British tourists looking forward to taking in the spectacular tropical wildlife of the Florida Keys this summer may be in for a shock – three-foot-long rats are invading the holiday hotspot.
A breed of giant Gambian rats have been rapidly reproducing in the area, despite a decade-long effort to wipe them out.
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ANTANANARIVO (Reuters) – At least 72 people were killed when the tropical storm Irina hit northern Madagascar in late February, causing floods and landslides, authorities said on Thursday.
Three people were also reported missing and some 77,911 displaced, said the National Office for Disaster and Risk Management, BNGRC. The storm destroyed 1,348 homes.
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The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday it had suspended food distribution to 1.1 million people in central and southern Somalia after Al Shabaab militants blocked deliveries in parts of the famine-hit country.
The independent humanitarian agency, one of few providing aid supplies there despite huge logistical and security constraints, said local authorities had blocked deliveries since mid-December in the Middle Shabelle and Galgadud regions.
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DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (AlertNet) – Pius Yanda, one of the authors of a recent report on extreme weather by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), has a knowledge of his subject that goes beyond the academic.
Yanda, a professor at the University of Dar es Salaam, was forced from his home last month by flooding in the nation’s largest city following the heaviest recorded rains in Tanzania’s modern history. He and five family members sought temporary refuge at a hotel in the city.
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Trees are dying in the Sahel, a region in Africa south of the Sahara Desert, and human-caused climate change is to blame, according to a new study led by a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley.
“Rainfall in the Sahel has dropped 20-30 percent in the 20th century, the world’s most severe long-term drought since measurements from rainfall gauges began in the mid-1800s,” said study lead author Patrick Gonzalez, who conducted the study while he was a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Center for Forestry.
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We meet Mariette Lieferink in a McDonalds near Gauteng, on the edge of Johannesburg, buying a dozen sickly sweet drinks. She’s no one’s idea of a leading environmental activist. She wears a tight-fitting, scarlet, embroidered Chinese dress, high heels, and make-up. She is nearly 60, a mother of four, grandmother of two and she used to be a preacher. Now she is head of the Federation for a Sustainable Environment, and works flat out to clean up the massively polluted mining areas of Johannesburg.
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Popularity: 4% [?]
KAMPALA (Reuters) – An increase in heat waves is almost certain, while heavier rainfall, more floods, stronger cyclones, landslides and more intense droughts are likely across the globe this century as the Earth’s climate warms, U.N. scientists said on Friday.
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) urged countries to come up with disaster management plans to adapt to the growing risk of extreme weather events linked to human-induced climate change, in a report released in Uganda on Friday.
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Over the past week or so, the geological upheaval in the Canary Islands has caused jets of water to rise more than 20 metres into the air and locals claim to have even seen rocks thrown out of the sea. Measurements taken by researchers show that seething water is significantly warmer than the surrounding sea. The culprit is the Canarian hotspot — the islands are underlain by a deep magma plume that is believed to have first appeared 60 million years ago.
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JOHANNESBURG — Rising global temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns could affect water flows on Africa’s mighty Nile and Limpopo rivers, an agricultural research group said Monday.
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Humanitarian officials say the scale of the humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa is still huge three months after famine was declared in the region.
They say the response from the international community has been strong, but local factors are still hampering relief efforts.
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Climate negotiators said they made progress on laying out ways to help poor countries but deep differences remained on core issues ahead of a make-or-break talks in South Africa.
With scientists warning that the planet is far behind on meeting pledges to control climate change, officials from around the world held a week of talks in Panama City to float ideas before the Durban conference opens on November 28.
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The Instituto Geografico Nacional (IGN) has reported surface deformations exceeding 35mm on the Spanish island of El Hierro, where residents have been alert for a possible volcanic eruption.
The number of earthquakes recorded since July 17 on the smallest of The Canary Islands exceeded 9250 on Tuesday morning.
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Climate scientists say that the booming cocoa industry in Ivory Coast and Ghana will be threatened by climate change.
A report released by Colombia-based International Center for Tropical Agriculture says the expected annual temperature rise of more than two degrees Celsius will leave many cocoa-producing areas in West Africa unsuitable for chocolate production by 2050.
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DADAAB, Kenya – Marauding gangs and criminals are attacking Somali famine refugees more frequently as they flee across the border to Kenyan camps, but Kenyan police say they don’t have enough manpower to stop them.
The lack of manpower underscores a larger problem for Kenya: Officials here say they are being overwhelmed by the influx of tens of thousands of Somali refugees, and can’t stem the attacks. One 30-year-old woman who watched two of her five children die as they trekked through Somalia was raped after reaching what she hoped would be the safety of Kenyan soil.
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Landslides triggered by torrential rains have killed at least 23 people in eastern Uganda, as mud engulfed homes and buried entire families.
Local residents and Red Cross workers pulled 15 bodies from the rubble of Mabono village in Bulambuli district, about 270 kilometres north-east of Kampala, Red Cross spokeswoman Catherine Ntabadde said.
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Five years after the dumping of toxic waste by oil-trading group Trafigura affected more than 100,000 people in Ivory Coast, thousands still await compensation, Amnesty International said Friday.
“It is unacceptable that so many people who were affected by the dumping have not received the compensation money they are entitled to,” said Benedetta Lacey, AI’s special advisor on corporate accountability.
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Video Report: Dozens of shattered communities in Japan are facing the difficult decision on whether to rebuild or relocate one [...]
Video Report: Flood levels around the New South Wales city of Wagga Wagga have begun falling, but residents have been [...]
Video Report:Thousands of residents remain isolated by floodwaters along the New South Wales north coast as the threat moves inland.About [...]
Video Report:Aerial views show the destruction left behind by typhoon Washi after it lashed the southern Philippines, killing over 250 [...]
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