[Top News] from [REUTERS]
[Environment News]
[Green Business | Russia]
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia
Sat Mar 27, 2010 10:22am EDT
Protesters rally against Lake Baikal's mill operations
｛バイカル湖の工場、操業再開で抗議集会｝
(Reuters) - Small protests took place across Russia Saturday against the reopening of a Lake Baikal paper mill over concerns it was polluting the world's largest freshwater lake.
Around 200 people gathered in St. Petersburg, thousands of kilometers away from the lake, demanding to revoke the government's January decision to restart Baikal Paper Mill.
Another 500 rallied closer to Baikal, which holds a fifth of the world's total surface fresh water, in the city of Ulan-Ude in the Buryat Republic, according to the organizers.
The loss-making Soviet-era factory was shut in October 2008 after the government ordered it to install a system for drainage away from the lake.
Environmentalists and politicians have staged several protests in recent months, saying the waste from the plant contains harmful substances that destroy the lake's rich wildlife of 1,500 species of animals and plants.
"Putin - hands off Baikal" read a banner displayed at the St. Petersburg rally.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signaled in August his willingness to lift the restrictions that prevented the plant from dumping waste into the lake after diving to the bed of the lake and consulting with scientists.
"I worked myself in a paper producing industry," Grigory Borisov, a 45-year-old engineer from St. Petersburg told Reuters. "I know that Baikal is getting polluted and no purifying facility will save the lake."
Several hundred supporters of the factory, which employs 1,600 people, gathered Saturday in the city of Baikalsk, on the shoreline of the lake, which remains sacred for some Siberian tribes, in a rally organized by the mill.
A closure of the mill could lead to another ecological problem for Baikalsk, which would be left without revenues to operate water purifying plants and sewage facilities for the town, the organizers said.
The decision to reopen the Soviet-era mill is seen as part of the government's broader support for Russia's single industry towns, often in remote areas.
The government owns 49 percent of the mill. Tycoon Oleg Deripaska owns a minority stake.
(Reporting by Denis Pinchuk; Writing in Moscow by Lidia Kelly)
[Environment News]
[Green Business]
GEORGETOWN
Sat Mar 27, 2010 2:56pm EDT
Muslims pray for rain in drought-hit Guyana
｛干ばつに悩むガイアナ、イスラム教徒が雨乞い｝
(Reuters) - Muslims across Guyana prayed for rain on Saturday to end a drought that has battered the tiny South American nation's rice and sugar exports and caused food shortages in indigenous communities.
The government of the former British colony of about 750,000 people is struggling to irrigate farmland, with water at storage points reaching dangerously low levels.
The Central Islamic Organization of Guyana (CIOG), which represents Muslims in 145 mosques across the multiethnic nation, organized a day of prayers for rain.
"This activity is consistent with the Sunnah of the Prophet Mohammad beseeching the Creator to cause the rain to descend and alleviate sufferings," said one CIOG leader, Shaykh Moeenul.
Muslims make up about 7 percent of Guyana's population, with Hindus at 28 percent and Christians making up most of the rest across various denominations.
Guyana is one of several countries in the region, including neighboring Venezuela, that have been parched by drought since the end of last year.
"The Amerindian communities are really badly hit," President Bharrat Jagdeo said on Friday of the indigenous people who make up nearly a 10th of Guyana's population. "We have been supplying food to some communities but I need to increase that significantly."
The state-owned Guyana Sugar Corporation said this week that cane growth and development had been affected at five of its eight estates. Replanting had to be cut back on four estates, it said.
Guyana Sugar said the full impact on sugar production would not be known until the end of the second crop of 2010.
Export earnings from sugar fell 10.2 percent in 2009 to $119.8 million from a year earlier and rice export earnings fell 3.3 percent to $114.1 million.
