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115 MINERS, SAVED BY A WHISKER Ambulances lined up at the flooded Wangjialing coal mine in Shanxi province in China after rescuers pulled alive 115 of the 153 miners trapped for nine days. They were at the pit when underground water flooded it. The authorities said officials ignored safety rules and warnings in their haste to open the mine. Mine accidents are common in China. In 2009, mining accidents claimed about 2,700 lives in the country.

After months of pressure from conservationists and foreign diplomats, the military rulers of Madagascar have reinstated a ban on the logging and exports of rosewood.  Rainforests of the African island country have been pillaged for the precious timber since the military coup in March last year.

Following requests from conservationists, UN peacekeepers plan to airlift nine orphan mountain gorillas from Congo and Rwanda to a wildlife sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ground transportation is stressful for the critically endangered ape; only 750 survive in Africa’s wild.

Ethiopia is constructing a hydel dam, Gibe iii, which green groups fear would displace 200,000 people from eight ethnic communities and make them dependent on aid. The government says the project would double the country’s electricity generation capacity.

A farmers’ rights group in South Africa, Afriforum, has seized the residential property of the Zimbabwean government in Cape Town. The move is on behalf of several Zimbabwean and South African farmers whose farms were seized under Harare’s controversial land reform programme, said Afriforum.

   
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said talks of new sanctions on Iran by world powers has made his government determined to pursue its nuclear programme. A few weeks ago, Tehran had conditionally agreed to swap its weapon-grade nuclear fuel with medical research-grade fuel.

China sentenced four executives of Australian mining giant, Rio Tinto, to 14 years of jail on corruption and commercial espionage charges. Canberra criticized Beijing for holding the trial behind closed doors, but assured the case would not affect their trade relations.

Japan has pressed criminal charges against Pete Bethune, anti-whaling activist of the Sea Shepherd conservation group. He had boarded a Japanese whaling ship in February and tried to arrest its captain in order to disrupt Japan’s whale hunt in Antarctic waters.

Bulgarian Health Minister Bojidar Nanev resigned after he was charged with wasting public funds for purchasing swine flu vaccines at excessive prices. “The accusations are completely unfounded,” Nanev said in a statement.

The UK government has created the world’s largest marine reserve around the Chagos Islands. The reserve would cover a 545,000-sq-km area around the Indian Ocean archipelago, regarded as one of the world’s richest marine ecosystems.

Initial drilling off Falkland Islands shows the deposits may not have commercial quantities of oil. Argentina has intensified its diplomatic campaign to establish control over the South Atlantic islands, controlled by the UK. It is airing a TV ad that shows an imaginary future wherein Buenos Aires rules over the Falklands.

The US Environmental Protection Agency has delayed the rules for capping emissions from big polluters like refineries and power plants until January 2011, saying the industry needs more time to install technologies to cut emissions.

A UN climate panel has suspended its third emissions cut verifier in 15 months and partially suspended a fourth due to procedural breaches. The verifiers are responsible for ascertaining emission reduction claims made by projects operating within the clean development mechanism.

The rate of deforestation worldwide has decreased over the past decade, but continues at a high speed in several South American and African countries, said the fao. The total forest area is over four billion ha, 31 per cent of the total land area.

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