It never rains… and then it pours!Just when you are happy to receive the much needed rain in Sudan, it turns disastrous. Just when I thought the earth tremors were over in Kenya, we got a few more shakes. Just when you almost had malaria under control in Nairobi, temperature increases unleash a plague of mosquitoes in areas they hadn’t been before. Just when you thought living in Kibera slum was bad, try having the little water you have available cut off.
Just when you imagined the situation in Zimbabwe couldn’t get worse, inflation flares up as a new $200,000 is released and the government grows more militant. And … just when you thought you had heard it all, South African filmmakers launch the first African female super hero – Supermama. Enock Chinyenze, TVE Regional Coordinator – Africa
IRIN. 26 July 2007. Flooding reaching unprecedented levels. Khartoum, Sudan
Floods that have already left thousands of families homeless in Sudan have reached a critical stage in several states, an official from the government’s emergency response committee said. "The river levels have exceeded those of previous years, especially in the Nile River state [northern Sudan]," said General Awad Widatallah Hussein, spokesman for the committee, on 26 July.
The government Humanitarian Aid Commission reported on 24 July that the level of the Blue Nile at Khartoum, the capital, was "far above" the record levels seen at this time of year in 1988. Readings from several monitoring stations show the Nile to be more than a metre higher than in 1988. At least 59 people have been killed and more than 35,000 families left homeless by rains and floods affecting 12 of the 26 states, he said.
Hussein told IRIN that 134 public buildings, including schools, health centres, police stations and other government facilities had collapsed. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said the floods, expected to continue until the end of the wet season in September, could affect up to 2.4 million people across 16 states. Hussein said Khartoum state, where the White Nile and Blue Nile rivers meet, had suffered most, with more than 13,000 families affected, followed by North Kordofan state in central Sudan.
In Kassala state in the east, the Gash River, fed by waters from the Ethiopian plateau, burst its banks. "Weather reports indicate that rainfall will be very high and the White Nile and Blue Nile will reach unprecedented levels," Hussein said. He added: "We expect more floods as heavy rains in the Ethiopian highlands continue to feed the Blue Nile and its tributaries."
The UN resident coordinator's office is tracking response from UN agencies, NGOs, Sudanese Red Crescent and state institutions, and reported that thousands of tents, plastic sheets, jerry cans and blankets have been mobilised to respond to needs across northern Sudan. Medical supplies, insecticide, family survival kits, including household items and food, are also being supplied.
In Southern Sudan, nearly 10,000 people have been affected by floods in Unity and Upper Nile States, according to UN agencies. The floods have hit hardest in Renk county in Upper Nile, where the effect of heavy rains has been compounded by natural drainage systems being disrupted by road construction. A recent study by the UN Environment Programme stated that road construction (often connected to the oil industry) in Southern Sudan could have wide-ranging environmental effects, including flooding, erosion and watercourse siltation
IRIN. 27 July 2007. Earthquake scare highlights emergency response weaknesses. Nairobi, Kenya
A series of earth tremors that caused panic in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, has raised concerns over the country's ability to respond to sudden major disasters.
Major Stephen Sane, the acting head of Kenya's National Disaster Operations Centre, said Kenya has basic rescue capacity but lacks specialised equipment and emergency medical services needed in the event of a serious earthquake. His unit was created in 1998 after devastating floods, caused by the El Niño weather pattern, wreaked havoc on Kenya's infrastructure. "Our disaster preparedness appears to be ad hoc. It has not been taken seriously at the policy level," Sane told IRIN, adding that the country also lacked an emergency medical service and has to depend on the Red Cross.
According to Jeanine Cooper, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA-Kenya), Kenya is “ill-prepared” to respond to sudden catastrophes such as earthquakes or a terrorist attack. She commended the country's preparedness and early warning systems for drought, but said flood readiness “left a lot to be desired” and could benefit from risk mapping initiatives.
Lessons from history
Sane said little has been learned from the experiences of the American embassy bombing in Nairobi in 1998. The explosion caused an adjacent four-storey building to collapse, burying hundreds of people. The Kenyan government had to ask for help from foreign rescue teams. Most impressive, Sane said, were an Israeli team who arrived in Nairobi 24 hours after the blast and managed to save a number of people. The death toll from the attack was 213. "The Israelis brought the realisation of the need for specialised training in search and rescue," said Sane. A Kenyan rescue unit has since been trained in Israel, but the government does not have the equipment to look for bodies and survivors buried under rubble.
