It had closure by 2005 as part of its accession agreement with the EU (ED 10/09/99), but the timetable had recently been in doubt, according to media reports this week. Meanwhile, the Swedish government has set 31 May next year as a preliminary deadline for shutting the second and final reactor at the Barseb?ck nuclear power station. This follows a decision last month to force closure next year (ED 05/10/04).

DISTURBED that computer equipment, records, and means of access to operating funds of the Reserve were seized on 2 November 2004, by the Danube Transport Prosecutor’s Office at the request of Ukraine’s Ministry of Transport;

 CONCERNED that these actions appear to be in retaliation for the outspoken positions taken by Director Voloshkevych against the construction of a navigation canal through the core of the Reserve’s most strictly protected area; Continue reading →

New York had a subway around the turn of the century (around the time it also fielded a fleet of electric taxis), and all its major planning was designed to accommodate pedestrians, not cars. According to the report “Commuting, Non-Work Travel and the Changing City,” only a third of New York’s workers get to work by car. Again, that’s the lowest rate of any major city.
Given these distinctions, it’s somewhat amazing that New York’s city government seems slightly ashamed of its auto-free advantages. Continue reading →

The protocol will become legally binding on its 128 Parties on February 16 2005,” the UNFCCC said in a statement received here, released after Russia handed the document to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in Nairobi. The Bonn-based U?FCCC, the offshoot of the 1992 Rio Summit, is Kyoto’s parent convention. Continue reading →

Russia will deposit the ratification instruments to the secretary general of the UN” Kofi Annan at the United Nationsoffices in Nairobi, where the Security Council is Thursday and Friday holding an extraordinary session on Sudan, a senior UN source said, asking not to be named. Continue reading →

n the Carpathian region there are the Danube river tributaries ? the Tisa, the Syret and the Prut rivers. NGOs in the Carpathian region ? ?Rutenia? (Uzhgorod , Agency of regional development (Rakhiv) ? took an active part in the ?Be an Artist of Danube? School Competition. In particular in Rakhiv region (Transcarpathians) the event ?From clean Tisa to clean Danube? was prepared. The participants were schoolchildren and the members of the scaut organization ?Plast?. For two weeks children took trips along the Tisa riverbanks and inflowing streams and cleaned them from garbage. Continue reading →

Technical accident happened during the continued navigable canal construction through Bystroe estuary in the Danube reserve. Environmentalists warned about the danger of accidents, but officials were deaf to protests and warnings. Continue reading →

Two Greenpeace members chained themselves to the fencing in front of the seat of government in central Bucharest while several others unfurled two banners reading “Nastase, save Rosia Montana,” in reference to Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase. Greenpeace spokeswoman Ana-Maria Bogdan said the protestors were “brutally” dispersed by police. Continue reading →

Europe’s summer has again been hit by freak weather conditions, with heavy thunderstorms affecting several European countries. In Cornwall, on Britain’s western coast, floods caused buildings to collapse, while in southern France four people drowned after a sudden change in the weather led to powerful winds and massive waves. And these types of weather events are expected to increase in frequency and intensity as the climate continues to change, according to a report published Wednesday by the European Environment Agency (EEA). Continue reading →