discharges:
British Ebola Patient Discharged From Hospital
A British nurse who contracted Ebola in West Africa has fully recovered and was discharged on Wednesday, the Royal Free Hospital in London said.
The nurse, William Pooley, 29, contracted the disease in August while volunteering in Sierra Leone. He was flown to London for 10 days of treatment at the Royal Free Hospital, which has the only high-level isolation unit in Britain, the hospital said in a statement on its website.
Mr. Pooley was treated with the experimental drug ZMapp, although it is not known whether the drug contributed to his recovery.
From the Associated Press, another America afflicted:
Mission group identifies 3rd American with Ebola
The third American sickened with Ebola is a Boston-area doctor who decided to return to Liberia after the two others fell ill with the deadly virus, the president of his missionary group said Wednesday.
Dr. Rick Sacra went back to Liberia about a month ago and was not caring for Ebola patients, instead delivering babies at the missionary group’s hospital in Liberia, SIM President Bruce Johnson said at a news conference.
When a fellow SIM worker and another missionary doctor became sick, Sacra called and said, “I’m ready to go,” Johnson said.
Punch Nigeria documents an important link:
Late P’Harcourt doctor’s sister tests positive for Ebola
The Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, has put the total number of confirmed cases of Ebola Virus Disease in Nigeria at 18. The 18th patient, according to the Federal Government, is the sister of the late Port Harcourt doctor who died of the EVD recently.
A statement issued on Wednesday night by his Special Assistant (Media and Communication), Mr. Dan Nwomeh, said the number of cases successfully managed and discharged was eight while the number of deaths from EVD was seven.
Chukwu also debunked rumours of EVD cases outside Lagos and Port Harcourt, adding that, “regarding the rumoured case in Zaria, the blood sample has been sent for Ebola testing.”
StarAfrica reports an outcome:
Senegal: Ebola tests on quarantined student still positive
The latest blood samples taken from the young Guinean student quarantined at the Fann Hospital in Dakar, Senegal continue to test positive for Ebola, the Ministry of Health and Social Action disclosed.
However, the ministry quickly added that the patient’s condition has greatly improved and that other samples would be tested in the next few days.
The Guinean student who contracted Ebola in his home country traveled to Senegal, where his health status was detected by the Service of Infectious Diseases at the Fann Hospital.
He was admitted and has been quarantined at the same hospital since August 29, 2014.
From the New York Times, panic on the ground:
Video Shows Panic in Liberia as Man Wanders Out of Ebola Clinic
As Liberia struggles to contain the deadliest Ebola outbreak on record, health workers say that fear of the disease, and the stigma of being identified as a possible carrier, is creating a hostile environment for those seeking treatment.
That terror was on display on Monday in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, where at least 270 people have already died of the illness, when a man suspected of having the disease wandered out of a treatment center and sowed panic in a nearby market.
The incident, which was captured on video by witnesses, showed the man, wearing a medical bracelet, being confronted by angry and worried bystanders. He was then surrounded by health workers in yellow protective suits from the international medical group Doctors Without Borders, who eventually bundled him into the back of a pickup truck and returned him to the clinic.
And the video, via euronews:
Ebola patient escapes quarantine, spreads panic in Monrovia
Program notes
A patient suspected of suffering from the deadly Ebola virus left quarantine in Monrovia to search for food at a local market. The video shows him being chased and finally being caught by doctors. He is forced back into an ambulance while scared and angry crowds watched on.
One local woman said care for Ebola patients was so inadequate they were not even being fed. “The patients are hungry, they are starving. No food, no water. The government need to do more,” she said.
More than 1,550 people in four West African countries have died from the virus since the outbreak was first recorded in March. Liberia has the highest infection rate with around 700 deaths out of 1,327 suspected and confirmed cases.
He wasn’t the only runaway, as StarAfrica reports:
S/Leone: Manhunt for runaway Ebola patient
The military and Police in the eastern Sierra Leonean district of Kenema have mounted a manhunt for an Ebola patient who abandoned a treatment center.Health authorities at the Kenema treatment center said Wednesday that 36-year old Daniel Kamara, who was a resident of Makeni in the north of the country, eluded security by jumping over the fence of the facility where he was receiving treatment.