When a building under construction in Nairobi collapsed in 2006, burying dozens of workers alive, Kenya had to once again seek Israeli help. Sane said a disaster management policy paper, which would pave the way for the formulation of legislation on the issue, has been awaiting Cabinet approval since 1999. "We should be more proactive," he said.
Building regulations
A series of earthquakes and tremors in July 2007 - whose epicentres were in Tanzania, but were felt strongly in Nairobi - prompted the Architectural Association of Kenya to express concerns over the lack of building law enforcement in the country.
The association's chairman Gideon Mulyungi estimated that 90 percent of buildings outside Nairobi's city centre were not constructed by professionals. "We could have a major disaster on our hands in the event of a powerful earthquake," he said. "We have been pushing the government to audit all buildings in Kenya to establish their safety." The ministries of Public Works and Local Government confirmed that the audit was under way. Despite the apparent slow progress in adopting national disaster response mechanisms, it has been recognised that a regional approach to the issue could strengthen the state's capacity.
An inter-governmental initiative, Golden Spear, supported in part by the US military, aims to strengthen regional capacity in disaster response and preparedness. Egypt, Djibouti and Rwanda have already ratified an agreement, establishing the Golden Spear initiative. Kenya and Uganda are expected to follow suit in late August, according to Frank Sabwa, finance officer at the Disaster Management Centre of Excellence in Nairobi.
Other Golden Spear member states are Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Seychelles and Tanzania. Eritrea and Ethiopia initially expressed willingness to join the initiative, but have not yet signed the memorandum of agreement. Sabwa said the ratified Golden Spear agreement would be passed on to the UN and the African Union to raise funding. Member states would also be able to set aside funding from their own national budgets. "The initiative is expected to raise early warning capacities within acceptable levels and become an operational hub for information sharing and disaster response," said Sabwa.
IRIN. 31 July 2007. Climate change and malaria in Nairobi. Kenya
Malaria is the most common disease in Africa’s largest slum, Kibera, in Nairobi, say health workers, but at a cool altitude of about 1,700m, the capital city has long been considered a non-malarial zone. The incidence of malaria in Nairobi and the resurgence of ‘highland malaria’ in several African countries have become controversial issues in debates about health and climate change.
The third assessment report, published in 2001, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, paid special attention to highland malaria. The report states that due to the life-cycle of the mosquito and its role as host of the malaria parasite, "at low temperatures, a small increase in temperature can greatly increase the risk of malaria transmission" and "future climate change may increase transmission in some highland regions, such as in East Africa".
However, the IPCC report continues, "there are insufficient historical data on malaria distribution and activity to determine the role of warming, if any, in the recent resurgence of malaria in the highlands of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Ethiopia". Furthermore, two subsequent studies drawing on weather records at several highland locations in Africa, including tea estates in Kenya's Kericho region, published in Nature and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reach differing conclusions about whether temperatures were increasing and the occurrence of malaria.
The award-winning film by former US vice-president Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, says Nairobi used to be too cold for malaria-carrying mosquitoes, but now climate change is causing the disease to occur. Paul Reiter, a malaria expert now with the Pasteur Institute, has taken issue both with the film and some of the IPCC reporting. In the International Herald Tribune in January, he wrote, "Gore's claim is deceitful on four counts. Nairobi was dangerously infested when it was founded; it was founded for a railway, not for health reasons; it is now fairly clear of malaria; and it has not become warmer."
A ‘non-urban’ disease?
Whatever the causes, and the scientific wrangles, medical staff working in Kibera are having to tackle malaria. “Malaria is the leading disease we face,” says George Gecheo, clinical officer in Kibera’s Ushirika clinic. Nurse Dorah Nyanja, who works in Senye Medical Clinic in the slum’s Soweto Market, adds: “I am treating more people per day for malaria than any other condition.”
Malaria researcher Dr John Githure, head of the human health division of the African Insect Science for Food and Health research centre (ICIPE), told IRIN: "Malaria is traditionally considered a non-urban disease as its parasite is carried by mosquitoes that prefer hot, clean and sunny areas to cool and polluted cities." "It [malaria] is there," adds Githure, "but not everywhere and the increase is not always obvious. It depends where you live."
Githure says Nairobi was malaria-prone in the 1900s, when it had many swampy areas. "Over time, with colonial draining, stagnant water treatments, and the growth of the city, anopheles mosquitoes, those which carry the disease, left the area," he says. "In the 1970s, when public health authorities started to crumble and treatments stopped being properly done, mosquitoes came back. However, it was mainly the Culex mosquito, as it is adapted to polluted water. It is not a malaria vector."
