Sweden
A mystery virus has killed 600 seals off the country’s south coast, raising fears of a repeat of the 1988 plague that cut Europe’s seal population by half.
Russia
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While media attention has focused on fires in the US Midwest, 7000 square kilometres of Siberian forest has gone up in flames since February.
Uganda
President Yoweri Museveni vows to defy environmentalists and go ahead with a $550 million hydroelectric dam at Bujagali on the Nile that will drown the Bujagali rapids below Lake Victoria.
US
Citing fears of a terrorist attack, Californian authorities say people within 16 kilometres of nuclear power plants will receive iodine pills to ward off radiation-induced cancers. In the same week, the country’s power plant operators insist a hijacked airliner could not penetrate their nuclear reactors.
China
A fifth of the country is now desert, say Chinese officials, with sand dunes only 150 kilometres from Beijing.
India
Villagers whose cattle graze near the site where India tested nuclear devices four years ago complain that calves are being born blind and with tumours.
Iceland
International trade in whale meat is about to resume after a 14-year break. Iceland says it will buy 10 tonnes of minke meat and blubber from Norway, and that DNA fingerprinting will ensure the meat does not come from illegal sources.
Mexico
An environmental commission set up by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will investigate claims that genetically modified maize sold to Mexico for food has contaminated traditional maize varieties growing in the remote south of the country.