Climate change causing havoc to coffee and tea farmers, says Cafédirect

• Small growers forced to higher altitudes• Government gives £12m to Fairtrade Foundation
Heather Stewart and Nick Mathiason
The Guardian, Saturday 10 October 2009
Climate change is already wreaking havoc on the livelihoods of small-scale tea and coffee farmers in some of the world’s poorest countries, according to a three-year research project by Fairtrade drinks producer Cafédirect.
Research across four countries – Kenya, Mexico, Peru and Nicaragua – carried out with the state-funded German Technical Corporation, showed that growers are already being forced uphill to higher altitudes, at a rate of three to four metres a year on average, as temperatures rise. “A huge number of growers are now experiencing increased instances of pestilence and disease from rises in temperature. They are also facing prolonged drought and changing weather patterns,” said Cafédirect chief executive, Anne MacCaig.
She argued that the priority for developed countries should be helping the world’s poor to protect themselves against climate change.
“What’s crucial is that there’s an option of sustainable adaptation to safeguard the supply chain. Climate change is affecting those least able to deal with it. We can’t underestimate that.”
Smaller producers, who are reliant on a single crop and often cannot afford to install costly irrigation equipment as temperatures rise, are worst affected, the project, known as AdapCC, found.
Some farmers could see their incomes fall by up to 90% in the next fifteen years, the researchers say. They argue that worldwide 30 million farmers will be affected.
Small-scale growers in Peru have seen yields fall by 40% since last year, compared to 30% across the country as a whole; small producers in Mexico have seen yields halve, against a national decline of 7%, Cafédirect says.
Tea and coffee are on the climate change front line because they only grow in a relatively narrow temperature range. Research suggested that all four of the countries involved would see the quantity and quality of their crops decline sharply over the coming years.
Cafédirect worked on different ways of helping farmers adapt. In Kenya, it helped growers diversify into new crops such as passion fruits; in Peru, farmers were able to use their land to sell carbon credits; and elsewhere they planted native tree species to help bind the soil and prevent mudslides.
The report came as the government said that it will donate £12m to the Fairtrade Foundation, with the hope of doubling the number of developing country farmers who are awarded the Fairtrade mark.
Fairtrade products pay a premium to relatively small-scale growers, helping to protect them from the vicissitudes of global commodity markets and the buying power of vast multinationals. The Fairtrade mark is celebrating its 15th birthday, and now covers a wide range of products, from bananas to chocolate. Sales of Fairtrade products were up by 43% in 2008.
Addressing a conference of Fairtrade supporters yesterday, development minister Douglas Alexander said: “Fairtrade products are already a big part of life in the UK, with new products appearing on our shelves every day. Our £12m funding will help improve this even further.” The Fairtrade market as a whole is expected to treble, to £9bn, by 2013.
Harriet Lamb, executive director of the Fairtrade Foundation, said: “In the current economic climate, it’s the poorest communities who are hit the hardest, and so positive business models like Fairtrade, which deliver increased development benefits from trade, are more important than ever.”

Higher wheat yields and land for biofuels

UK wheat production and farmers’ long-term prospects

Sir, Professor Bryan Reuben (letter, Oct 6) is only partly correct with his statement that farmers were not encouraged to grow wheat until entry to the Common Market brought in import controls to this country, thereby raising prices.
The main reason for the increased production is that average yields per acre doubled between the mid-1970s to mid-1990s due almost entirely to the advent of higher-yielding varieties that, combined with higher prices, made wheat cultivation very profitable.
Richard Mitham
Alton, Hants
Sir, Despite this year’s wheat production being lower than in 2008, UK stocks are at double the levels of the five-year average — five million tonnes against the five-year average of 2.5 million tonnes. In fact, in the past ten years we have produced nearly 16 million tonnes four times.
The long-term prospects are positive with UK farmers able to produce more if the correct market and policy signals are in place. The 2009 harvest reflected falling cereal markets and higher crop input costs affecting production directly.
Biofuels are an efficient use of land, producing both an important low-carbon fuel to replace fossil fuels and also a high protein co-product that can help to reduce our dependence on imported protein for animal feeds.
Peter Kendall
President, NFU