(Reporting by Neil Marks; Editing by John O'Callaghan)
[Environment News]
[Green Business | COP15]
SYDNEY
Sat Mar 27, 2010 11:42pm EDT
Tuvalu to Times Square; landmarks off for Earth Hour
｛アースアワー、ツバルからタイムズスクエアまで、全世界で消灯｝
(Reuters) - Landmarks such as Sydney's Opera House, Beijing's Forbidden City and Taiwan's Taipei 101 office tower temporarily went dark on Saturday as nations dimmed the lights for Earth Hour 2010 to call for action on climate change.
The symbolic one-hour switch-off, first held in Sydney in 2007, has become an annual global event and organizers World Wide Fund for Nature said they expect this year's to be the biggest so far.
The remote Chatham Islands was the first of more than 100 nations and territories to turn off the power at 8:30 p.m. local time, in a rolling event around the globe that ends just across the International Dateline in Samoa 24 hours later.
Tiny Tuvalu, which fears being wiped off the map from rising sea levels, tried to go carbon-neutral for the event, pledging to cut power to its nine low-lying Pacific atolls and asking car and motorcycle owners to stay off the roads, WWF said.
Far to the south in Antarctica, Australia's Davis research station pledged to dim the lights.
As the blackout hour moved across the globe, London's Big Ben and the Paris' Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe flipped the switch. In New York City, the Empire State Building and Chrysler building went dark, as did the Times Square theater district and the United Nations building.
"As we watch the lights go out from continent to continent, let us reflect on the fragility and importance of our natural heritage and pledge to protect it for a sustainable future for all," United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement.
In Los Angeles, the lighted pylons at the entrance to Los Angeles International airport will go green for an hour, then dark during Earth Hour, according to airport officials.
Event co-founder Andy Ridley told Reuters that 126 countries and territories had so far signed up, with thousands of special events scheduled, including a lights-out party on Sydney's northern beaches and an Earth Hour 'speed dating' contest.
The number of participants is significantly up on 2009, when 88 countries and territories and more than 4,000 towns and cities took part. Organizers have estimated between 500 million and 700 million people were involved last year.
In Singapore, more than 1,000 people gathered for an Earth Hour carnival in the city center to watch the lights go out at office towers, hotels and other landmarks.
However, lights could still be seen from some buildings and construction sites, disappointing some in the crowd.
"I'm disappointed because most of the buildings' lights are not switched off," said Mat Idris, 26. "I had expected more support from companies," he added.
Thousands, many of them wearing black Earth Hour T-shirts, joined the main switch-off event in the Philippine capital Manila at the sprawling SM Mall of Asia.
Around 15 million Filipinos were expected to participate, according to WWF, to save the equivalent of 5 million pesos (nearly $110,000) worth of electricity.
Taipei 101, the world's second tallest building, turned off all exterior lights and persuaded 99 percent of its tenants to do the same for an hour, the tower's spokesman said.
"FRUSTRATION"
Ridley, WWF's executive director of Earth Hour, said he believed the perceived failure of last year's Copenhagen conference on climate change had stimulated interest this time.
"There is real frustration with the politics around climate change," Ridley told Reuters.
Business had shown strong support, he said, including the world's major hotel chains, which he said are responsible for a significant chunk of global emissions.
In India, Delhi's Red Fort will go dark, as will the pyramids and the Sphinx in Egypt and Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer statue.
Lights were also scheduled to go out over all the bridges over the Seine in Paris and London's Buckingham Palace and Tower Bridge, while in the United States, more than 30 of the 50 state governors have lent their support.
Some, though, criticised the event.
"To hold a candles-and-champagne party indoors, on the mildest night of the year, for just one hour, shows that the whole thing is green tokenism," said Viv Forbes, chairman of climate change skeptic group the Carbon Sense Coalition.
