MIDDLE EAST: SELF-DEFENSE OR WAR?

Bombs are falling again on innocent civilians in Lebanon, Gaza, and northern Israel. Why? It is necessary to go back in history to understand what is happening today, write Johan Galtung, a Professor of Peace Studies and Founder and Co-Director of TRANSCEND: A Peace and Development Network (www.transcend.org), and Dietrich Fischer, Director of the European University Centre for Peace Studies (www.epu.ac.at) and Co-Director of TRANSCEND. The problem is the vicious cycle of repeated mutual retaliation characteristic of wars, and underlying it the unresolved conflict between Jews and Arabs. This problem cannot be solved by de-escalation in the choice of targets and level of destruction. A ceasefire is urgent to end the immediate suffering, but it will remain only temporary as long as the underlying conflict is not solved. Israel should consider how to make peace rather than war. One way out might be a Middle East Community modeled after the European Community of 1958, with Palestine fully recognised. It would be in Israel\'s and its Arab neighbor\'s interest to learn from that success story. People of good will should come together in the midst of the present crisis to elaborate what a peaceful Middle East could look like.

Ecobreves – CUBA: Mass Disappearance of Bats Skews Ecological Balance

Between 250,000 and half a million bats have disappeared from the Gato Jíbaro cave in the Cuban province of Matanzas, east of Havana, threatening area plant life, warn specialists.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Green Schools Look to the Future

The Honduran government, backed by the business community, has introduced the “Green Schools” project to recover and preserve the main watersheds near Tegucigalpa.

Ecobreves – CHILE:: State-Run Mining Company Faces Investigation

Chile’s Chamber of Deputies voted unanimously to investigate the state-owned National Copper Corporation (Codelco), to determine its responsibilities in polluting the capital’s Carén estuary.

Ecobreves – GUATEMALA: Deforestation Spreading

- In Guatemala, an average of 73,148 hectares of forest disappears each year. The figures come from a Forest Cover Dynamics map created by the state-run National Forestry Institute (INB) and National Protected Areas Council and the private University del Valle.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Clean Air for Latin American Cities

- Sustainable transport that improves quality of life and reduces greenhouse gases is the theme of the Clean Air in Latin American Cities Initiative conference that is drawing experts, political leaders and environmentalists to Sao Paulo Jul. 25-27.

Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: Chávez Aims to Divert Sewage from River

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez predicted the day will soon come when he can swim in the emblematic Guaire river, which flows eastward through Caracas for 53 of its 70 kilometres, picking up residential and industrial waste along the way.

Mega-Project Scrapes the Bottom of the Oil Barrel

Extracting oil from Alberta’s tar sands generates greenhouse gas emissions and destroys forests and wetlands. The activity’s health and social impact is one of Canada’s most pressing environmental issues.

100 Million Trees for Venezuela

Over the next five years, a reforestation project aims to replace a total of some 140,000 hectares of woodlands -- the number of trees logged in Venezuela each year.

Ecobreves – MEXICO: Collecting Funds to Protect Jaguar

The Mexican environmental group Naturalia launched a national fundraising effort last weekend to expand the 4,000-hectare protected area of the jaguar (Panthera onca) set aside in the northern state of Sonora in 2003.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Another Highway Threatens the Amazon

Brazil's Ministry of Environment proposes creating 10 conservation areas along the route of highway BR-319, which will connect the Amazon cities of Porto Velho and Manaos.

Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: A Warning on Dune Disappearance

Sixty percent of the sand dunes have been lost in the last 35 years because of increased human activity in the eastern Argentine city of Puerto Madryn, on the Atlantic coast, says the Patagonia Natural Foundation.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Selective Garbage Collection Expands

- The number of Brazilian communities with systems of selective garbage collection has increased 38 percent, according to a new study by CEMPRE, a business organization that promotes recycling.

Biodiversity Has No Use for Walls

Construction of a wall along the border would speed up the deterioration of the ecosystems on the Mexico-U.S. border, warn experts.

Transgenic Mosquitoes Enlisted in Fight Against Malaria

Results could emerge in a decade from research to eradicate this disease that poses a public health threat in 90 countries, home to 40 percent of the global population

Ecobreves – COLOMBIA: Fire Devastate Nature Reserve

Colombia's environmental authorities have declared an ecological disaster as a result of the fires in the central-western nature park of Los Nevados that destroyed some 5,000 of the park's 58,000 hectares.

Ecobreves – GUATEMALA: First Map of Land Use

Technicians at Guatemala's Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, along with the National Geographic Institute and other national entities, have drawn up the first Map of Vegetation Coverage and Land Use, for better planning of productive projects and to monitor deforestation.

Al Gore Is Back and Greener Than Ever

The former U.S. vice-president has reinvented himself outside the arena of electoral politics. As a champion of the environment, he has plans to train 1,000 activists to help fight climate change.

A Roadmap Against Pollution

A judicial ruling that requires the clean-up of Argentina's Matanza-Riachuelo basin sets a precedent in environmental law for the region.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Environmentalists Threatened

Vilmar Berna, an environmental journalist who won the United Nations Global 500 prize in 1999, lives under a death threat issued more than a month ago in Niteroi, a city neighboring Rio de Janeiro. He filed a complaint and requested police protection last week but the response has been slow in coming.

Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: Seeking Adoptive Parents for Turtles

A program to protect sea turtles of the southern Caribbean and the beaches of Venezuela began a new phase with the search for "adoptive parents" -- symbollically -- for each of the animals sighted by the Center for Researcha nd Conservation of Sea Turtles (CICTMAR).