Climate change feared to blame as dead zones suffocate Pacific Ocean life

Frank Pope, Ocean Correspondent

When lobsters swarm up the beach and octopuses try to clamber up fishing lines to get out of the water, you know that something has gone badly wrong in the ocean.
Oxygen-starved dead zones have been appearing with increasing frequency around the world, with some 400 identified so far. While most are caused by sewage or fertiliser leaching into the ocean, a possible new driver has appeared in the northwest Pacific: climate change.
Just as land animals need oxygen in the air to breathe, those in the sea need the oxygen dissolved in seawater. Dead zones cover up to 20,000 sq miles each and their borders shift according to wind, current and tide, killing all animal life that cannot escape in time.
“Oregon is a little different,” said Jack Barth, of Oregon State University. “We have an open coastline, so the ability to flush the coast is high and there are no rivers carrying fertiliser. All nutrients appear to come from natural sources.”

But for the past four years Professor Barth has been using autonomous underwater robots to monitor worrying developments on a naturally occuring area of low oxygen off the northwest Pacific, on the border of Washington state and Oregon. “We’ve seen various degrees of oxygen deficiency,” he said. “We’ve seen zero oxygen, known as anoxia.”
Camera footage from remotely operated vehicles “showed us just piles of Dungeness crab, dead tube worms. None could flee”.
Off South Africa and Namibia, lobsters swarm to the beach when anoxic waters close in. Professor Barth cites reports that octopuses have tried to climb fishing lines to escape.
Low-oxygen areas occur naturally on the west coast of all continents, where nutrient-rich waters well up to the sunlit surface, causing heavy productivity. The upper waters are well mixed by wind and waves but deeper down there is less opportunity to replenish oxygen. When dead plankton drift into this zone in a marine snowfall, they cause a secondary bloom in microscopic animal life that strips away the oxygen.
If the oxygen-starved water does not reach the seabed, the effects are usually less severe. If it does, the animals there are usually unable to escape.
Usually winds push the de-oxygenated areas off Oregon out to sea but in recent years they have been coming ever closer to land and shallower water. Professor Barth said that climate-change models show coastal winds changing.
“The forecast is for stronger and less persistent winds and for deeper waters becoming less oxygenated as surface layers warm, isolating the deeper layers more. So it’s a double-whammy we’re seeing off Oregon.”
Although Professor Barth does not yet have enough records to prove that climate change is affecting the winds, he is confident that they are not altering as a result of any natural cycles, such as the warm current El Niño.

Power cuts forecast to hit UK in four years

Robin Pagnamenta, Energy Editor

Britain faces a return to 1970s-style power blackouts and disruption to its electricity supplies within four years, the energy regulator warned yesterday.
Ofgem raised the spectre of a return to the three-day week for British industry as the country scrambles to renovate its crumbling power infrastructure ahead of new EU pollution rules that will force the closure of a quarter of UK power stations by 2015.
Alistair Buchanan, Ofgem’s chief executive, said: “There could be a potential shortfall in the period 2013-18 … Life might be pretty cold.”
In extreme scenarios such as during periods of unusually harsh winter weather, Mr Buchanan said that Britain could be forced to switch off power supplies to large factories to conserve dwindling electricity supplies for households.

Ofgem said that in such circumstances, “involuntary curtailment of demand” for large energy users might be the only solution.
Speaking at the publication of Project Discovery, a report from Ofgem on the security of energy supplies, Mr Buchanan said that a failure to tackle the issue had left Britain more vulnerable to energy supply shocks than any other major country in Europe. Germany and France, he said, were “way ahead of us” in terms of investing in new, lower-carbon power supplies, adding that only “massive reductions” in demand achieved through energy savings could rescue consumers from swingeing increases in their energy bills of up to 60 per cent.
Ofgem said that by 2020 Britain needed to spend between £95 billion and £200 billion on new wind farms, gas, nuclear and biomass power stations, as well as high-voltage transmission networks to ensure reliable supplies and meet tough targets to cut carbon emissions.
But Jeremy Nicholson, of the Energy Intensive Users Group, which represents some of Britain’s biggest manufacturers, including Corus, the steelmaker, said Britain was entering “very dangerous territory”.
He warned that such major disruption presented a “material threat to heavy industry” and added that manufacturers could be facing even bigger rises in their energy bills than consumers — as much as 120 per cent.
Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, acknowledged the need for greater action.
He said: “I think Government does need to play more of a role if we are going to get the low-carbon transition and if we are going to get security of supply.”