He says anopheles mosquitoes have returned, but only in small umbers. "Furthermore, anopheles need high temperatures to live and develop from the eggs to adult age. If temperatures are low, like in Nairobi, their development will take longer - two to three weeks instead of seven to 10 days. Coolness in Nairobi also delays the development of the parasite in the anopheles mosquito, which only lives for about a month. "Moreover, the parasite is not transmitted through the eggs but through human blood. So anopheles need to grow up, bite a human who has contracted the disease and then bite another one for local transmission to take place in Nairobi."
Githure also says the adaptive nature of the mosquito is a factor. "There still is a danger as temperatures continue to rise and anopheles can adapt to new environments. A minority have already adapted to polluted water, for example," he adds.
A travelling disease
Gecheo estimates that 80 percent of the people he treats for malaria in Kibera have travelled out of Nairobi, been infected and returned, with symptoms only appearing once they are back in the slum.
ICIPE Director Christian Borgemeister says slum dwellers frequently travel upcountry to visit relatives. "This is why [ethnic] Luo people suffer more from malaria," he says. "Near Lake Victoria, where they live, the disease is widespread. By being less exposed to malaria, many have lost the semi-immunity they used to have. This is why they contract it easily when travelling." "Mosquitoes also move more," Githure says. "They can easily be stuck in a bus or a train and progress from one place to another. Malaria, more than ever, is a travelling disease."
Kibera has grown up next to the railway line, with trains from malaria-prone areas passing through daily. The socio-economic make-up of the slum is also a factor. Malaria tends to affect the more vulnerable - infants, pregnant women, the malnourished or those living with HIV. Infection rates in children are an important indicator, Githure says.
"Malaria is a child killer. As children travel less, we would be able to detect local transmission of the disease if the numbers of children with malaria began to increase," Githure says.
Preparation for a potential comeback
"Widespread local transmission in Nairobi would be a catastrophe as its inhabitants are not immunised [by natural exposure] at all," says Borgemeister. Outside Nairobi, many programmes are tackling the disease. Ayub Manya, an officer in the Ministry of Health’s Malaria Control Division, says: "The new treatments we have started to give for free, the mosquito nets we have distributed and the awareness campaigns we have carried with NGOs have given some results."
In 2006, the government also started to distribute new Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) free throughout Kenya. Manya says these programmes could be expanded to Nairobi if malaria transmission increased, but "with ACTs free of charge, and as it is still a low-risk area, advocating systematic mosquito net use would be excessive".
IRIN. 31 July 2007. Water cuts leave slum residents ‘at risk.’ Nairobi, Kenya
Residents took to the streets of Nairobi’s second largest slum, Mathare, on 31 July after five days without water left them facing serious disease outbreaks, they said. We are afraid that diseases will break out soon. We have not had drinking water for a couple of days, only dirty water is left," one resident said. "If we stay here without water for five days, we are just waiting for diseases to come," said another protester. "We don’t want our children to have cholera because they have to drink bad water."
Celline Achieng, of Umande Trust, a civil society organisation promoting water and sanitation initiatives in urban communities, told IRIN there were two major risks if water supplies are cut in slum areas: "First, insecurity could rise as people might fight over water. Second, lack of water can increase the risk of malaria, dysentery and even TB." Water seller Steven Gitau said: "The private Nairobi Water Company [NWC] says it is losing too much money in Mathare and accuses us of stealing the water."
He added: "They say most of us use illegal connections, but these have been connected by staff members of the company. For example, I have paid them KSh6,000 [US$90] for the connection – 2,000 for the meter and 4,000 for the connection." Another resident, Peter Karanja, said: "We now have to go to Eastleigh, 2km away, and pay KSh20 for 20l of water." The normal price is Ksh2 per jerry can of 20l in Mathare.
The NWC spokesman Mbaruku Vyakweli told IRIN that only 1 percent of water connections in the slum are legal. "If we are cutting the water, it is to decrease the number of illegal connections. We do this with the help of local CBOs [Community Based Organisations]," he said. "It is an advantage to Mathare residents, as legally connected water is much cheaper. We charge KSh0.5 for 20l." He said notices had been placed in the newspaper and local TV stations advertising the cuts.
The demonstration took place in the Bondeni area of the slum, but was contained by police, who fired teargas to scatter the crowd and made several arrests.
