Disasters

"A U.N. report has criticized Shell and the Nigerian government for contributing to 50 years of pollution in a region of the Niger Delta which it says needs the world's largest ever oil clean-up, costing an initial $1 billion and taking up to 30 years."

"Raising its forecast, the U.S. government's weather agency on Thursday predicted the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season will produce 14 to 19 named storms, 7 to 10 of them becoming hurricanes."

"Drought worsened in the Midwest during the last week as record-high temperatures stressed the developing corn and soybean crops, while cotton and pastures eroded amid a historic drought in the southern Plains."

"Conservation groups working across the Gulf of Mexico are supporting a bipartisan bill in the Senate that would direct to five Gulf states the billions of dollars in fines that may be imposed on BP and other companies found responsible for the last year's oil spill."

"Japan will sack three top energy officials over their handling of the Fukushima atomic disaster and scandals that have fuelled public mistrust in the country's nuclear policy, the government said Thursday."

"Tropical Storm Emily took aim at Haiti on Wednesday, threatening to add to the misery of a chronically poor nation struggling to recover from last year's devastating earthquake."

The good news is that the Gulf of Mexico dead zone, expected to be bigger this year because of high runoff and the BP spill, did not set a record for size. The bad news is that oxygen levels in the dead zone that did develop this year are extremely low.

"Partisan bickering erupted in the Senate [Tuesday] over how quickly the federal government should implement a dozen safety recommendations to ensure 104 nuclear plants in the United States are operating safely."

The intertwined problems of climate change, drought, desertification, failed states, terrorism, and insurgency are causing a human catastrophe in the Horn of Africa.