ANC Viewpoint: The Unity of Our Movement is Our Strength

ANC Today Viewpoint

by Jeff Radebe
9 October 2009

The unity of our movement is our strength

As we approach the centenary of the ANC in 2012 we need to ask ourselves if our organisation has any resemblance to the organisation that was formed nearly a 100 years ago, and if not, what are the changes and lessons that can be derived from such developments.

Reading through various works around the formation of the ANC there is no doubt that Pixely ka Isaka Seme was the originator of the idea to found the ANC and he tirelessly worked to ensure its fruition, arguably more than anyone else. Speaking of the “African in his award winning speech simply entitled “The Regeneration of Africa, Pixely ka Isaka Seme said:

“The ancestral greatness, the unimpaired genius, and the recuperative power of the race, its irrepressibility, which assures its permanence, constitute the African’s greatest source of inspiration. He has refused to camp forever on the borders of the industrial world; having learned that knowledge is power, he is educating his children. You find them in Edinburgh, in Cambridge, and in the great schools of Germany. These return to their country like arrows, to drive darkness from the land. I hold that his industrial and educational initiative, and his untiring devotion to these activities, must be regarded as positive evidences of this process of his regeneration.

Isaac Seme, later to be popularly known as Pixely Ka Isaka Seme, was in the US as student in 1906 when he presented this speech. This was the same year as the famous defeat of the Bambatha Rebellion, yet Pixely Ka Isaka Seme had such great hope for the African continent.

The general background to the formation of the ANC was the defeat of the Africans militarily, their subjugation to colonial rule and their gross marginalisation from the mainstream social, economic and political development of our country. The Bambatha Rebellion marked the last of such defeats, and reinforced the calls for unity amongst the African people throughout Southern Africa against the colonial onslaught.

That is why the conference to found the ANC in 1912 was attended by royalties from as far as Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana, Zambia and those of tribes and kingdoms from within South Africa, and included Kings, Princes, Paramount Chiefs and Chiefs. It is for this reason that unity is the foundation stone of the ANC throughout all its existence. As national conference burst into Enoch Sontonga’s “Nkosi Sikelela I Afrika, that alone amplified the message and call for unity across the continent in the struggle against colonial oppression by the oldest liberation movement in the African continent.

In the first instance they were responding to events that seemed to sideline them in reconstituting of South Africa. Having fought amongst themselves from 1899 to 1902 during the Anglo-Boer war, the colonisers ended their conflicts with the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging in 1902. Thereafter they set out to unite against the African masses, seeking autonomy from Britain in 1909 which was granted leading to the formation of the exclusively white Union of South Africa in 1910. They went about imposing segregatory tax and other laws, limiting the rights of Africans on their land in order to force their dependency on the mushrooming mining activities following the discovery of gold and diamond in the Witwatersrand and Kimberly.

Africans continued to work towards self emancipation, and Seme led the African Farmers’ Association which bought farms to benefit Africans. However, these efforts and the general dependence of Africans on subsistence farming was dealt a blow by the promulgation of the 1913 Land Act, whose effect was to curtail Africans’ rights to land ownership.

On this matter the leading journalist, RV Selope Thema, wrote:

“Another enterprise undertaken by this man of vision was the establishment of an African Farmers’ Association, and an African settlement at Daggakraal in the Eastern Transvaal. The association gave impetus to the purchasing of land by Africans in the Transvaal. The Daggakraal settlement caused consternation among neighbouring farmers, who declared that unless the buying of land by Natives was restricted South Africa would never be a white man’s country. Indeed it was no exaggeration that it was the Daggakraal settlement which precipitated the enactment of the Natives Land Act in 1913.