BBC. 31 July 2007. Zimbabwe launches $200,000 note. Harare
Zimbabwe is to start circulating a new 200,000 Zimbabwe dollar note, in a bid to tackle the country's inflation, the highest in the world. The new note, issued by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe from Wednesday, can buy 1kg (2.2lb) of sugar. Food and fuel shortages have become common as the government relies more heavily on imports, pushing prices to new heights. The official annual rate of inflation in Zimbabwe is nearing 5,000%. In practice, this means the price of a loaf of bread costs 50 times more in cash than it did a year ago.
Shortages
The new note is worth US$13 at the official exchange rate or $1 on the black market. Zimbabwe's government has created a commission to find a way to control soaring living costs. But correspondents say that as long as Zimbabwe has a shortage of staple foods, including maize, food shortages are likely to continue. Critics have blamed President Robert Mugabe's policies, especially the seizure of white-owned farms, for ordinary Zimbabweans' hardship. For his part, President Mugabe has accused foreign governments of trying to interfere in Zimbabwe's affairs.
The new banknote comes after International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts that by the end of 2007, prices will be 1,000 times higher than they were a year earlier, Reuters news agency reports. "Price controls that are being enforced are likely to exacerbate shortages and ultimately fuel further inflation," said Bio Tchane, director of the IMF's Africa department, who described Zimbabwe's prospects as "bleak".
IRIN. 31 July 2007. Crossing the border to bring the groceries home. Musina, South Africa
Bulk traders have been flocking to South Africa for months to buy groceries for resale in Zimbabwe, but now a rapidly growing number of individual shoppers are arriving to stock up on essentials in Musina, about 13km from the border, in South Africa's Limpopo Province.
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe launched "Operation Reduce Prices" in late June in an attempt to cap escalating prices as businesses tried to cushion themselves against the world's highest inflation rate by forcing retailers to slash their prices by 50 percent. This has resulted in empty shop shelves and widespread shortages of basic commodities, and the International Monetary Fund has warned that Zimbabwe's year-on-year inflation rate could reach over 100,000 percent by the end of 2007. The biggest supermarket in Musina, Spar, has seen an increase in turnover of between 50 percent and 70 percent in July, manager Pieter Koekemoer told IRIN.
Mo, 30, said he had come to Musina to buy groceries for his family and friends in Zimbabwe. He wrote their names on the plastic bags as he packed them into his pick-up truck, saying that the cost of fuel, import duty and a South African visitor's visa were a small price to pay.
Bulk traders
Some bulk traders use a medium-size delivery vehicle and often supply formal shops, but now no longer want to supply them because price controls make it unprofitable. With more individual shoppers also crossing the border to buy food for themselves, bulk business is declining. "The bulk trade at my shop has gone down 40 percent in the past two weeks," said Jason Rana; 95 percent of his clientele are Zimbabwean traders buying large quantities.
Bulk trade is expected to slow even further after a new regulation comes into effect on 1 August. According to the Zimbabwean embassy in South Africa, there will not be a complete ban on cross-border trade, but a permit for importing bulk foodstuffs for resale will have to be obtained from Zimbabwe's Ministry of Industry, and will not be as easy to get as a visitor's permit.
Waiting for jobs
Besides the shoppers and traders, thousands of Zimbabweans who have crossed the border illegally wait around Musina in the hope of finding a job to pay their fare to bigger South African cities further south. According to Bertus Schutte, who manages the labour force on Maswiri Farm, about 20km north of Musina, more and more Zimbabweans come looking for work every day. He said they left as soon as they could, and about fifty labourers went to cities like Johannesburg and Pretoria each week.
Peter, 20, and Kudzai, 18, from a village in Masvingo Province in southern Zimbabwe, crossed into South Africa illegally near the Beitbridge border post two weeks ago and have since been waiting for jobs at Maswiri. They plan to seek work in Johannesburg, where friends of theirs already have jobs in construction. It is estimated that there are close to three million Zimbabweans in South Africa, mostly illegally.
Neither Peter nor Kudzai has a passport, and they do not see the point of going to one of the refugee reception offices run by South Africa's Home Affairs Department, which deals with immigration, to ask for asylum. "They know they will be sent back immediately, because the authorities see all of them as economic refugees. So, coming in illegally or on a visitor's permit and staying, is the only option," Jacob Matakanye of the Musina Legal Advice Office, an organisation that helps immigrants in the region, told IRIN.
