The latest population estimates published yesterday by the Office for National Statistics brought warnings from MPs and critics of immigration policy yesterday. Tory MP James Clappison said: ‘These are alarming and unsustainable figures which imply that a UK population of 70million will be reached sooner rather than later. The Government must address this issue as a matter of urgency, and bring the population under control by controlling immigration, which is the major driver of population growth.’

Sir Andrew Green, of the thinktank Migrationwatch, said: ‘This is yet more evidence that the population of England is growing at a completely unacceptable-rate, two-thirds of it due to immigration. It is time that the political parties came out of denial about population and took serious measures to get its growth down to a sensible level.’

Last year’s 404,000 jump in the population of England and Wales is greater than that recorded in other recent years of fast growth. Until 2000, the annual rise was below 200,000. A spokesman for the Home Office said yesterday: ‘Introducing a limit on those from outside the European Union who come to work is one of the ways by which we will reduce net migration back to the levels of the 1990s, to the tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands. While it is necessary to attract the world’s best talent to the UK, we need to balance the needs of business with the impacts and costs of migration.’

It was confirmed last week by the House of Commons Library that England has become the most crowded country in Europe, barring only Malta.

More: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1308190/Record-population-increase-biggest-Sixties.html?ito=feeds-newsxml#ixzz0yNcyLnYg

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has written to Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete to voice its concerns. While praising Tanzania’s commitment to conservation, noting that 38 per cent of its land is already protected, the IUCN recommends carrying out a full assessment of the road’s environmental impact. Meanwhile, the African Wildlife Foundation is campaigning for the road’s path to be altered so that it passes south of the park, avoiding the migration route.

Despite the ongoing campaign, the road is set to go ahead, with construction kicking off in 2012. In a recent speech, Kikwete said the best he could do was to leave the part of the road that crossed the migratory route unpaved.

More: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727763.800-road-to-cut-off-serengeti-migration-route.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=environment

In a nation with Africa’s only female president, Liberian girls are outpaced by boys in educational enrolment, retention and completion rates from the earliest grades through university. Nationally, for every 10 boys in primary school there are nine girls; for every 10 boys in high school, there are fewer than seven girls, and in some rural high schools like Bopolu, there are none at all. Only 18 percent of girls who make it to high school graduate, compared with 25 percent of boys.

Girls also have few role models in school. Just 12 percent of primary school teachers are women, and they account for five percent of junior high and three percent of high school educators, according to the Ministry of Education.

The Liberian government and international donors such as the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, are trying to improve educational conditions and opportunities for girls through special learning opportunities and inducements. Female education is listed as a priority in the government’s 2010 Education Sector Plan, with calls for erasing gender disparities within a decade.

More: http://allafrica.com/stories/201009010008.html

In December, Mexico is to host a new formal effort to clear the way for a convention. A United Nations summit in Copenhagen at the end of last year ended in serious disarray. Developing nations say billions of dollars are vital to help them start acting to slow global warming by shifting from fossil fuels, and to cope with challenges created by climate change ranging from droughts and floods to rising sea levels. Big emerging economies like China, India and Brazil say they should not be hog-tied by environmental rules unless the West - which they blame for global warming - helps pay the cost.

 It was agreed in Copenhagen that what Perrez dubbed a “fast-track” financing of some $30 billion was needed for the years 2010-2012 to create confidence, but the larger goal is to ensure by 2020 that $100 billion a year can be mobilized.

 Environment ministers hope for progress on financing when they gather in Cancun from November 29 to December 10, despite austerity programmes adopted by rich nations in the wake of the world economic and financial crisis of 2008-09.

More: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6803YP20100901?

In the remote and rural district of Samburu, northern Kenya, where paved roads are scarce and motorised transport hard to come by, reaching the mostly pastoralist and nomadic inhabitants with HIV/AIDS services requires an unusual approach.

John Lokolale, 21, a Samburu Moran (warrior), said he did not know what the word condom meant until recently. “Now I know a condom because I have seen it,” he told IRIN/PlusNews. “These days, when I get a girl I tell her I will use a condom because I have a stock in my house. They brought it here with a camel, and I kept many for myself.”

The Nomadic Communities Trust (NCT), a community-based health services organization, started using camels to reach the Samburu people with mobile clinics in 2006.  “We realized we had to be innovative … and we looked around; we are glad camels have come in handy in [delivering] not only condoms but also drugs and other reproductive health services,” said Rose Kimanzi, an NCT field coordinator.

The camel clinics offer family planning services, antenatal care, palliative care, HIV testing and condoms. NCT has trained 45 local people to provide information about HIV and condoms and they have so far reached more than 68,000 people. According to the 2007 Kenya AIDS Indicator Survey, Samburu district has an HIV prevalence of 6.1 percent, slightly lower than the national average of 7.4 percent. “When people come to places where we have set up camp they can receive all the services,” said Kimanzi. “We have witnessed comparatively wide acceptance of condom use and family planning services.”

More: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=90351

The old stereotype of the gold-digging hussy who gets pregnant to trap a man into marriage seems to have faded, probably because women are not as economically dependent on men as they once were. But that’s not to say that pregnancy is no longer being wielded as a weapon: researchers who work in family planning and with victims of domestic violence say it is women who are now being threatened with pregnancy by their partners.