What followed were petitions against the Union Government, which were met with non-responses. As a result, deputations to England were also made, as South Africa, though independent still pledged allegiance to the English Royal family until South Africa was granted the status of “Republic

Even in their petitions, which when they failed were followed by deputations to England, were never meant in the strict Pan Africanist sense of Marcus Garvey of hailing the “white man into the sea. There can be a lot of debate as to why Pixely Ka Isaka Seme adopted the position of fighting what former President Nelson Mandela called “white domination.

A combination of missionary education and the social class of those behind the formation of the ANC in 1912 could have had an impact on the ideological orientation of the organisation. Pixely Ka Isaka Seme was born from a Christian family and so was his cousin the Rev John Langalibalele Dube, the latter who was elected first President of the ANC. This point about the influence of Christianity is further confirmed by a quote in Pixely Ka Isaka Seme’s keynote speech on 8 January 1912 and it reads thus:

“There is to-day among all races and men a general desire for progress, and for co-operation, because co-operation will facilitate and secure that progress. This spirit is due no doubt to the great triumph of Christianity which teaches men everywhere that in this world they have a common duty to perform both towards God and towards one another.

No doubt, the ANC was formed by elite and educated African people who were partly inspired by their Christian faith, nonetheless whose main complaint was the disenfranchisement of the African notably due to the 1910 Union of South Africa dispensation. It was no coincidence that they sang “Lizalise Idinga Lakho, Thixo we Nyaniso! as well as Enoch Sontonga’s “Nkosi Sikelela I Afrika, the latter which became the ANC’s national anthem and informed the composition of our country’s national anthem.

According to the leading African journalist RV Selope Thema:

“When he (Pixely Ka Isaka Seme) was studying at Columbia and Oxford universities and eating his dinners at the Middle Temple, Pixley Seme’s mind was wholly occupied with the idea of how to rebuild the broken Zulu nation. But when he saw what was happening to all Africans of all tribes, he changed his mind. Probably he remembered that the ultimate object of Tshaka in building the Zulu nation was to bring all the tribes under Zulu sway so as to eventually create a powerful nation of all the Africans.

‘Why should he not undertake this idea of Tshaka to fruition?’ he asked himself as he paced to and fro in his office at the corner of Rissik and Marshall Streets. He turned over the idea in his mind and finally came to the conclusion that the scheme was worth while attempting.

From this short passage it is clear that Pixely Ka Isaka Seme’s preoccupation was with the unity of Africans as basic weapon in resisting their own racial discrimination and confronting colonial oppression. As he went about to make consultations amongst fellow Africans, he discovered that his sentiments were echoed by various chiefs, church leaders and other leading personalities amongst the African people. So there was fertile ground for cooperation, and this alone probably owed itself from the defeat of these African kingdoms by the colonial powers and the realisation of the age old wisdom that “unity is strength.

The purpose of the ANC is explained by Seme:

“The South African Native National Congress is the voice in the wilderness bidding all the dark races of this sub-continent to come together once or twice a year in order to review the past and reject therein all those things which have retarded our progress; the things which poison the springs of our national life and virtue; to label and distinguish the sins of civilisation, and as members of one house-hold to talk and think loudly on our home problems and the solution of them.

Again, the purpose of the ANC is well captured in the 1919 preamble of constitution initially adopted in 1914. This succinctly give the indication that the ANC was meant to be the “Parliament of the People:

AND WHEREAS there met at Bloemfontein O.F.S. on the 8th day of January 1912, certain Chiefs, delegates and other leading men in all representing the said Territories, Protectorates, the Provinces and also the aforesaid bodies throughout South Africa; AND the said meeting, there and then, resolved that it was expedient and desirable that a well-digested and accepted native opinion should be ascertainable by the Government and other constituted Authorities with respect to the Native problem in all its various phases and ramifications. And it was then further resolved to invite all aforementioned Associations, Organisations or Vigilant Committees and Councils to unite together and form as affiliated bodies, a Federation of one Pan African Association the name thereof to be “THE SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS” (hereinafter in these recitals called the “National Congress”) and to be composed and consist of two sections or Houses - to wit, one section then to be known as the Upper House and the other the Lower House;

