Reports

An alliance of conservationists and international donors have unveiled a map of six priority areas on the Mediterranean rim aimed at guiding policy for preserving precious habitats and threatened species. The 251-page ecosystem profile was launched last week by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), whose constituents include the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Government of Japan, the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation, and Conservation International...

A good 15 years later, it still remains bad news for women. Women constituted less than a quarter (22 per cent) of the people heard or read about in the news (i.e., as news subjects) across all topic categories in India. Only 12 per cent of news stories have women as the central focus (i.e. focussed specifically on one or more women). If that's not enough, only 5 per cent of the news stories highlight gender equality or inequality. Worse still, nearly two thirds (63 per cent) of the news stories...

Argentina has passed a landmark law that seeks to protect environmentally sensitive glaciers by imposing strict limits on mining. The Bill, passed by the Senate on Thursday last, prohibits mining near glaciers along Argentina's 5,000 km border with Chile. The Bill was approved by a tight vote of 35 to 33, with one abstention, said a Reuters report. The Bill had been passed by the lower house of Parliament earlier in July. President Cristina Kirchner had vetoed a 2008 Bill to protect glaciers...

Al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, has voiced his concern about climate change and the recent floods in Pakistan, in an audiotape posted on the Internet on Friday. Osama's new tack is being seen as an effort to bolster his flagging image. The speech titled "Reflections on the Method of Relief Work" came in an 11 minute video that had been posted on Islamist websites, and was released by American watchdog SITE Intelligence Group on Friday. SITE said that it had been able to identify the voice, but...

Environmental crimes are booming in a Madagascar, plunged in political chaos. Ten or more carts filled with around 100 terrestrial tortoises each are leaving the Mahafaly Plateau in south Madagascar every week, a WWF survey has found. Poaching of both the endemic radiated tortoise ( Astrochelys radiata) and the spider tortoise ( Pyxis arachnoids) for the bush meat and pet trade had long been known. But the ongoing political stability is now being exploited to the hilt for wildlife trade. These...

US First Lady Michelle Obama will be taking a leading role in a new health campaign by Walt Disney Company aimed at getting children to adopt healthier lifestyles, the entertainment conglomerate has announced. The multimedia initiative, to be called Disney Magic of Healthy Living, will include stars from the Disney Channel like Nick Jonas and Brenda Song showcasing what the company statement described as "fun, easy ways that healthy living practices can be woven into the fabric of everyday life...

People in the US are drinking more than they did 20 years ago. Researchers are attributing a variety of factors, including social, economic and ethnic influences and pressures, to this increase. Researchers from the UT Southwestern School of Health Professions compared data of 1992 (with 42,862 respondents) and 2002 (43,093 respondents) across both sexes and three major ethnic groups, and noticed an increase in consumption of alcohol. There was also a rise in drinking five or more drinks in a...

About one fifth of the Oldest Old in India experience any type of abuse from those they live with. Daughters-in-law and sons emerge as the major abusers with 75 per cent and 60 per cent. In one tenth of cases, daughters and grandsons are abusers. Patna is the worst for these people with 60 per cent reporting abuses, followed by Kolkata (36 per cent) and Mumbai (23 per cent). None of the Oldest Old in Ahmedabad reported to have faced any kind of abuse. India has a population of 80,38,718...

Plants are as threatened as mammals, with one in five of the world’s plant species threatened with extinction. It is for the first time that the true extent of the threat to the world’s estimated 380,000 plant species has been quantified. The shocking numbers come from the Sampled Red List Index assessments carried out by Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, the Natural History Museum and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Specialist Groups. The findings have been released ahead of...

Good news: Mainstream media reporting is more likely to deter young people from using illicit drugs than encourage their use. Bad News: Types of reports most likely to have the strongest impact on young people are underrepresented in the media. The revelation comes from a study conducted by the Drug Policy Modelling Programme (DPMW) at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) at the University of New South Wales, Australia, which measured the impact of media reports on illicit drugs...