Reproductive coercion, as it’s known, takes several forms. Partners may verbally or physically threaten women if they use birth control or seek abortions, or they may throw away or damage birth control and remove condoms during sex. It usually takes place within an already abusive relationship, especially those that are emotionally abusive.

“It’s another way a male partner tries to control a female partner,” says Elizabeth Miller, associate professor of pediatrics at the U.C. Davis School of Medicine, who has led much of what little research there is on the issue. “Women say their partner tells them he wants to leave a legacy or have them in his life forever.”

In a study Miller published in January, involving about 1,300 female patients ages 16 to 29 at family-planning clinics in Northern California, about a third of those who reported being in violent relationships said they had experienced reproductive coercion. But while the problem seems to be most acute among the young, it isn’t exclusively so. In a study Miller co-authored in April, as many as 75% of women between the ages of 18 and 49 who had a history of being in an abusive relationship also reported some form of reproductive coercion.

More: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2014901,00.html#ixzz0yNVZtvRB

A record low in teenage pregnancy figures could signal a brighter future for the region’s children according to health chiefs. The high teenage pregnancy rate was highlighted as a key area of concern in the region’s 2009 health report. But a boost in Long Acting Reversible Contraception procedures following a promotional campaign from the region’s Teenage Pregnancy Partnership appears to have triggered a 27 per cent drop in cases.

Councillor Stuart Wilson, lead member for health at North Lincol shire Council, said: “In our role with the Teenage Pregnancy Partnership we have been pushing Long Acting Reversible Contraception (LARCs) and the take-up has been extremely high. “While some teenagers will choose to get pregnant and for very good reasons, it is important we give young people as much control over their lives as possible and the LARCs are a great way of doing that.”

The region’s Teenage Pregnancy Partnership is run jointly between North Lincolnshire Council and NHS North Lincolnshire. With the Primary Care Trust set for closure in 2013, Mr Wilson stated the work carried out so far meant the council was in a strong position to carry on reducing the number of teenage conceptions. He said: “With public health issues it is important to be pro-active rather than re-active. We have worked very well with NHS North Lincolnshire in this respect in recent years, to get the message out there you need everyone singing from the same hymn sheet. The council will obviously take a much greater responsibility once the PCT is abolished, and we are confident with the work we have undertaken already we will be able to make a smooth transition.”

The news comes a week after Department of Health figures revealed levels of obesity and smoking have plummeted in North Lincolnshire over the past year. The areas have all been targeted in a bid to reduce health inequalities across the region, after the 2009 health report revealed North Lincolnshire is in the bottom 25 per cent in the UK for life expectancy gaps between rich and poor.

Mr Wilson said: “Tackling these health inequalities is obviously a major priority and bringing down the number of teenage conceptions is a crucial part in that. The affect an unwanted pregnancy can have on a young person’s hopes and aspirations can be devastating.

More: http://www.thisisscunthorpe.co.uk/news/Bright-future-region-s-children/article-2589963-detail/article.html

The next reports in 2013-14 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is facing calls for an overhaul of its management and better fact-checking after errors in the 2007 assessment, will include other options. “We intend to carry out ’second best’ scenarios, where we assume we have a fragmented climate regime, where we have limited availability of technologies, to describe a much more realistic policy space,” Edenhofer told Reuters by telephone.

More: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67U4OX20100831?

The FFPI surge mainly reflected the sudden sharp rise in international wheat prices following drought in the Russian Federation and the country’s subsequent restrictions on wheat sales. But other drivers included higher sugar and oilseed prices.

FAO’s update said that the forecast for world cereal production in 2010 has been lowered by 41 million tonnes to 2 238 million tonnes from 2 279 million tonnes reported in June.  However, even at this lower level, world cereal output in 2010 would be the third highest on record and above the five-year average. Among the major cereals, wheat accounted for most of the cut, reflecting mainly smaller crops in the leading producers in the CIS due to adverse weather.

Under the present forecast world cereal utilization would slightly exceed production in 2010/11. This would trigger a two percent contraction in world ending stocks from their 8-year-high opening levels and a small decline in world cereal stocks-to-use ratio. At 23 percent, however, the ratio would still remain well above the 19.5 percent low witnessed in the 2007/08 food crisis period.

More: http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/45006/icode/

The Renewable Fuels Agency says it is disappointed that the vast majority of biofuels sold on UK forecourts do not conform to environmental standards. The body said fuel suppliers were meeting legally binding volume targets but some were falling “well short” on achieving voluntary green standards.  But since biofuels have had to be mixed into forecourt fuel, there had been a reduction in emissions, it added. The figures are based on 2009/10 data, which will be finalised in early 2011.

The Renewable Fuels Agency (RFA) is the UK’s independent regulator for biofuels, and is responsible for the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RTFO), which requires a percentage of fuel sold on forecourts to be biofuels.

In the first year of the RTFO, 2008/09, the target was 2.5%, and it is set to gradually increase until 2013/14 when 5% of all fuel sales have to be from a renewable source. Provisional figures for the second year of the obligation showed that almost 1.6bn tonnes of biofuels had been sold, primarily as a blend with traditional transport fossil fuels (petrol and diesel). This equated to 3.33% of total sales, exceeding the government’s target of 3.25%.

However, a RFA spokesman said that, despite the volume target being achieved, the agency was “disappointed that more companies did not source more fuel that was produced according to a recognised environmental standard. We believe that sustainable biofuel is available, in sufficient volume, should these companies wish to procure it,” he told BBC News.

More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11112837