Clearly what showed was the influence of education in America and England on the masterminds behind the formation of the ANC such as Pixely Ka Isaka Seme, Sol Plaatijie who became the first Secretary General and John Langalibalele Dube, who was elected President. They modelled the ANC on the conservative plane of the British parliamentary system, with “Lower and “Upper houses fully fledged with “Speakers. The dominant role of Chiefs was well covered in the constitution adopted in 1919.

They were afforded certain priviledges such specially designated sitting arrangements during national conferences as well as the handling of disputes involving them or amongst them. All these were spelt out in the constitution. Therefore the conservative culture of the early ANC was sculptured through the influence of its dominant leaders who were themselves conservative and opposed to violent protests.

It could be said that the 1912 conference was a convergence of conservatives. They preferred peaceful petitioning and deputations, and by these tactics hoped to appeal to the conscience of their oppressors by proving that they too are civilised beings worth equal treatment as citizens. It can be argued that this was pure idealism as opposed to a dialectical disposition against the observed evidence of the contending forces between the coloniser and the colonised.

Descending in what is today Mangaung on the 8th January 1912 were throngs of various tribal leaders, the clergy, clerks, journalists and others who constituted the elite of African society, dressed in their colourful regalia consistent with the cultural heritages of the various tribes of our people. They had answered the call for unity amongst the African people, and the importance of this point alone cannot be overemphasised. And how would the ANC go about achieving these ideals? Again Seme gives the answer to that question:

“Such National Conferences of the people are bound to give a wide publication of the Natives’ own views on the questions which primarily concern him tomorrow and today. Through this Congress the Native Senators in the Union House of Parliament will be able to live in close touch with the Natives of the whole country whose interest each Senator is supposed to represent. The Government also will find a direct and independent channel of informing itself as to the things uppermost in Natives’ mind from time to time, and this will make it easier for the Union Government to deal with the Natives of the whole of South Africa. If we wish to convince the Government that it is possible to have a uniform Native policy for the whole of South Africa then let us form this Congress.

From this perspective, it explains why the ANC believed in changing the political and economic systems of the day such that it does not discriminate against any race as opposed to fundamental revolutionary change. In other words, racial domination was the key challenge that was to be eradicated. The ANC was to be the parliament of the “natives, and through this platform feed into the broader national discourse influencing development in favour of the Africans.

In his Keynote Speech in 1912, Pixely Ka Isaka Seme spoke elaborately about unity amongst the oppressed and marginalised Africans. He said;

“Again, it is conclusively urgent that this Congress should meet this year, because a matter which is so vitally important to our progress and welfare should not be unnecessarily postponed by reason of personal differences and selfishness of our leaders. The demon of racialism, the aberrations of the Xhosa-Fingo feud, the animosity that exists between the Zulus and the Tongaas, between the Basutos and every other Native must be buried and forgotten; it has shed among us sufficient blood! We are one people. These divisions, these jealousies, are the cause of all our woes and of all our backwardness and ignorance today. A great Paramount Chief accepting that his name be included in the honourable list of Native princes who endorse and support this movement, writes that “He however wishes to point out that whilst the objects and the aims of a Congress appear to be good and reasonable, much of the success depends upon the attitude of the members. There should be among other things a firm resolve on the part of every member to eliminate factors which have in the past proved fatal to the continued existence of such Societies.

Not only was Pixely Ka Isaka Seme calling for unity, but he was also making a case that this was the view of the people he had consulted prior to the convening of the meeting on January 8 in 1912. Amongst these he specifically quoted a chief whom he did not call by name. What that means, as argued by Pixely Ka Isaka Seme, is that even traditional leaders such as Chiefs were behind the thrust towards the unity of Africans in confronting the challenges of sweeping discrimination against the African natives.