(Additional reporting by Clement Quek in Singapore, Michael Perry in Sydney, Manolo Serapio Jr. in Manila and Ralph Jennings in Taipei, Chris Michau in New York; Editing by David Fogarty and Doina Chiacu)
[Environment News]
[Green Business | Russia]
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia
Sat Mar 27, 2010 10:22am EDT
Protesters rally against Lake Baikal's mill operations
｛バイカル湖の工場、操業再開で抗議集会｝
(Reuters) - Small protests took place across Russia Saturday against the reopening of a Lake Baikal paper mill over concerns it was polluting the world's largest freshwater lake.
Around 200 people gathered in St. Petersburg, thousands of kilometers away from the lake, demanding to revoke the government's January decision to restart Baikal Paper Mill.
Another 500 rallied closer to Baikal, which holds a fifth of the world's total surface fresh water, in the city of Ulan-Ude in the Buryat Republic, according to the organizers.
The loss-making Soviet-era factory was shut in October 2008 after the government ordered it to install a system for drainage away from the lake.
Environmentalists and politicians have staged several protests in recent months, saying the waste from the plant contains harmful substances that destroy the lake's rich wildlife of 1,500 species of animals and plants.
"Putin - hands off Baikal" read a banner displayed at the St. Petersburg rally.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signaled in August his willingness to lift the restrictions that prevented the plant from dumping waste into the lake after diving to the bed of the lake and consulting with scientists.
"I worked myself in a paper producing industry," Grigory Borisov, a 45-year-old engineer from St. Petersburg told Reuters. "I know that Baikal is getting polluted and no purifying facility will save the lake."
Several hundred supporters of the factory, which employs 1,600 people, gathered Saturday in the city of Baikalsk, on the shoreline of the lake, which remains sacred for some Siberian tribes, in a rally organized by the mill.
A closure of the mill could lead to another ecological problem for Baikalsk, which would be left without revenues to operate water purifying plants and sewage facilities for the town, the organizers said.
The decision to reopen the Soviet-era mill is seen as part of the government's broader support for Russia's single industry towns, often in remote areas.
The government owns 49 percent of the mill. Tycoon Oleg Deripaska owns a minority stake.
(Reporting by Denis Pinchuk; Writing in Moscow by Lidia Kelly)
[Environment News]
[Green Business]
GEORGETOWN
Sat Mar 27, 2010 2:56pm EDT
Muslims pray for rain in drought-hit Guyana
｛干ばつに悩むガイアナ、イスラム教徒が雨乞い｝
(Reuters) - Muslims across Guyana prayed for rain on Saturday to end a drought that has battered the tiny South American nation's rice and sugar exports and caused food shortages in indigenous communities.
The government of the former British colony of about 750,000 people is struggling to irrigate farmland, with water at storage points reaching dangerously low levels.
The Central Islamic Organization of Guyana (CIOG), which represents Muslims in 145 mosques across the multiethnic nation, organized a day of prayers for rain.
"This activity is consistent with the Sunnah of the Prophet Mohammad beseeching the Creator to cause the rain to descend and alleviate sufferings," said one CIOG leader, Shaykh Moeenul.
Muslims make up about 7 percent of Guyana's population, with Hindus at 28 percent and Christians making up most of the rest across various denominations.
Guyana is one of several countries in the region, including neighboring Venezuela, that have been parched by drought since the end of last year.
"The Amerindian communities are really badly hit," President Bharrat Jagdeo said on Friday of the indigenous people who make up nearly a 10th of Guyana's population. "We have been supplying food to some communities but I need to increase that significantly."
The state-owned Guyana Sugar Corporation said this week that cane growth and development had been affected at five of its eight estates. Replanting had to be cut back on four estates, it said.
Guyana Sugar said the full impact on sugar production would not be known until the end of the second crop of 2010.
Export earnings from sugar fell 10.2 percent in 2009 to $119.8 million from a year earlier and rice export earnings fell 3.3 percent to $114.1 million.