There are fears that his escape poses serious threat to the public in a district already grappling with one of the highest numbers of infections in the country.
Kenema is home to the only fully functional treatment centers in the whole country, meaning it has both a treatment center and a lab for testing for the Ebola virus.
The Hill poses a conundrum:
Who will volunteer to help fight Ebola?
Increasingly desperate health officials are asking for volunteers to help fight the Ebola epidemic that threatens to overwhelm several countries in West Africa.
The United Nations said Wednesday that the healthcare force currently on the ground must triple or quadruple in size very soon if there is any hope to contain Ebola’s spread.
Though officials declined to endorse sending military personnel, they said time was running out fast.
“We are not in a position where we can afford to lose one day,” said David Nabarro, senior U.N. coordinator for Ebola.
StarAfrica names a leader:
S/Leone: Media told to lead anti-Ebola crusade
The media has a leading role to help contain the ongoing Ebola epidemic, a senior presidential aide said in Freetown on Wednesday.Alhaji Ibrahim Ben Kargbo said journalists were needed not just to report on how people could ensure avoiding infection or getting timely treatment, but also sending “messages of hope” that there is a chance for survival for patients.
The media had come under criticism for failing to properly report on the outbreak which was detected in Sierra Leone in May.
The media have been blamed for raising fear among the people which saw the initial display of denial and distrust for health workers.
From Punch Nigeria, a con of the sort every crisis spawns:
Lagos warns Nigerians against fake Ebola test kit
The Lagos State Government on Wednesday warned Lagosians and other citizens in the country not to fall victims of suspected fraudsters who were selling a kit that could purportedly be used to test for Ebola Virus.
The government, in a statement by the Special Adviser on Media to the Governor, Mr Hakeem Bello, explained that the reality on ground was that there was nothing like that.
It added that the product, which was called Rapid Response Canada, was nothing but a hoax to rip-off unsuspecting Nigerians of their earned money.
Another continent, another disease, with Jiji Press:
Dengue Fever Cases Rise to 48
Twelve more people have been confirmed as infected with dengue virus in Japan, raising the total number of dengue fever cases to 48 since the first domestic infection was reported last week, the health ministry said Wednesday.
None of the 12 have traveled abroad recently, but all of them have visited Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park or nearby. Eleven went there last month although it is uncertain when the other person made such a visit.
The 12 people are men and women aged between 10 and 79. Nine live in Tokyo, one in Yamanashi Prefecture, west of Tokyo, another in Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo, and the other one in the northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido.
Another health woe from South China Morning Post:
90 million pill capsules laced with toxic metal are sold in China; 11 arrested
Police in China are trying to trace 90 million drug capsules laced with the toxic metal chromium that have been sold on the open market, in the latest product safety scandal to hit the country.
Eleven people in Zhejiang province were arrested following the discovery that the capsules – which pharmaceutical companies use for their drugs – were tainted with the poison.
Police, along with food and drug authorities in Ninghai county, seized more than 440,000 chromium-laced capsules from an illegal workshop on July 22.
They also confiscated more than 100kg of semi-finished capsules and more than 700kg of capsule material made from industrial gelatin containing the toxin, according to a Zhejiang newspaper hosted by official news agency Xinhua.
Environmental Health News covers more toxic impacts:
Toxic gulls: Quebec’s contaminated bird colony offers clues about flame retardants
The gulls that inhabit Deslauriers Island every summer are the most contaminated colony in Canada when it comes to flame retardants, including one compound that has accumulated in their eggs at concentrations up to 44 times higher than elsewhere.
Although several of these flame retardants were banned a decade ago, they are still showing up in gulls, kestrels and other winged creatures from the Great Lakes to China, prompting scientists to examine where they are lingering, what hidden health effects they are having on birds and what this all might mean for humans.
Research on Deslauriers and in Canadian laboratories indicates that flame retardants are altering birds’ thyroid hormones, reducing their clutch sizes, damaging their eggs, changing their behavior, shifting their gender ratio toward males and weakening their bones.
“Unfortunately for birds they’re the sentinels,” said U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Director Linda Birnbaum, a toxicologist who specializes in the health effects of environmental contaminants.
