"Cyclone Idai’s death toll has risen above 750 in the three southern African countries hit 10 days ago by the storm, as workers restore electricity, water and try to prevent outbreak of cholera, authorities said Sunday."
"Fears are growing for more than 500,000 people in the Mozambique city of Beira, after aid agency officials warned that 90% of the area had been 'destroyed' by Cyclone Idai."
"A prominent Chinese businesswoman dubbed the “Ivory Queen” was sentenced to 15 years in prison by a Tanzanian court on Tuesday for smuggling the tusks of more than 350 elephants, weighing nearly 2 tonnes, to Asia."
The economics of fracking may be as big a worry as its environmental impacts, finds a new book on the energy extraction industry. Our latest BookShelf reviews the volume from a seasoned business reporter, who questions conventional views about a renewed U.S. energy “dominance,” probes the financial instability of the industry’s boom and raises the politically destabilizing spectre of a future decline for the fossil fuel market.
"Scientists’ plan to track deadly Marburg virus is literally held together with glue".
A freelancer’s coverage of the international wildlife trade won one of the Society of Environmental Journalists’ top journalism awards this year for its combination of “fearless reporting and graceful writing.” SEJournal Online talks with award-winner Rachel Nuwer about the series, the benefits of field reporting and the project’s challenges, such as securing funding, all in the latest Inside Story Q&A. And good news for Inside Story fans — the quarterly feature is now upping its frequency to bi-monthly!
"Central African mountain gorillas came off the “critically endangered” species list on Thursday following a rare and dramatic recovery in numbers in the past decade."
"China unveiled new rules on Monday that would allow the use of rhino horn and tiger parts for some medical and cultural purposes, watering down a decades-old ban in a move conservation group WWF said could have “devastating consequences”."
"The fires burn constantly in and around Onitsha, a growing city nestled on the banks of the Niger River in southern Nigeria. Each fire is surrounded by its own hellscape of rotting food, mounded rubbish, castoff computers, and slaughterhouse scraps, and the blazes — often fueled with old tires sliced into ribbons — incinerate the city’s waste and send out noxious plumes of smoke laden with dangerously high levels of particulate pollution."
"Zambia has revived plans it suspended two years ago after protests by animal rights activists for the controlled slaughter of up to 2,000 hippos over the next five years, its tourism minister said on Monday."
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