Remember Goldenberg! Cost Kenya 10% Of GDP. The final opinion on the evidence reviewed is that although the above were criminal actions of an economic nature, they could only have succeeded with the necessary political backing they were provided with by officers of state who flagrantly violated the basic rules by which they were bound in virtue of their positions.

Climate Change is accepted today even by die hard sceptics as a real crisis that must be urgently tackled for the preservation of the earth in a form that would sustain human and other life forms. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the best known body of climate scientists who accepts that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations due to human activities [1].

It has also been recognised as a human rights issue by the UN. There have been several conferences, studies and multilateral discussions on the issue. There has also been plenty of foot dragging by governments who erroneously think that prodigious carbon emission is a mark of progress and development.

We note that the global North has historically contributed disproportionately to the amounts of greenhouse gasses (GHS) in the atmosphere whereas the global South has been saddled with the impacts and is now being forced into a corner from where she has no option but to seek means for mitigation of the impacts and adapting to them as well. It is instructive as we shall see that the slant of these official frameworks and mechanisms have been intimately tied to trade and have had the main slant of opening up opportunities for huge financial benefits for polluting industries while the South will be further pushed into the debt trap through the strategies of the World Bank and other international financial players.

This paper aims to review governmental frameworks for addressing climate change with an underlying premise that there is an urgent need for the delinking of carbon emission from positive development.

The KYOTO PROTOCOL

The Kyoto protocol will effectively end in the year 2012. The protocol had set very minimal targets for reduction of carbon emissions that was to be achieved between 1990 and 2012. Major emitters such as the USA and Australia did not accept these targets. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and other analysts have shown that even if the targets set by Kyoto were met, the climate crisis would not have been sufficiently tackled.

Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta takes a graphic look at the profound cost of oil exploitation in West Africa. Featuring images by world-renowned photojournalist Ed Kashi and text by Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, prominent Nigerian journalists, human rights activists, and University of California at Berkeley professor Michael Watts, this book traces the 50-year history of Nigeria’s oil interests and the resulting environmental degradation and community conflicts that have plagued the region.

This course offers a new approach in integrating technologies and participatory strategies within the natural landscape or "watershed" for sustainable resource use, conservation and protection. use, conservation and protection. The course is designed for planners and field staff working with government and non-government organizations in the areas of food security,sustainable agriculture,water resources and natural ,resources management in rural areas.

The world's desperate need for nuclear power plant energy means a sound future for uranium mined in Niger. But the international corporations that have won concessions to remove it are careless of the land and its people, who are fighting back.

A High Court has ordered the development of a controversial $370 million sugar and biofuels project in Kenya's Tana River Delta, guaranteeing a temporal reprieve. Mumias Sugar Company's intention to convert 20,000 hectares of the Tana Rive Delta to plant sugarcane has raised anger and opposition of local and international conservationists, fearing that the proposal would threaten biodiversity and livelihood of local communities.

Climate change has the potential to bleak the future production of Uganda's major export, coffee, a British charity Oxfam warns in a report, urging the government to speed up the process of adapting to climate change by immediately implementing the National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPA).

Kenya stands to lose a nature-based economic asset worth over US $300 million alone to the tea, tourism and energy sectors if the forest of the Mau Complex continues to be degraded and destroyed, the UN Environment Programme has said. The Prime Minister of Kenya, Raila Odinga, announced this week that the Kenyan government is taking steps to combat the destruction of the largest forest ecosystem in Kenya.

Members of FoE Africa from Ghana, Togo, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Nigeria, Mauritius, Tunisia and Swaziland met for five days in Accra, Ghana reviewing issues that confront the African environment. A particular focus was placed on the current food crisis and agrofuels on the continent.

Three years after it was first proposed, preparations for an African 'wall of trees' to slow down the southwards spread of the Sahara desert are finally getting underway. The 'Great Green Wall' will involve several stretches of trees from Mauritania in the west to Djibouti in the east, to protect the semi-arid savannah region of the Sahel — and its agricultural land — from desertification

The Bujagali Dam, now under construction on the Nile River in Uganda, racked up at least 22 violations of key African Development Bank (AfDB) policies, according to a new report by the Bank's internal investigative panel.

Participatory Forest Management (PFM) describes systems in which communities (forest users and managers) and government services (forest departments) work together to define rights of forest resource use, identify and develop forest management responsibilities, and agree on how forest benefits will be shared. This manual describes the key elements of PFM in the Ethiopian context. It is aimed at both community forest managers and forestry professionals and can be used as a training manual and field guide.

An HIV-positive former waitress has won a precedent-setting case in the Kenyan High Court, after suing her doctor for unlawful disclosure of her HIV status and her employers for dismissing her based on that information. The case is remarkable because Kenya's constitution does not specifically prohibit HIV-related discrimination.

Villagers that have lived in Southern Zambia for over 50 years did not expect to experience 13 straight days of rainfall. In the village of Magoye, houses, food, crop and livestock were all washed away by the floods.

On 30 June 2008, the High Court of Zambia reached a groundbreaking decision in favor of a girl known as R.M. who was raped by her teacher at age 13. International human rights organization Equality Now has been actively involved in advocacy on behalf of R.M. The organization commends Judge Phillip Musonda for his landmark decision, which will have far-reaching implications in ensuring protection for girls from teacher rape and justice for girls who are raped by their teachers, a phenomenon not uncommon in Zambia and other countries.

This paper considers the challenges that need to be addressed within the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) forest sector if innovative models for the management and financing of the country's forests are to be successfully implemented. These challenges include those related to broader forest governance, i.e. the policy, legal and institutional conditions. It also considers the conditions required to facilitate forest business and enterprises.

On Wednesday 11 June, some participants from the Get Organised for Human Rights programme were take to Dam Village, Kangemi, Nairobi. There they met and learned from the Dam Village community about the destruction of the village. On 9 May 2008, in the middle of the night, a demolition force entered the village, and without any warning, forced people out of their homes, destroyed community buildings and homes, thus rendering 300 women, children and men homeless. “We need your solidarity” said Mr Stephen Shipanzi, Chairman of Dam Village.

Every morning soon after sunrise, Fatne Abdaraman walks a short distance across the Iridimi refugee camp in eastern Chad hauling a twenty-litre plastic jug. She lines it up along with other women's containers at the water distribution point, then awaits her turn to draw her daily allotment of one of Central Africa's scarcest resources, one that underpins ongoing conflict in the region.

Fourteen people, including a senator, have been charged with murder following a deadly land dispute that left at least 14 people dead in Liberia, the Solicitor General of Liberia said on Wednesday. "Senator Roland Kahn and 13 others were charged last night," Tiawon Gongloe said via telephone.

Madagascar has signed a series of environment agreements to protect unique forests and support local communities as part of a commitment by the government to ramp up environmental protection on the Indian Ocean island. In its largest ever debt-for-nature swap, Madagascar signed a deal with France this month, in which US$20 million of debt owed to the former colonial power was put into a conservation fund, the Foundation for Protected Areas and Biodiversity (FPAB).