Saturday, 6 August 2011
UN: $1 Billion to Clean Oil-Polluted Niger Delta
The United Nations has released a report saying that cleaning up the oil-polluted Ogoniland area of Nigeria would cost $1 billion and take over 30 years – the most wide-ranging and costly cleanup of oil pollution clean-up ever. The damage was caused by the operations of oil companies in the area over the past 50 years. The Niger Delta, the world’s third largest wetland, was once rich with biodiversity but is now one of the most oil-polluted areas on earth. The report (and the cost estimate) cover only one small area of the vast Niger Delta; the $1 billion would cover the first five years of cleanup.
Among the findings:
- Public health is seriously threatened in at least ten communities where drinking water is contaminated with high levels of hydrocarbons.
- Some areas that appear unaffected on the surface are in fact severely contaminated underground, and pose a high and immediate risk to human and environmental well being,
- Scientists found an eight centimeter (three inch) layer of oil floating on groundwater (which feeds wells) linked to a spill from six years ago.
The UN Environmental Program report notes, “When an oil spill occurs on land, fires often break out, killing vegetation and creating a crust over the land, making remediation or revegetation difficult. At some sites, a crust of ash and tar has been in place for several decades.” The report makes multiple recommendations for long term remediation of the land, plant and animal life, and human health, including eight emergency measures around preventing further ingestion of polluted water. The report’s recommended the formation of an “Environmental Restoration Fund for Ogoniland, to be set up with an initial capital injection of US$1 billion contributed by the oil industry and the government, to cover the first five years of the clean-up project.”...
Friday, 5 August 2011
Lib Dems to debate drugs inquiry at party conference
Calls for a government-backed inquiry into the decriminalisation of drugs will be debated by Liberal Democrats at their annual conference next month.
Some delegates want more emphasis put on the treatment rather than the prosecution of drug users.The Lib Dems will debate a motion which would become party policy if it wins support at the Birmingham conference.
But they would still need the agreement of the Conservatives before an official government inquiry could be set up.
'Criminal records'
The motion will urge the government to set up an expert panel to consider the decriminalisation of personal drug use.
It insists that current drugs laws are "harmful" and "ineffective".
Some Lib Dems believe savings could be reinvested in education, treatment and rehabilitation programmes.
Drug users would no longer face a prison sentence or a fine but would be required to go for treatment or counselling. Penalties for drug dealing would remain the same as they are now.
The motion states that there is "increasing evidence that the UK's drugs policy is not only ineffective and not cost-effective but actually harmful, impacting particularly severely on the poor and marginalised".
It continues: "Individuals, especially young people, can be damaged both by the imposition of criminal records and by a drug habit, and... the priority for those addicted to all substances must be healthcare, education and rehabilitation, not punishment.
"One of the key barriers to developing better drugs policy has been the previous Labour government's persistent refusal to take on board scientific advice, and the absence of an overall evaluative framework of the UK's drugs strategy."
Greater scrutiny
It will not be the first time the Lib Dems have discussed changing the drugs laws at their annual conference, and in 2002 delegates voted for the legalisation of cannabis.
But BBC political correspondent Iain Watson says any call for an inquiry into drugs legislation is likely to attract far greater scrutiny now the Lib Dems are in government.
The inquiry would look at adopting the practice in Portugal of decriminalising the possession of drugs for personal use, and following the Swiss example of providing more clinics for heroin addicts.
The motion will be put forward by Ewan Hoyle, founder of Liberal Democrats for Drug Policy Reform, and supported by Lib Dem MEP Sir Graham Watson.
Party members can submit amendments to the motion by 5 September, ahead of the conference on 17-21 September.
@'BBC'
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