Award Scheme to encourage climate change and environment reporting has been launched. An initiative of the Nairobi-based NGO Coalition Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, the "African Climate Change and Environmental Reporting (ACCER) Awards" will see Journalists from across Africa scoop lucrative Awards, with the top winner bagging prizes and sponsorship worth more than 1 million shillings (US$12,000). - Releasing the entry criteria at PACJA Headquarters on Sunday, the Alliance Secretary General Mr. Mithika Mwenda invited Journalists and media houses in Africa to seize the opportunity to showcase their talents and demonstrate to the world that they too care about the livelihoods…

- Africa should demand for climate justice regimes and action from the global community, Kenya’s Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources has said. Speaking while opening a workshop by civil society groups from around Africa coalescing under the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA); Ali Mohammed Dawood said the demand for justice is a priority for Africa as the continent emits the least greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. “As a continent, Africa remains highly vulnerable to climate change impacts because of its unique location and low adaptive capacity due to its development challenges,” he said. He noted that frequent and intens…

- Despite clear science and 20 years of focused policy and campaign work on an international climate change treaty, commensurate low carbon national policies continue to elude us. Reasons for this vary but include among others the growing skepticism around international negotiating processes, and a shift in NGO strategies towards domestic fights and infrastructure campaigns. Yet the need for global action to put all voices in climate discussions and movement on track for reducing emissions, at absolute minimum to ensure meeting the 2 degree Celsius target agreed at the 2009 Copenhagen climate negotiations, while striving to prevent more than 1.5 degrees of global warming has never been…

- Japan’s relationship with Africa appear headed for stormy periods following Africa’s rejection of the move by Japan to exclude climate change from its preparatory discussions in the build up to the fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development set for next year. During the fourth high-level ministerial and Senior Officers preparatory meeting held in Morocco in May, Japan’s strategy for low-carbon growth as a way of addressing climate change was rejected by Africans who felt that the proposal does not meet the continent’s position on climate change negotiations. This rejection led to Japan’s move to drop climate change on her development d…

One of the forest principles adopted by the on-going United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) is that forest management will be based on the best science, but this is a challenge for Africa, a continent ravaged by low number of scientists and under-resourced forestry training institutions. - Prof Fredrick Owino, a forest policy and science specialist said in Nairobi at the ongoing first International Union of Forestry Research Organisation conference that for Africa to meet the UNFF expectations, “the continent has to revamp its forestry education and research.” However, education and research remain very low in priority in both national budgets and donor support. According t…

- As preparation for the next discussions on climate change move to high gear, African activists on climate change are to begin beating drums to rouse interests among the rural populace, most of who although are aware of the changes in the weather pattern, hardly link these to the changes in climate change. The activists will be developing climate justice petitions derived from interaction with citizens of ten African countries which they expect to present both to their national governments as well as the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) members who will be participating at the 17th Conference of Parties scheduled for December in Durban, South Africa. The ac…

- Results announced yesterday from two clinical studies testing pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) showed striking evidence that antiretrovirals–the drugs used to treat HIV–can also help prevent HIV when used by heterosexual men and women. In contrast to the effectiveness of PrEP demonstrated last year in men who have sex with men–these studies provide the first proof that tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) and Truvada (TDF combined with emtricitabine) used daily can help to reduce HIV infection in heterosexual men and women. The first of these studies, Partners PrEP sponsored by the University of Washington and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with dr…

- By Henry Neondo Contradicting reports of swelling waistbands and increasing obesity, business people are actually so bent on fitness that they won’t leave home without their costumes or tracksuits - even when they travel for work! Over 17,000 respondents from more than 80 countries were asked what was the most unusual thing they habitually take on a business trip and more than a quarter of business travelers (27%) declared that they are inseparable from their fitness clothing, according to a new survey from workplace environment specialist Regus. Some weirder responses include: hair curlers, a ventriloquist’s dummy, a haggis, a surfboard and a chainsaw helmet - evidently ex…

- By Henry Neondo The Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) is concerned with the speed with which the Kenya Climate Change Working group is moving towards coming up with a Bill that will regulate mitigation and adapt to climate change. Alfred Khangati, Assistant Minister in the OPM said at a technical workshop on the climate change Bill in Mombasa that the working group needs to move with speed given that the Parliament has close to 40 other Bills that ought to be handled before the expiry of the 10th Parliament. Over the last year, the Kenya Climate Change Working Group that brings together civil society, the government, communities, private sector, development partners, research and aca…

- By Henry Neondo Gulf Air, the national carrier of the Kingdom of Bahrain has began its service to Nairobi with its inaugural flight taking off from Bahrain Tuesday at 11:40 hours from Bahrain International Airport. Gulf Air will be operating an Airbus A320 in a two-class configuration of 16 seats in Falcon Gold and 120 in Economy, and has the capacity to carry 4 tons of freight to Nairobi. Bookings for the flights are now open with an attractive promotional return fare beginning at 1,4205 Kenyan shilling (KES) from Nairobi to Dubai, Dammam, Bahrain, Doha, Abu Dhabi Muscat and Kuwait. At the gate ceremony held at Bahrain International Airport, Gulf Air Chief Operations Office…

- The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has appealed today to naval powers to help protect its ships carrying life-saving assistance from pirate attacks, saying that as many as 2 million Somalis could go hungry without this essential help. A Dutch frigate is scheduled to finish escort services for WFP on June 25. Since the escort system started last November, no WFP ships have been targeted by pirates, despite an upsurge of piracy in Somali waters -- 31 attacks so far this year according to the International Maritime Bureau. “Without escorts, our whole maritime supply route will be threatened,” said WFP Country, Director Peter Goossens. “Shipping companies a…

- It may not be clear yet the real reasons for the attack on migrant workers in South African cities said to have targeted at migrants mostly from Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Upwards of 50 people were reportedly killed in two weeks of chaos and some 20,000 were displaced. The attacks started in the poor Johannesburg settlement of Alexandra, one of the so-called townships established to house black, mixed race and Indian people during years of racial segregation in the country. Within a week, the violence had spread beyond South Africa 's economic capital to the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal in the south-east, and Mpumalanga in the north-east and is now reported in the country…