No tsunami
There are no official figures on the rate of influx of illegal Zimbabweans into South Africa, but in the past few weeks local media and the South African opposition party, Democratic Alliance, have been reporting a rising tide of Zimbabwean immigrants. The International Organization for Migration (IOM), which runs a reception and support centre in Beitbridge providing assistance to migrants returning from South Africa, reported that 16,500 Zimbabweans were sent home in June, and the figures for July were expected to be the same.
"There is no sudden 'tsunami' of people being deported," said Nick van der Vijver of IOM. "These figures ... represent the number of Zimbabweans deported, and say nothing about the number of people leaving Zimbabwe."
He said the story of a wave of Zimbabweans coming [to South Africa] in the last few weeks seemed an exaggeration, considering the number of deportees had remained relatively stable. Gabriel Shumba, of the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF), estimated that 5,000 people legally crossed the border every day, 3,000 of whom remained in South Africa. Illegally, he guessed, about 7,000 were crossing the border daily.
Shumba expected these numbers to increase as Zimbabwe's parliamentary and presidential elections, scheduled for March 2008, drew nearer. "Violence has always been stepped up before elections," he said. "Besides, hunger will also drive many people to South Africa."
Other News
Screenafrica. 31 July 2007. SA’s first female superhero hits cinemas. South Africa
“SUPERMAMA”, the first installment of three short films that will complete “The Adventures of SUPERMAMA” trilogy, will release at selected South African cinemas during August. The film, directed by Karen van Schalkwyk who co-wrote and co-produced with Damon Berry, plays as part of the supporting programme of specific main features. Ster-Kinekor Distribution previously released “The Storekeeper”, “And there in the Dust” and “The Sky in Her Eyes” as short presentations accompanying feature films in recent years.
Introducing Mavis Magayeyana as SUPERMAMA, the 10-minute short film centres on “Mama”, who works as a street vendor in downtown Johannesburg. Inspired by one of her favourite superheroes she decides to take matters into her own hands when her hawker stall is robbed. Mama teaches herself Kung-Fu in her garden in Alexandria, and over the course of three nights, to her husband’s initial dismay, she sews her own disguise and ends up making the evening news. “I have never been one for hero stories, so it is strange that for my first film I would choose this as my central theme. But, living in a world where so much brutality, corruption and disregard for human life is perpetuated, it seemed a natural choice,” says Karen Van Schalkwyk.
Damon Berry adds: “I liked the concept immediately when Karen initially brought it to me. The comic factor and the endless potential for adventure that SUPERMAMA held were obvious. We had to make it happen.” SUPERMAMA also stars Dambuza Mdledle, Themba Mongwe, Nkosinathi Ndlovu, Bongeziwe Mabandla, Tema Sebopedi, Doris Msibi and Philip Kgomo. The film was shot by Marius van Graan and features “Get Down”, a contemporary title track by written and performed by Dan Selsick and Hugh Davison. Additional music was supplied by The Opera House Orchestra.
SUPERMAMA is owned by Googelplex Productions and powered by The Gauteng Film Commission (GFC), Puma Video, Panasonic, Media Film Service, Video Lab, Film Lab, Screen Africa, Ster-Kinekor Distribution, Cinemark, Popcorn and both NuMetro and Ster-Kinekor Exhibition
More Environment News
Africa: Mapping Can Save Forests, Say Scientists
(London): Mapping and remote sensing technology can be used by developing countries to conserve forests and biodiversity, say experts. Such 'geospatial' technology is helping African countries to conserve forests and identify areas in need of intervention, said scientists at a meeting organised by the Society for Conservation GIS-Kenya in Nairobi, Kenya, last week (20 July). Geospatial technologies include global positioning systems (GPS) for capturing basic location data, remote sensing, which uses aerial photography, and geographic information systems (GIS), which analyse data to create maps. GIS expert Peter Ndunda, is currently running a mapping program with the nongovernmental Green Belt Movement in the Mount Kenya and Aberdares forests. He told SciDev.Net that his project has mapped these regions to determine loss in forest cover over time.
Zimbabwe: Agency Embarks on Veld Fire Prevention Project
(Harare): The Environment Management Agency has started burning and clearing road verges along the Harare-Chirundu to prevent veld fires. The pilot programme seeks to prevent and establish whether motorists who threw out cigarette stubs were causing veld fires. The process involves burning grass, which is likely to catch fire along the road. In an interview yesterday, EMA Mashonaland West spokesperson Mrs Vimbaishe Siziba said the programme that began on Monday, would run for a week. "We have so far covered some ground and hope to have cleared grass on road verges up to Harare from Chinhoyi in the first phase and then work on the Chinhoyi-Chirundu stretch," she said. She said the programme was being conducted in conjunction with the Ministry of Transport and Communications.