There are several policy issues relevant for us today that we learn from the founding of the ANC in 1912.

Firstly, that the defeat of the Africans required their unity, hence the unity of the ANC is the golden thread for the past nearly 100 years. This required the embrace of the attitude of non tribalism amongst the African people, as argued by the Chief that Seme referred to in his Keynote Address.

Secondly, that non racialism is the broad policy framework within which the ANC aimed to emancipate the disenfranchised African masses.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, was the primary objective of liberating Africans from colonial oppression. Linked to the objective of liberation was the principle of self determination.

Fourthly and also captured in Pixely Ka Isaka Seme’s famous speech “The Regeneration of Africa, where he introduced his oratory by proclaiming that:

“I am an African, and I set my pride in my race over against a hostile public opinion.

It was this overwhelming hostility that Pixely Ka Isaka Seme observed while growing up in rural what today constitutes KwaZulu Natal, and that he also encountered as a student while studying in the US, that prompted Pixely Ka Isaka Seme to thrive for the self determination of the African people. For this reason, the Native’s Union, or in Seme’s words, “the so called African Native National Congress, was to represent the views and interests of African people within the Union of South Africa’s establishment.

We must grapple with the relevance of the “hostility that Pixely Ka Isaka Seme spoke of, and make determination of exactly what are the current forces “hostile to our agenda for change. My perspective is that where idealism prevailed leading to the popular embrace of non racialism as socio-political ethos by the South African and international community, the underlying dialectical dispositions of hostility along race, class and gender lines still persist and must be confronted and defeated.

Very importantly, we must also grapple with the assertion that he made, in the African “has refused to camp forever on the borders of the industrial world; having learned that knowledge is power, he is educating his children.

Are we not found wanting in as far as educating our children? Do we really believe that the future of our country rest on the younger generation? What about teaching our children patriotism, so that after graduating as doctors, as nurses, as engineers etc, they contribute to the “regeneration of Africa instead of heading overseas? Have we not undermined Seme’s assertion that “These (meaning Africa’s children sent to study abroad like himself) return to their country like arrows, to drive darkness from the land? Looking at our skills strategy and its implementation, can we truly share Seme’s sentiments when he declared that:

“I hold that his industrial and educational initiative, and his untiring devotion to these activities, must be regarded as positive evidences of this process of his regeneration?

Of course as the ANC was confronted with other challenges in decades to follow, more policy postures were debated and adopted, but as I have hinted at the beginning, those are beyond the scope of mandate of which I have been requested to make this presentation.

Today’s policy challenges is better illuminated by the mindset and works of Pixely Ka Isaka Seme, arguably the founder of the ANC. History tells of other heroes and heroines of our struggle, but here it suffices to say Pixely Ka Isaka Seme was indeed the foremost leading founder of the ANC, of course working together with other genius of his generation. From his life, we learn that we too can, as individuals working in collectives, contribute into shaping the history of our movement and that of the struggle of our people going into the future.

Jeff Radebe is an ANC NEC member and Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development

Alaska oil explorers encountering more polar bears

Oil companies scouring the coastline of Alaska’s North Slope for new production sites are converging on the same territory as hungry polar bears trying to escape shrinking and thinning sea ice.

Polar bears have not attacked any workers recently, but oil companies are reporting four times as many sightings as they did last decade.

“These bears will walk the coast,” said Craig Perham, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “So if you’ve got an operation right on the coast, you’re going to see bears.”

There were 321 polar bear sightings in and around Alaska oil and gas operations in 2007 and 313 in 2008, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That is about four times the annual average posted for the period of 1994 through 2000.

The last polar bear mauling at a North Slope industrial site occurred in 1993 at a military facility. A bear crashed through a window and severely hurt a contract worker inside.

But close encounters are getting more frequent. Even reality television has documented the phenomenon. On the closing episode of “Ice Road Truckers” on the History Channel, one truck driver was briefly held up from delivering his final load of diesel fuel to Exxon Mobil Corp’s Point Thomson field because wandering polar bears had shut down traffic.