(Reporting by Neil Marks; Editing by John O'Callaghan)
[Environment News]
[Green Business | COP15]
SYDNEY
Sat Mar 27, 2010 11:42pm EDT
Tuvalu to Times Square; landmarks off for Earth Hour
｛アースアワー、ツバルからタイムズスクエアまで、全世界で消灯｝
(Reuters) - Landmarks such as Sydney's Opera House, Beijing's Forbidden City and Taiwan's Taipei 101 office tower temporarily went dark on Saturday as nations dimmed the lights for Earth Hour 2010 to call for action on climate change.
The symbolic one-hour switch-off, first held in Sydney in 2007, has become an annual global event and organizers World Wide Fund for Nature said they expect this year's to be the biggest so far.
The remote Chatham Islands was the first of more than 100 nations and territories to turn off the power at 8:30 p.m. local time, in a rolling event around the globe that ends just across the International Dateline in Samoa 24 hours later.
Tiny Tuvalu, which fears being wiped off the map from rising sea levels, tried to go carbon-neutral for the event, pledging to cut power to its nine low-lying Pacific atolls and asking car and motorcycle owners to stay off the roads, WWF said.
Far to the south in Antarctica, Australia's Davis research station pledged to dim the lights.
As the blackout hour moved across the globe, London's Big Ben and the Paris' Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe flipped the switch. In New York City, the Empire State Building and Chrysler building went dark, as did the Times Square theater district and the United Nations building.
"As we watch the lights go out from continent to continent, let us reflect on the fragility and importance of our natural heritage and pledge to protect it for a sustainable future for all," United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement.
In Los Angeles, the lighted pylons at the entrance to Los Angeles International airport will go green for an hour, then dark during Earth Hour, according to airport officials.
Event co-founder Andy Ridley told Reuters that 126 countries and territories had so far signed up, with thousands of special events scheduled, including a lights-out party on Sydney's northern beaches and an Earth Hour 'speed dating' contest.
The number of participants is significantly up on 2009, when 88 countries and territories and more than 4,000 towns and cities took part. Organizers have estimated between 500 million and 700 million people were involved last year.
In Singapore, more than 1,000 people gathered for an Earth Hour carnival in the city center to watch the lights go out at office towers, hotels and other landmarks.
However, lights could still be seen from some buildings and construction sites, disappointing some in the crowd.
"I'm disappointed because most of the buildings' lights are not switched off," said Mat Idris, 26. "I had expected more support from companies," he added.
Thousands, many of them wearing black Earth Hour T-shirts, joined the main switch-off event in the Philippine capital Manila at the sprawling SM Mall of Asia.
Around 15 million Filipinos were expected to participate, according to WWF, to save the equivalent of 5 million pesos (nearly $110,000) worth of electricity.
Taipei 101, the world's second tallest building, turned off all exterior lights and persuaded 99 percent of its tenants to do the same for an hour, the tower's spokesman said.
"FRUSTRATION"
Ridley, WWF's executive director of Earth Hour, said he believed the perceived failure of last year's Copenhagen conference on climate change had stimulated interest this time.
"There is real frustration with the politics around climate change," Ridley told Reuters.
Business had shown strong support, he said, including the world's major hotel chains, which he said are responsible for a significant chunk of global emissions.
In India, Delhi's Red Fort will go dark, as will the pyramids and the Sphinx in Egypt and Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer statue.
Lights were also scheduled to go out over all the bridges over the Seine in Paris and London's Buckingham Palace and Tower Bridge, while in the United States, more than 30 of the 50 state governors have lent their support.
Some, though, criticised the event.
"To hold a candles-and-champagne party indoors, on the mildest night of the year, for just one hour, shows that the whole thing is green tokenism," said Viv Forbes, chairman of climate change skeptic group the Carbon Sense Coalition.
(Additional reporting by Clement Quek in Singapore, Michael Perry in Sydney, Manolo Serapio Jr. in Manila and Ralph Jennings in Taipei, Chris Michau in New York; Editing by David Fogarty and Doina Chiacu)