Ghana (Greenpeace) — The latest place where we have discovered high tech toxic trash causing horrendous pollution is in Ghana. Our analysis of samples taken from two electronic waste (e-waste) scrap yards in Ghana has revealed severe contamination with hazardous chemicals.
The ever-growing demand for the latest fashionable mobile phone, flat screen TV or super-fast computer creates ever larger amounts of obsolete electronics that are often laden with toxic chemicals like lead, mercury and brominated flame retardants. Rather than being safely recycled, much of this e-waste gets dumped in developing countries. Previously, we have exposed pollution from e-waste scrap yards in China and India. Nigeria has also been identified as a dumping ground for old electronics. Watch the documentary below by Reuters:
Export revenue secured during the first quarter of the current Ethiopian fiscal year fell sixteen percent short of the government’s ambitious target, it was learnt.
A total of close to USD 352 million was obtained from nearly 44,000 tonnes of various exports shipped to the world market during the first quarter of the fiscal year, while the target had stood at USD 416.6 million.
The export earnings, however, increased by some 22 percent compared to the same period of the previous year.
Coffee exports, as usual, fetched the highest amount of foreign currency, USD133.3 million, during the reported quarter followed by oilseeds and khat, which, earned USD 45.3 million and USD 33 million respectively.
Khat turned out to become the fourth major foreign currency earner during the reported period, where close to USD 27 million was secured from the export. Only a couple of years ago, earnings from flower exports were not that significant compared to the major export items, including leather and leather products, which, during the reported period, fetched USD 25.5 million, an amount lower than flower export revenues secured during the same period.
Coffee export earnings during the review quarter registered close to 22 percent increase against that of the same period of the previous year. Likewise, earnings from the other major exports item registered significant increase.
Revenue secured from flower exported showed a marked growth of over 25 percent, the increase being the most noticeable compared to the other major export commodities.
Despite a slowdown observed in leather exports and leather products, shoe exports particularly showed a major increase, fetching over USD two million during the quarter year. Export earning from the same items during 2006/2007 was less the amount secured during the reported quarter year.
(ENA) – Bole Sub City Police department in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, arrested one of the suspected assailants who attacked owner and Editor-in-Chief of The Reporter newspapers, Ato Amare Aregawi.
Officer Tadesse Bekelle told Ethiopian News Agenecy (ENA) on Saturday that Amare was attacked on Friday around 5 pm local time while walking around London Café after parking his car.
The police have apprehended one of the assailants while attempting to escape with a Taxi. The police have also detained the taxi driver.
The police have been investigating the case to arrest the remaining suspects.
There Is No Me Without You: One Woman’s Odyssey to Rescue Africa’s Children Author: Melissa Fay Greene Edition: 1 Format: Bargain Price Manufacturer: Bloomsbury USA Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 472
There Is No Me Without You is the story of Haregewoin Tefarra, a middle-aged Ethiopian woman of modest means whose home has become a refuge for hundreds of children orphaned by AIDS. It is a story as much about the power of the bond between children and parents as about the epidemic that every year leaves millions of children, mostly healthy themselves, without family.
Originally a middle-class woman with a happy family life, Haregewoin fell into a deep depression after the death of her recently married daughter. But then a priest brought her two children, AIDS orphans, with nowhere to go. Unexpectedly, the children thrived, and Haregewoin found herself drawn back into daily life. As word got out, an endless stream of children began to arrive at her door, delivered by dying parents and other relatives who begged for her help, and, pushing against the limits of her home and bank account, she took more and more in.
Today, Haregewoin runs a school, a daycare system, and a shelter for sick mothers. Without medication for her charges some HIV-positive, some uninfected, and some infants trying to fight off the virus, but almost all of whom come to her terrified and malnourished forges on, caring for as many as she can handle.
Increasingly, she also places them for adoption with families like that of journalist Melissa Fay Greene, who has two children adopted from Ethiopia.
In Haregewoin Tefarra’s story, Greene gives us an astonishing portrait of a woman fighting a continent-wide epidemic.
The two nuns abducted in Mandera district Monday by armed bandits are in Somalia.
Kenyan security forces confirmed that they were pursuing the kidnappers but said no progress had been made.
A top police official told AFP that they were collaborating with village elders in Somalia to negotiate with the bandits to release them.
The nuns were captured in Elwak in an early morning attack that saw the bandits make away with three vehicles, two of them belonging to the government and the other belonging to a school.
The nuns now confirmed as members of the little sisters of Jesus order were Identified as Caterina Giruado, 67, and Maria Teresa Oliviero, 61, both natives of Italy.
Elwak is one of the several frontier hotspots where two rival Somali clans have been fighting for years over access to water and pasture prompting the government to launch a crackdown.
Armed Somali gangs have carried out scores of kidnappings in recent months, targeting either foreigners or Somalis working with international organizations to demand ransom.
Aid groups said at least 24 aid workers, 20 of them Somalis had been killed so far in Somalia, with more than 100 attacks against Aid agencies.
Tension is reported to be high in the area following the attack.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) – Pirates hijacked a Philippines chemical tanker with 23 crew near Somalia, bringing the total number of attacks in waters off the impoverished African nation this year to 83, a maritime official said Tuesday.
The tanker was heading to Asia when it was seized Monday in the Gulf of Aden by pirates armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, said Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur.
In Manila, Foreign Ministry spokesman Claro Cristobal said the Philippine Embassy in Nairobi and the ship’s operator identified the chemical tanker as the MT Stolt Strength.
All 23 seamen on board are Filipino and are “reportedly unharmed,” he said, adding that Philippine authorities are coordinating with the ship’s operator to secure the early safe release of the vessel and crew.
Choong said there was an attempted attack the same day on a refrigerated cargo ship in eastern Somalia, but the vessel managed to escape with evasive maneuvering. The ship flies a Saudi flag but is operated out of Britain.
Separately, the Indian navy said its marine commandos operating from a warship prevented pirates from hijacking an Indian merchant vessel in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday.
Choong said the bureau was still verifying the attack with the Indian ship owner. He said there were several other attempted attacks Tuesday, but details are still being ascertained.
The bureau has issued an urgent warning to ships to take extra measures to deter pirates even while sailing in a corridor of the gulf patrolled by a multinational naval force.
“The corridor is protected, but safe passage is not 100 percent guaranteed. The patrol boats cannot be everywhere at the same time. The ship master must maintain a strict radar watch for pirates,” he said.
Many ships have managed to fend off pirate attacks after seeking help from the coalition forces, he added.
NATO has sent three ships to the Gulf of Aden — one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes — to help the U.S. Navy in anti-piracy patrols and to escort cargo vessels.
The European Union has said at least four warships backed by aircraft will begin policing the dangerous waters in December. The EU flotilla will eventually take over the NATO patrols.
Despite the increased security, attacks have continued unabated off Somalia, which is caught up in an Islamic insurgency and has had no functioning government since 1991.
As of Monday, there have been 83 attacks this year in Somali waters, with 33 ships hijacked. Twelve vessels remain in the hands of pirates along with more than 200 crew, Choong said, most notably a Ukrainian freighter loaded with tanks and weapons seized Sept. 25.
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Associated Press writer Oliver Teves in Manila contributed to this report.
There Is No Me Without You: One Woman’s Odyssey to Rescue Africa’s Children