Oil companies probably are recording multiple sightings of individual bears that, instead of making brief stops on land, are extending their stays, Perham said.

“What this appears to be is bears looking for another option because their traditional habitat is not as healthy as it used to be,” said Steve Amstrup of the U.S. Geological Survey. This summer, Arctic sea ice shrank to its third-lowest area on record [ID:nN17442487].

Like roaming bears awaiting freeze-up, denning females — mother bears giving birth and nursing cubs — are settling on land rather than on sea ice, according to a study by Amstrup and others.

Oil-field workers rarely see denning females, the scientists said, but there have been some interactions. A mother bear with cubs forced a late-season shutdown of the ice road to Point Thomson last spring, state officials said.

The Exxon-operated Point Thomson prospect, 55 miles east of Prudhoe Bay, is at a site holding the coastal bluffs that naturally draw polar bears.

“Clearly, Point Thomson is in the midst of polar bears,” Amstrup said.

Other sites attractive to polar bears but targeted for drilling are Oliktok Point west of Prudhoe, where the Italian company ENI is developing its Nikaitchuq prospect, and the offshore Liberty prospect, which BP plans to drill from the edge of land east of Prudhoe Bay.

Meanwhile, oil companies are making more efforts to document sightings, said Marilyn Crockett, executive director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association.

She said last year’s designation of polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act adds new monitoring responsibilities for operators in polar-bear habitat.

Most companies hold letters from the Fish and Wildlife Service authorizing “incidental takes” of polar bears, meaning generally minor, accidental disturbances, said Crockett, who added that companies take great efforts to avoid any potentially dangerous encounters.

“So if you have more companies operating under LOAs (letters of authorization), then reporting sightings are going to increase,” she said.

Source:
Reuters, “Alaska oil explorers encountering more polar bears“, accessed October 6, 2009

US-backed Somalia President Visits Ohio State

Somali president visits Ohio State

Thursday, 08 October 2009

October 8, 2009 — The president of Somalia, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, held a dialogue Wednesday with the media, central Ohio leaders and members of the local Somali community at Ohio State’s Longaberger Alumni House. He encouraged the U.S. to bring peace to Somalia and offered his views on higher education.

After attending the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City and visiting Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., and Chicago, Columbus was the final stop on Ahmed’s tour of the U.S. Ahmed acknowledged many of Somalia’s problems, including civil war, poverty and drought.

The nation has recently garnered negative publicity for its problems with piracy, which Ahmed condemned. Piracy “has given Somalia a bad name,” he said. He also mentioned the threat of international terrorist organizations, accusing them of “taking advantage of the situation in Somalia.” He also addressed the importance of higher education. In his speech, he thanked OSU and called on the university to “help resuscitate the Somali community.”

He said he wants to recruit educated and experienced Somalis to return to Somalia, one of the reasons for his visit to the U.S. Ahmed praised the U.S. government and called for increased cooperation between the two nations.

“We believe that if the Somali government, the United States government and the people of the United States and Somalia cooperate, we can bring stability to Somalia,” he said. He said that the U.S. would play an instrumental role in bringing peace to the embattled region. He complimented the Obama administration’s policy and general attitude toward Somalia and East Africa, saying that his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “was an indication of a level of interest in East Africa.”

Columbus is a vital stop for Ahmed because of its high Somali population. The city of Columbus has a population of between 20,000 to 40,000 Somalis, making it the second-highest concentration of Somalis in the U.S. behind Minneapolis. Constant conflict has prompted thousands of Somalis to migrate to neighboring countries in Africa and to Europe and America.
U.N. Reports estimate that the conflict in Somalia has displaced nearly 20,000 people from their homes in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, and 1 million people from their homes nationwide. In recent years, drought has plagued Somalia, causing the Somali people to be increasingly reliant on food aid.

Somalia, located in the Horn of Africa, is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, the Indian Ocean to the east, Kenya to the Southwest and Djibouti to the northwest. It is bordered by the Gulf of Aden with Yemen to the north. The Lantern