South Africa: 'No Carbon Trail of Ministers'
(Johannesburg): The government's strategy to address climate change did not provide for the offset of carbon emissions caused by the air travel of government officials, Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said. Van Schalkwyk said in a written response to a parliamentary question by Democratic Alliance MP Rafeek Shah that the government had made no reference to any carbon offsets or given any commitments. However, a policy to be formulated next year would deal with carbon offsets. "The department and ministry are now connected via video conferencing facilities which provide the best form of carbon offsets reductions in flights." His department would initiate a process of developing a climate change policy for SA next January after it had analysed the initial results of its long term greenhouse gas mitigation scenario building process.
South Africa: Kruger Closes Dam After Algae Kills Animals
BuaNews (Tshwane): A key man-made dam in the Kruger National Park will be emptied and permanently closed this week after it was again infected with poisonous algae, which has been killing animals over the past two years. The algae, Microcystis spp, grow when there are high levels of urine and faeces or agricultural fertilizers in the water. The Nhlanganzwane Dam in the southern part of the park is believed to have been contaminated by the waste of a large pod of hippos that congregated in the dam this winter. "We didn't take the decision lightly, but our primary concern is to stop the spread and effect of this deadly algal poison," said the park's head of conservation services Dr Freek Venter on Wednesday. The closure of the dam, he explained, also tied in with the park's policy of closing artificial water points in order to return the area to its purest natural state. http://allafrica.com/stories/200708010568.html
Uganda: Akright Estate is Eco-Tourism
(Kampala): Akright's Kakungulu Housing Estate has been declared an eco-tourism centre. Located 18km along the Kampala-Entebbe road, split into 2,500 plots occupying two-and-half square km, the estate has a natural forest, man-made lake, golf course and amusement park. Eco-tourism is a form of tourism which appeals to the ecologically and socially conscious. It focuses on local culture, wilderness adventures, volunteering, personal growth and learning new ways to live; involving travel to destinations where flora, fauna, and cultural heritage are the primary attractions. Officials from Nature Uganda recently visited the estate and identified 74 bird species. Serapio Rukundo, the tourism state minister, launched the centre. Anatoli Kamugisha, the Akright Projects managing director, said under the company's eco-tourism initiative, they have advised every property-owner in the estates to set aside a room for a visiting tourist.
Nigeria: Ship Pollution - Imo Embarks On Reduction Process
(Lagos): The Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) made progress on a packed agenda at its 56th session recently in London. Among a series of important decisions, it agreed to commission a study into the impact of proposed measures to reduce air pollution from ships. The Committee also further developed the proposed Ship Recycling Convention, discussed issues relating to the implementation of the 2004 Ballast Water Management Convention and adopted a number of amendments to the MARPOL Convention. Mr. Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) addressed the opening session of the Committee, at the invitation of IMO Secretary-General Mr. Efthimios E. Mitropoulos. The MEPC endorsed a proposal by Secretary-General Mitropoulos to commission a comprehensive study, by an informal cross government/industry scientific group of experts, to review the impact on the environment, on human health and on the shipping and petroleum industries, of applying any of the proposed fuel options to reduce SOx and particulate matter generated by shipping and the consequential impact such fuel options could have on other emissions, including CO2 emissions from ships and refineries, taking into account the availability of CO2 abatement technologies.
Nigeria: Lagos Seals 15 Firms Over Environmental Offences
(Lagos): The Lagos State Government, yesterday, sealed off the premises of 15 companies for allegedly contravening the state sanitation laws along the Ijora Costain axis of the state metropolis. The state government also announced that the state monthly environmental sanitation exercise for this month, July, will hold on Saturday, July 28 between 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. Commissioner for the Environment, Dr. Muiz Banire, ordered the sealing off of the companies following the flagrant degradation of their environment and violation of other sanitation laws like poor waste management, blockage of drainage channels; indiscriminate discharge of spent oil inside canals and vegetal nuisances around their premises. Banire vowed that the companies affected would not be re-opened until they comply with the state environmental laws by addressing all environment nuisances around their premises as well as beautify the frontages of their environment.
Nigeria: Flood Sacks Abeokuta -Cuts Off Govt. House
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