Still more, via CBC News:
Canadian beekeepers sue Bayer, Syngenta over neonicotinoid pesticides
Class action lawsuit seeks $400 million in damages
Canadian beekeepers are suing the makers of popular crop pesticides for more than $400 million in damages, alleging that their use is causing the deaths of bee colonies.
The class action lawsuit was filed Tuesday in the Ontario Superior Court on behalf of all Canadian beekeepers by Sun Parlor Honey Ltd. and Munro Honey, two of Ontario’s largest honey producers, the Ontario Beekeepers Association announced Wednesday.
The lawsuit alleges that Bayer Cropscience Inc. and Syngenta Canada Inc. and their parent companies were negligent in their design, manufacture, sale and distribution of neonicotinoid pesticides, specifically those containing imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiomethoxam.
After the jump, water woes [including California fires, fracking fights at home and abroad, a polluted inland sea in the Golden State, and mining the Baltic Sea], soaring GMO lobbying costs, threatened landscapes, a cobra on the loose near Los Angeles, and Fukushimapocalypse Now!. . .
Next up, water woes, starting with the lack thereof via the Los Angeles Times:
Northern California wildfire explodes in size; residents evacuate
A wildfire burning along the California-Oregon border grew by 8 square miles overnight Tuesday to become the largest in the state, prompting new evacuation orders, the U.S. Forest Service said.
The Happy Camp Complex fire remains just 15% contained and has burned more than 71,700 acres in the Klamath National Forest since it was ignited by a lightning strike Aug. 11. A thunderstorm that day pummeled the region with lightning strikes and ignited 17 fires; all but three have been extinguished.
The blaze grew more than 5,000 acres overnight, overtaking the July Complex fire, which is 78% contained after burning roughly 40,000 acres.
From the Guardian, in hot water:
Maine lobster and Cape cod under threat from rapidly warming seas
Long-established species flee to colder environment as Gulf of Maine waters heat up faster than 99% of world’s oceans
Imagine Cape Cod without cod. Maine without lobster. The region’s famous rocky beaches invisible, obscured by constant high waters.
It’s already starting to happen. The culprit is the warming seas – and in particular the Gulf of Maine, whose waters are heating up faster than 99% of the world’s oceans, scientists say.
Long-established species of commercial fish, like cod, herring and northern shrimp, are departing for colder waters. Black sea bass, blue crabs and new species of squid – all highly unusual for the gulf – are turning up in fishermen’s nets.
From the Guardian, another source of water woes:
Pro-fracking newspaper ad banned by Advertising Standards Authority
Breitling Energy’s Telegraph advert ‘misled the public’
The Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that a US energy company misled the public when it made unsubstantiated claims about the benefits of fracking and claimed a gas shortage put the UK close to catastrophe.
Breitling Energy’s advertisement in the Telegraph began: “Dear Citizens of the United Kingdom, do you know that your country is blessed with an incredible gift?” It said higher shale gas estimates in the British Geographical Survey were “fantastic news for the UK”.
The ad, published in February, said Britain suffered a “near-catastrophic gas shortage” in early 2013 and claimed that extracting natural gas from shale rock would mean: “decades worth of natural gas”, “millions of pounds in tax revenues”, “freedom from interruptions and stoppages as a result of Russia’s political games with your gas supply”, “lowering energy prices for millions” and “reducing greenhouse emissions by replacing coal with natural gas for energy”.
A reader complained to the ASA that the claims were misleading because they exaggerated the extent of Britain’s gas shortage, the supposed benefits of fracking were not known, and Russia did not supply gas to the UK.
The ASA ruled against Breitling on all counts. It told the company it must not make its claims again and that future ads should be supported by hard evidence.
From the East Bay Express, same problem, closer to home:
A Rush to Judgment on Fracking
Federal regulators are pushing to ramp up fracking in California based on an incomplete study.
Federal regulators announced last week that the US government would start issuing leases again next year to oil companies that intend to frack for fossil fuels on public land in California. This declaration by the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) coincided with the release of a new study that concluded that the direct environmental impacts from fracking in the state “appear to be relatively limited.” The study, however, also attached numerous caveats to its findings, readily acknowledging that the report was based on scant and incomplete data.
