Environment

• Thursday, May 5th 2011 - 08:18 UTC

  South Georgia rodents’ eradication campaign gets world headlines

  

  Conservationists say they are pleased with early efforts to kill rats on South Georgia, in what is the biggest rodent eradication campaign in history. No-one really knows how many rats inhabit the island in the South Atlantic, but it could be millions.

• Saturday, April 30th 2011 - 22:34 UTC

  Brazil furious with Human Rights Commission decision cuts all relations

  

  Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff decided to cut all relations with the Inter American Human Rights Court following on the CIDH decision to request that the construction of a huge dam in the Amazon be suspended, following an appeal from indigenous groups.

• Friday, April 29th 2011 - 05:47 UTC

  Brazil’s mining giant buys stake in controversial Amazon dam project

  

  Brazil giant mining corporation Vale SA, in which the government has a dominating stake position, agreed to buy a stake in a controversial hydro-power project in the Amazon and invest about 2.3 billion Real (1.5 billion USD).

• Thursday, April 28th 2011 - 06:23 UTC

  NZ environmentalists accuse Petrobras oil exploration of penguins’ deaths

  

  Environmentalists in New Zealand asked the government to halt an offshore oil exploration project being conducted for Brazilian oil giant Petrobras in the wake of the deaths of dozens of penguins, the press reported.

• Wednesday, April 27th 2011 - 02:02 UTC

  “Eco-fascism” or fundamentalist environmentalism joins political jargon

  

  Campaigns in extreme defence of Nature and the environment can turn into a sort of “eco-fascism” unable to solve the home problems for millions or modify the consumerism paradigm of modern societies, warns a new academia discussion publication in Argentina.

• Tuesday, April 26th 2011 - 16:47 UTC

  Toyota production cuts in Mercosur plants because of Japan parts shortage

  

  Toyota executives in Brazil and Argentina announced they are cutting production at two assembly plants for three days because they don’t have enough parts from Japan due to the recent earthquake and tsunami.

• Tuesday, April 26th 2011 - 14:12 UTC

  Migrating humpback whales have jetliners’ navigational precision

  

  Researchers based at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand have found that migrating humpback whales achieve navigational precision usually associated with jetliners or arrows.

• Tuesday, April 26th 2011 - 03:28 UTC

  Japan begins discussion of rebuilding budget; damages cost over 300 billion USD

  

  Japan's cabinet approved almost US$50 billion of spending for post-earthquake rebuilding, the country's biggest public works effort in six decades. The emergency budget of 4 trillion Yen, which is likely be followed by more reconstruction spending packages, is still dwarfed by the overall cost of damages caused by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, estimated at US$300 billion.

• Monday, April 25th 2011 - 06:18 UTC

  Scientific studies reveal Chile’s most active fault lines and warning for major projects

  

  New studies undertaken by Universidad Católica and Universidad de Chile have identified the five most active fault lines in Chile in the hopes of protecting people from future earthquake damage.

• Sunday, April 24th 2011 - 01:05 UTC

  Antarctica ozone hole linked to Australia’s recent series of droughts

  

  The Antarctic ozone hole is about one-third to blame for Australia's recent series of droughts, scientists say. Writing in in the journal Science, they conclude that the hole has shifted wind and rainfall patterns right across the Southern Hemisphere, even the tropics.