Thursday, May 19th, 2011
Russian bloggers are becoming increasingly influential in ecological and environmental issues, participants at a Moscow forum said. “Right now, bloggers probably have more impact on the local authorities,” Yevgeny Arsyukhin, a columnist with the Izvestia newspaper, said at the EcoBlogy forum. “It all depends on the official,” blogger Oleg Kozyrev said. “Some officials want to listen to people,
Thursday, May 19th, 2011
Dubai is poised to set up a new committee to regulate urban and regional planning in a bid to match construction projects to future demand, it has been announced. Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Crown Prince of Dubai, ratified the principles of establishing a supreme committee for planning at a meeting
Thursday, May 19th, 2011
ESA is helping to take the bite out of mosquitoes and their deadly diseases by tracking their distribution and habitat via observation satellites, satnav, and mobile communications. The Vecmap initiative is testing the accurate mapping of mosquitoes in Europe, in particular, mosquitoes carrying diseases, for public health agencies and regional mosquito controllers. Testing began in 2009
Thursday, May 19th, 2011
It gave me – and many others – a momentous insight: The Earth is humanity’s home in space. Or with the words of the Stockholm conference in 1972: Only one Earth. We learned that the sphere of life, our Earth’s biosphere, is thin, fragile fabric that can easily be disturbed. Here the entire history of humanity
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011
The Malta Information Technology Agency and IBM held a high profile joint business event that tackled the developments unfolding in the world of Open Source Software (OSS). The event, targeted for both public and private sectors, attracted a large number of attendees from various government ministries, local industry players and multinationals. MITA chairman Claudio Grech opened
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011
African governments could become more sensitive to what their people really need by harnessing the wealth of available geospatial information, a meeting of scientists and policymakers has heard. This was one of the recommendations put forward by a meeting of the sub-committee on geo-information on the sidelines of the Second Session of the Committee on Development
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011
The Department of Transport has for the past three years been preparing a public-private partnership (PPP) to build a Dh10 billion (US$2.72bn) road to Saudi Arabia from the capital. Last month, the department declared it had selected a preferred PPP bidder for the Mafraq-to-Al Ghweifat Highway project and that formal approval could be weeks away. But this
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011
Plans to store natural gas underground in the Bergermeer region north of Amsterdam were given the go-ahead on Tuesday by the ministries of economic affairs and the environment. The plan is part of efforts to turn the Netherlands into an international gas storage and distribution centre. Large users such as energy companies will use the supply
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011
Russian Railways (RZhD) and the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom) intend to create a nuclear-powered train, reports Interfax. According to RZhD vice-president Valentin Gapanovich, the train, consisting of 11 carriages, will house scientific exhibits. The estimated cost of construction is as yet unknown, as well as the safety measures for such transport. In the
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
he Alaska Gas Pipeline announced today that its open season efforts have not resulted in the customer commitments necessary to continue work on its Alaska North Slope gas pipeline project, which has an overall estimated capital cost of $35 billion (2009 dollars). Denali will withdraw its Federal Energy Regulatory Commission pre-file application and, over the