In fact, the BLM’s decision to use the study as proof that fracking is safe represents a rush to judgment, environmentalists say, and provides yet another example of a regulatory agency bending over backward to appease industry rather than protect the public and the environment. Moreover, the study also contains some troubling, previously undisclosed findings that raise fresh concerns about the potential for groundwater contamination in the state.
Fracking, also known as hydraulic fracturing, involves shooting massive amounts of water and toxic chemicals deep into the earth in order to break up rock formations and release trapped fossil fuel. The extraction method has been linked to groundwater and air pollution, and the disposal of fracking fluid, which is typically injected back into the ground in new wells, has caused earthquakes in other states.
Another water woe from the Los Angeles Times:
Salton Sea inaction could cause ‘catastrophic change,’ report says
Saving the beleaguered Salton Sea will be expensive, but allowing it to continue deteriorating will cost even more in terms of dollars, unemployment, property values and damage to public health, according to a study released Wednesday by the Pacific Institute.
Straddling Riverside and Imperial counties, the Salton Sea has never attracted the political constituency of the state’s other bodies of water — Lake Tahoe, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta or the San Francisco Bay.
Studies have been done and largely ignored, as the report by the Oakland environmental think tank notes.
But the rotten-egg stench inflicted over much of Southern California in 2012 by the sea is only a taste of what is to come if the Pacific Institute report, financed by the Bureau of Reclamation, is correct.
And another one, via DutchNews.nl:
Company gets green light to mine salt from under Wadden Sea
Salt company Frisia Zout has been given the green light to mine salt from under the Wadden Sea, saying there is no evidence that there will be a significant effect on the sea bed.
Junior economic affairs minister Sharon Dijksma has enraged environmental groups by her decision, which they say will have a serious impact on marine life, the NRC reported.
The Dutch sea research institute NIOZ had also warned about the consequences of allowing drilling, saying the sea bed is likely to drop and sandbanks will shrink, which will threaten the habitat of tens of thousands of migrating birds.
From National Geographic, a water wonder [click on the link for images]:
New Deep-Sea Animal Species Look Like Mushrooms but Defy Classification
A new species discovered off Australia may reshape the animal family tree
A handful of strange mushroom-shaped animals discovered in the deep sea off Australia in the 1980s have finally been named by scientists. The organisms are so unique that they may rearrange the earliest branches of the animal family tree.
The animals, described for the first time Wednesday in the scientific journal PLOS ONE, cannot be classified to any existing animal group, though they resemble a few long-extinct species. “It’s a very interesting surprise, and it poses lots and lots of questions,” says Simon Conway Morris, a biologist at the U.K.’s University of Cambridge who studies early animal evolution.
Leonid Moroz, a neurobiologist at the University of Florida’s Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience in St. Augustine, says that if the new species turn out to be descendants of early animals, the find could “completely reshape the tree of life, and even our understanding of how animals evolved, how neurosystems evolved, how different tissues evolved,” he says. “It can rewrite whole textbooks in zoology.”
Paying for anonymity, via the Guardian:
Opponents of GM labelling triple lobbying spending in 2014
Coca-Cola, Monsanto and other opponents of mandatory labels on genetically modified food have so far spent $27m in 2014
Opponents of mandatory labeling for foods made with genetically modified organisms spent more than $27m in the first six months of this year on GMO-related lobbying, roughly three times their spending in all of 2013, according to an analysis released Wednesday.
The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and major food makers such as Coca-Cola Co and PepsiCo Inc and top biotech seed makers Monsanto Co and DuPont were among heavy spenders on GMO labeling-related lobbying, according to a report issued by the Environmental Working Group.
The group analyzed lobbying disclosure forms that cited labeling of foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) along with other policy issues.
Next up, endangered landscapes, first via BBC News:
Wildflower meadow protection plan ‘backfires’
A bid to safeguard endangered wildflower meadows has backfired, according to an unpublished report by the watchdog Natural England.
Some 98% of English meadows have been lost to intensive farming, but the rate of loss nearly doubled after the EU said it wanted to protect grasslands.
The report says many farmers responded by digging up their meadows before tighter rules could be introduced.
