- - | IPS Inter Press Service | News Agency | Journalism & Communication for Global Change

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Movies for Environment Day

More than 400 movies from 63 countries are participating in the fourth International Festival of Environmental Film and Video, taking place in the Brazilian city of Goiania Jun 5-9 as part of World Environment Day celebrations.

Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: University Manufactures Medicines

By IPS Correspondents and - -

The governmental National University of the Littoral, in the northwestern Argentine province of Santa Fe, has initiated production of medications for kidney problems and multiple sclerosis, which are sold within Argentina and exported to Brazil and Mexico by a private laboratory.

Ecobreves – PERU-BOLIVIA: Biodiversity Corridor

By IPS Correspondents and - -

The governments of Peru and Bolivia are promoting the creation of a corridor of land for conserving biological diversity, connecting eight protected areas in Peru and seven in Bolivia, and covering some 30 million hectares in the tropical Andean region.

Ecobreves – MEXICO: A Step Closer to the Stockholm Accord

By IPS Correspondents and - -

The Mexican government will ratify the Stockholm Convention on controlling the persistent organic pollutants (POPs)

Japan: Hybrid Cars in Race against Climate Change

By Suvendrini Kakuchi and - -

The Japanese car industry is leading a technological revolution by coming out with fast, modern cars that produce less pollution and thus would help curb the greenhouse effect.

Ecobreves – COLOMBIA: Danger for Cotton-Top Tamarin Monkey

By IPS Correspondents and - -

The zoo in the northern city of Barranquilla has launched a campaign to reverse the process of extinction of the tití monkey (Saguinus oedipus), or cotton-top tamarin, a species unique to the Colombian Caribbean region.

Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: No Nuclear Waste!

By IPS Correspondents and - -

- The governmental Environment and Sustainable Development Secretariat of Argentina and the Federal Environment Council, made up of delegates from the provincial governments, are speaking out against congressional approval of an international contract that authorizes the import of nuclear waste.

Ecobreves – MEXICO:: Airport on Trial

By IPS Correspondents and - -

The North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation is studying the denunciations against the construction of an international airport near the Mexican capital.

Ecobreves – PERU: TV-Monitored Waterworks

By IPS Correspondents and - -

The Potable Water and Sewage Service of the Peruvian capital installed tiny video cameras inside the pipeline network to detect ruptures and leaks, which present a danger that became evident during the cholera epidemic that erupted here in the 1990s.

Green' Police – A Rare Species in Latin America

By Mario Osava and - -

Crimes against the environment mostly go unpunished in the region. Only Brazil has an environmental police force, but its scope and authority are limited.

Rio+10 in Turbulent Waters

By IPS Correspondents and - -

Eighty days before the World Sustainable Development Summit, also known as Rio+10, the negotiations on the plan of action were sunk. The thorniest issues will have to be debated at the Johannesburg meeting.

Robert Watson – “The United States decided to shoot the messenger”

By Haider Rizvi and - -

The renowned expert who lost the chairmanship of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a result of pressure from the United States, praises initiatives for voluntary reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Stars of the Sea

By IPS Correspondents and - -

Starfish are fantastical creatures: they look like inhabitants of the heavens and the scientific name that identifies them, "asteroidea", only furthers that image. The shapes and colors of these mysterious beings capture the imagination.

Latin America Proposes Renewable Energy Quota

By Mario Osava and - -

On behalf of the region, Brazil will head to the Rio+10 Summit in Johannesburg this August with a concrete and quantifiable proposal for the obligatory use of a minimum 10 percent "clean" energy sources by 2010.

Plowed Under: WTO and the Small Farmer

By Anuradha Mittal and - -

The Agreement on Agriculture signed under the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade talks has not produced the predicted results, but rather is the first step in making food production into a business monopolized by a few and driving small farmers off the land.

An Environmental Ethics Manifesto

By IPS Correspondents and - -

Latin America and the Caribbean will present a call for a new environmental ethic at the Rio+10 Summit in August. The manifesto highlights the importance of education and urges a new moral, ecological and cultural economy.

The Cactus

By IPS Correspondents and - -

The image conjured by the cactus is a plant covered in thorns that grows in the desert. And it is true; cactus species are adapted to survive in situations of extreme dryness, though this trait is not enough to ensure they will survive in the modern world.

Ecobreves – CHILE: Protecting Indians' Access to Water

By IPS Correspondents and - -

The Chilean government plans to set up a monitoring council to ensure that the Aymara indigenous communities living in the country's extreme north have access to the water of the Loa River.

Ecobreves – REGIONAL: Mountains in Danger

By IPS Correspondents and - -

The fragility of the mountainous systems of South America, Meso-America and the Caribbean in withstanding the onslaught of development will be the central them of the Regional Conference on Mountains, to take place in Cuba, May 29-31.

Ecobreves – COSTA RICA:: Watching Hummingbirds Via Internet

By IPS Correspondents and - -

A special chamber set up by biologists in the middle of the Costa Rican jungle allows Internet explorers to study the life and habitat of hummingbirds up close.

Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: Invading Frogs Discovered

By IPS Correspondents and - -

- Experts from the University of the Andes have detected the presence of the aggressive and exotic 'rana toro', or bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana) in some aquatic ecosystems of the Venezuelan Andes, particularly in the natural and artificial lakes of the northwestern state of Mérida.