Environment news

• Nigerian communities threaten to block crude pipeline due to oil spill

  30-10-2016 23:47
  By Anamesere Igboeroteonwu ONITSHA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigerian communities affected by an oil spill in the Niger Delta hub have threatened to block access to a pipeline unless state oil producer NNPC provides a cleanup and compensation within one week, a statement said. Spills from blown-up or faulty pipelines have triggered an insurgency in the Delta, where militants fight for a greater share of oil revenues and a cleaner environment. A pipeline operated by NNPC that runs from Escravos to the
  
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• Air quality worsens in Greece as recession bites

  30-10-2016 22:30 via theguardian.com
  
  The ban on diesel cars in Athens and Thessaloniki has been lifted and the price of heating oil has tripled. Hard-pressed Greeks have turned to burning logs – and other thingsGreece’s financial recession is leaving its footprint on the environment. This follows twenty years of huge improvements in Greece’s air pollution. While most European countries struggle with the consequences of failure to control exhaust pollution from diesel vehicles, Greece benefitted from long-standing
  
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• Cuts to marine reserves would deliver 'minuscule' economic benefits

  30-10-2016 22:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: Analysis of government review shows destructive fishing practices would rise and very few fishers would benefitProposals to allow increased fishing in Australian waters would generate miniscule economic benefits to only a handful of licence holders, according to a new analysis.The Ocean Science Council of Australia, an independent group of researchers, has criticised a government review that recommended significant cuts to marine reserves. The group says the review would expand the us
  
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• There are alternatives to a third runway at Heathrow | Letters

  30-10-2016 20:38 via theguardian.com
  
  So Heathrow’s good for business (Report, 26 October)? Heathrow Airport Holdings is owned by FGP TopCo, an international consortium led by Ferrovial, a Spanish Company based in Madrid, in partnership with Qatar Holdings, Caisse de Depot du Quebec, the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, and the China Investment Corporation, among others. Heathrow Holdings has previously admitted it makes more from being a shopping mall than from the flying business and now the taxpayer is likely
  
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• Fired-up over grouse shooting and moorlands | Letters

  30-10-2016 20:37 via theguardian.com
  
  Driven grouse shooting (Report, 28 October) is a minority “sport” which uses live birds as target practice, yet its destructive effects are paid for by the public. Earlier this year, Dr Mark Avery, Chris Packham, and the League Against Cruel Sports launched a petition calling on the government to ban driven grouse shooting. Shortly after the start of shooting season, the petition passed 100,000 signatures.The effects of driven grouse shooting are wide-ranging and devastating. Bi
  
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• Dakota Access pipeline protesters see bias after Oregon militia verdict

  30-10-2016 15:42 via theguardian.com
  
  Activists at the Malheur wildlife refuge were carrying guns – but ‘if native people were armed, we would be killed,’ says an activist at Standing RockJohanna Holy Elk Face couldn’t help but chuckle. The 63-year-old Native American was one of hundreds of activists gathered to block construction of the Dakota Access pipeline on Thursday, when police with tanks and riot gear surrounded them and began making mass arrests. Related: Dakota Access pipeline: Native Americans alle
  
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• Saudi security officer killed in drive-by shooting in Qatif - Arabiya

  30-10-2016 10:24
  A Saudi security officer was killed and a second was wounded on Sunday in a drive-by shooting in the Eastern Province city of Qatif, state-owned Al Arabiya television reported. The shooting occurred while the security men were on patrol, Al Arabiya said. Eastern Province is home to much of Saudi Arabia's oil production as well as to many Shi'ite Muslims, who form a minority in the conservative Sunni Muslim kingdom.
  
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• Neil DeGrasse Tyson: ‘I think the things you might think up in a bar’

  30-10-2016 07:59 via theguardian.com
  
  The astrophysicist has a unique perspective after a life pondering the universe – grateful to science’s risk-takers, but scathing about unthinking votersNeil DeGrasse Tyson, 58, is an American astrophysicist who is the director the of Hayden Planetarium in New York. A committed science communicator, he frequently appears on US television shows and has published 13 books, the latest of which is called Welcome to the Universe.This summer a rocky, potentially Earth-like planet called Pr
  
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• The eco guide to self-provisioning

  30-10-2016 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  How to live off the land without doing a complete downshiftWhen Monty Don recently put his wellington boot into self-sufficiency, writing in Gardeners’ World magazine that living off the land was a “non-starter”, I was surprised. I didn’t believe anybody actually followed John Seymour’s 1976 Complete Guide to Self-Sufficiency to the letter any more. That’s the type of all-consuming, no-consuming living off the land that leads – in Monty’s eyes &nda
  
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• Secret government papers show taxpayers will pick up costs of Hinkley nuclear waste storage

  30-10-2016 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Documents show steps Whitehall took to reassure French energy firm EDF and Chinese investorsTaxpayers will pick up the bill should the cost of storing radioactive waste produced by Britain’s newest nuclear power station soar, according to confidential documents which the government has battled to keep secret for more than a year.The papers confirm the steps the government took to reassure French energy firm EDF and Chinese investors behind the £24bn Hinkley Point C plant that the amo
  
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• Arab coalition air strike kills 45 in Yemen - relatives, sources

  30-10-2016 06:51
  Arab coalition warplanes struck a prison in the Yemeni city of Hodeidah, killing 45 people including inmates, a local official, relatives and medical sources in the Houthi-controlled Red Sea port said on Sunday. The Saudi-led coalition has been fighting Houthi rebels since March 2015 to try to restore to office internationally-recognised President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was sidelined from power by the Iranian-allied group in late 2014. Speaking after meeting U.N. envoy Ismail Ould Cheickh A
  
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• Multinational crew leaves space station, returns to Earth

  30-10-2016 05:25
  By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - A joint U.S., Russian and Japanese crew left the International Space Station on Saturday aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule and landed back on Earth, leaving behind three crew mates who arrived at the orbiting outpost just last week. Station commander Anatoly Ivanishin, with the Russian space agency, NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and Japan’s Takuya Onishi climbed inside the capsule and left the station at 8:35 p.m. EDT/0035 Sunday GMT, a NASA T
  
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• Shark detection buoys set for trial in New South Wales

  30-10-2016 02:08 via theguardian.com
  
  Sonar equipment to be positioned off Port Stephens in ‘nursery for juvenile great whites’ will be able to send information to lifesavers via SMS messagesA new shark detection technology named “clever buoy” will be trialled off the coast of Port Stephens, 200km north of Sydney, in the hope it will give insight into the spate of recent attacks on the New South Wales north coast. The collaboration with Australian company Shark Mitigation Systems will use sonar technology to
  
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• Non-OPEC yet to pledge concrete oil output steps after meeting OPEC

  30-10-2016 02:00
  By Alex Lawler VIENNA (Reuters) - Non-OPEC producers made no specific commitment on Saturday to join the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in limiting oil output levels to prop up prices - a stance that suggested they wanted OPEC to solve its differences first. Officials and experts from OPEC countries and non-OPEC nations including Azerbaijan, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Oman and Russia met for consultations in Vienna on Saturday and only agreed to meet again in November before
  
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• Dakota Access pipeline: Native Americans allege cruel treatment

  30-10-2016 00:18 via theguardian.com
  
  Activists released after arrest treated ‘like we’re not human beings’Standoff with law enforcement continues with peaceful Saturday rallyNative Americans protesting against the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) on Saturday accused law enforcement officers of cruel and inhumane treatment in jail, but said mass arrests and violent confrontations with police would not deter them from fighting construction of the oil project.Related: North Dakota pipeline: 141 arrests as protesters pus
  
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