Via the Guardian, another one:
Mining threatens to eat up northern Europe’s last wilderness
Vast network of rivers, lakes and mountains in Finland, Sweden and Norway at risk from being exploited for rare earth and other minerals
Great stretches of Europe’s last wildernesses risk being damaged and polluted as the international mining industry gears up to develop northern Finland, Sweden, and Norway in search of uranium, iron ore, nickel, phosphorus, and valuable rare earth minerals, according to environmentalists.
The prize for British, Australian, Canadian and other companies is billion-dollar mega mines in Lapland, a region which covers all three countries and Russia, able to supply burgeoning industry in Asia.
But conservationists say the rush could bring permanent damage to the vast network of rivers, lakes and mountains which are home to many of Europe’s largest mammals, such as the lynx, wolf, bear and wolverine.
Another one, again via the Guardian:
Tasmanian government rips up ‘job-destroying’ forestry peace deal
400,000 hectares of protected native forest to be opened to logging in move Liberals say will enhance job creation
The Tasmanian government has repealed the state’s forestry peace deal after both houses of parliament passed a vote to scrap the plan on Tuesday evening.
The termination of the four-year peace deal, which ended a 30-year battle between environmentalists and loggers over Tasmania’s forests, will remove 400,000 hectares (988,000 acres) of state-wide native forest from reserves for logging.
The Forestry (Rebuilding the Forest Industry) bill passed the Liberal-dominated lower house after being amended in Tasmania’s upper house.
The bill scraps the forestry peace deal, introduced by the previous Labor government, to allow widespread logging in the protected 400,000-hectare area in six years’ time. The peace deal had provided payment to loggers to move away from felling native forests.
From the Associated Press, volcanoes!:
AP Exclusive: Team seeks N. Korea volcano secrets
More than a thousand years ago, a huge volcano straddling the border between North Korea and China was the site of one of the biggest eruptions in human history, blanketing eastern Asia in its ash. But unlike other major volcanos around the world, the remote and politically sensitive Mount Paektu remains almost a complete mystery to foreign scientists who have — until recently — been unable to conduct on-site studies.
Fresh off their third visit to the volcano, two British scientists studying the mountain in an unprecedented joint project with North Korea say they may soon be able to reveal some secrets of the volcano, including its likelihood of erupting again. They’re collecting seismic data and studying rocks ejected in Paektu’s “millennium eruption” sometime in the 10th century.
“It’s one of the biggest eruptions in the last few thousands of years and we don’t have yet a historical date for it,” Clive Oppenheimer, a professor of volcanology at Cambridge University, told The Associated Press after returning to Pyongyang last week from an eight-day trip to the volcano. “The rocks are a bit like the black box of a flight recording. There’s so much that we can read from the field site itself.”
Next up, Fukushimapocalypse Now!, first with the Asahi Shimbun:
TEPCO coating seafloor at Fukushima port with special cement mixture
Tokyo Electric Power Co. has begun using a special cement mixture to coat the seafloor of the port at its stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant to contain radioactive substances released in the 2011 disaster.
TEPCO said the work was intended to ensure that high concentrations of radioactive materials in the mud and sand do not spread to the open sea.
In going ahead with the operation, officials conceded that it would likely be difficult to later dredge the area to remove the contaminated mud.
“The first priority is to keep the material where it is,” said a TEPCO official. “No decision has been made on whether to recover the (radioactive) mud at some point in the future.”
From NHK WORLD, be prepared:
Nuclear disaster drill at Shika plant
Japan will conduct a nuclear accident preparedness drill in November. The assumption of the drill will be that an accident has occurred at the Shika nuclear power plant on the Sea of Japan coast following an earthquake.
About 70 organizations including government ministries, agencies and municipalities, within a 30-kilometer radius around the plant will participate in the 2-day event.
The prime minister’s official residence in Tokyo, the plant’s off-site emergency operation facility, and the plant will be linked via videoconference to share information.
And for out final item, a real environmental problem, via the Los Angeles Times:
Albino cobra snake on the loose in Thousand Oaks bites dog
Officials are on the hunt for an albino cobra that is on the loose in Thousand Oaks and has already bitten a dog.
Officials with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and local animal control officers were searching the neighborhood around the 1300 block of Rancho Lane for the snake — described as a “very dangerous and venomous” monocled cobra.
The dog that was bitten was taken to a veterinary hospital for treatment, said Brandon Dowling, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control.
