A study in the Czech Republic has found a link between exposure to certain air pollutants and an increase in DNA damage for people exposed to high levels of the pollution. They found that breathing small quantities of a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), called benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P), caused an increase in the number of certain 'biomarkers' in DNA associated with a higher risk of diseases, including cancer.

Trees are dying in the Sahel, a region in Africa south of the Sahara Desert, and human-caused climate change is to blame, according to a new study led by a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. The study was based upon climate change records, aerial photos dating back to 1954, recent satellite images and old-fashioned footwork that included counting and measuring over 1,500 trees in the field. The researchers focused on six countries in the Sahel, from Senegal in West Africa to Chad in Central Africa, at sites where the average temperature warmed up by 0.8 degrees Celsius and rainfall fell as much as 48 per cent.

In this episode, Africa Today speaks with Carlos Alberto Torres on Puerto Rico and the campaign to free Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar Lopez Rivera, who has served more than 30 years in prison. Also Runoko Rashidi, historian, author, and world traveler discusses his upcoming visit to Richmond, California and his new book 'Black Star' which highlights the African presence in Early Europe.

As a USAID International Engagement Conference for South Sudan gets underway in Washington DC from 14-15 December, cautions against foreign land investments that are being promoted as a solution for development in the new nation.

This report, authored by leading land experts, is the culmination of a three-year research project that brought together forty members and partners of ILC to examine the characteristics, drivers and impacts and trends of rapidly increasing commercial pressures on land. The report strongly urges models of investment that do not involve large-scale land acquisitions, but rather work together with local land users, respecting their land rights and the ability of small-scale farmers themselves to play a key role in investing to meet the food and resource demands of the future.

Last year, Angola’s president authorised the extension of a mining concession 'primarily to the benefit of his daughter', Tchizé dos Santos, making a mockery the government’s words on ‘good governance, transparency and public service’, writes Rafael Marques de Morais.

Khadija Sharife cuts into the carbon offset market, asking why the solutions to climate change are being put in the hands of financiers and key state polluters.

Jared Sacks shares his experience of some of the inequities within the climate justice movement. Community self-organising that does not need millions in funding should be supported, he urges.

The UN Climate Change Conference (COP 17) in Durban, South Africa, ended 11 December with an agreement that all major polluting countries would work towards legally binding targets for reducing carbon emissions. But the bitter showdowns and high drama which preceded the last-minute agreement sidelined two key issues for developing countries - the workings of a Green Climate Fund, which is intended to channel money to help developing countries cope with climate change; and how to facilitate technology transfer, particularly in relation to the obstacles imposed by intellectual property rights (IPR).

Tom Goldtooth, head of the Indigenous Environmental Network talks to the Africa Report’s Khadija Sharife about the manipulation of carbon trading data and the double standards assumed by richer countries.

The United States Ambassador to Uganda, Mr Jerry Lanier, and the UK High Commissioner, Mr Martin Shearman, have snubbed calls to appear before the parliamentary ad hoc committee investigating the oil sector, the Daily Monitor has learnt. In October, MPs mentioned Mr Lanier’s reports in Wikileaks, an online whistle-blower, where he accused Premier Amama Mbabazi and Internal Affairs minister Hilary Onek as having received bribes from oil companies.

A Us drone has crashed in the island nation of Seychelles, an incident that comes just over a week after a US drone went down in Iran. The latest crash comes just hours after Defense Secretary Leon Panetta visited Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, the base that houses troops assigned to a unit in the horn of Africa and is home to a fleet of drones assigned to fly over the horn of Africa and some areas in the Middle East.

The promise of job creation has been put forward by investors, governments, and international institutions to convince local communities of the benefits of foreign investment in agriculture. For instance, the Sierra Leonean president, claimed in March 2011, 'Huge investments in the [agricultural] sector will definitely translate into hundreds of thousands of employment opportunities for our youths.' Several countries studied by the Oakland Institute reveal that many locals thus welcome land investment with the hope that such projects will bring jobs and wages.

The US-based AgriSol Company has landed another lucrative land deal involving 10,000 hectres amid growing public outcry about the recent land deals sealed by the company in Rukwa region. The company, mid this year, came under attack from land rights activists and politicians, especially Members of Parliament for acquiring over 300,000 hectres located at Mishamo and Katumba areas in Mpanda district for agricultural development.

In solidarity with the millions of people already feeling the impacts of climate change, hundreds of people protested in the halls of the UN Climate Talks last week to demand that nations not sign a 'death sentence' in Durban. The march filled the hall outside of the main negotiating room in Durban just as the afternoon round of talks were scheduled to begin. Standing side-by-side with delegates from some of the world’s most vulnerable countries, civil society representatives sang traditional South African freedom songs and chanted slogans like, 'Listen to the People, Not the Polluters'.

Decisions resulting from the UN COP17 climate summit in Durban constitute a crime against humanity, according to Climate Justice Now! a broad coalition of social movements and civil society. 'Here in South Africa, where the world was inspired by the liberation struggle of the country’s black majority, the richest nations have cynically created a new regime of climate apartheid.'

The Food Sovereignty Campaign believes the time has come for land occupations. This movement of emerging farmers and farm dwellers is based in the Western and Northern Cape provinces. ‘Land occupations are the new way of doing land reform,’ says Johan Jantjies, the convenor of the Food Sovereignty campaign. ‘Recently the government brought out a Green Paper on Land Reform. They made it clear they have no plan of how to get the land from the capitalist owners. Without such a plan how can you even talk about land reform? We have a plan and that is for the landless to occupy the land.’

On Monday 5 December MediaClimate held a seminar titled 'Media meets climate: A problem or a solution for social movements' at the Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard campus. MediaClimate is an international research group that looks at media coverage of the annual UN climate summits. The aim of the seminar was to explore the relationships between COP17, the media and the different angles of the stories. One of the issues raised was that COP and climate change terms are often difficult to understand.

On 2 December Earth Life Africa held an anti-coal seminar at the Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal (Howard campus). The seminar titled 'Anti-Coal Movements in Germany, South Africa and beyond?' highlighted many of the negative consequences associated with coal energy, and some of the concerns and desires in terms of climate change and energy. Makoma Lekalakala, the programme officer of Earthlife Africa Jhb. expressed her concerns regarding Eskom’s plans to improve the electricity shortage that South Africa has been facing.

At the southeastern edge of Cairo, only 10km from downtown and 15 minutes from Maadi, a lonely desert valley called Wadi Degla spreads some 30km from west to east. Cairo’s most popular urban protectorate was established in 1999 in an effort to tame urban and industrial expansion from engulfing into the delicate and so far untouched area. Sadly, today, this very expansion is jeopardising the protected area.