Disasters

"The famine in the Horn of Africa is manmade - the result of artificially high prices for food and civil conflict, the World Bank's lead economist for Kenya Wolfgang Fengler told Reuters Tuesday."

"For forensic meteorologists, who use the science of weather to testify in court about what has already happened, rather than predict what will occur, business could soon see an uptick."

"Japan insists its nuclear crisis was caused by an unforeseeable combination of tsunami and earthquake. But new evidence suggests its reactors were doomed to fail."

David McNeill and Jake Adelstein report for the Independent August 17, 2011.

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The planned oil-drilling in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's coast could bring spills harder to control than the Deepwater Horizon blowout. For centuries, native Inupiat have huted bowhead whales, bearded seals, walruses, and Caribou here. The Interior Department has approved exploration here by Shell, the company recently cited by the United Nations for decades of oil pollution in the Niger Delta.

"The legacy of George Washington's centuries-old logging venture in the Great Dismal Swamp is contributing to the possible demise of a valuable ecosystem as a barely contained fire burns on the Virginia-North Carolina border, experts say."

"A Chinese petrochemical plant was operating normally on Monday despite a local government order to close it down due to a toxic spill scare, an industry source said."

"Royal Dutch Shell said an oil leak from a ruptured pipeline into the North Sea was slowing but refused to say how much oil has already leaked into the sea."

The planned evacuation for Arizona's Palo Verde nuclear power plant is only 10 miles, while the Nuclear Regulatory Commission called for evacuation of Americans within 50 miles of Japan's stricken Fukushima plant. Are safety plans enough?

"A devastating drought deepened over the last week in many areas, spreading through more of the Plains and going into the Midwest as triple-digit temperatures baked already thirsty crops and livestock."

"About two dozen environmental groups launched a volley of legal challenges at nuclear regulators on Thursday in an attempt to stall action to extend the operation of aging reactors and to delay construction of more advanced nuclear designs."