News stories by Ido Liven

BATTIR, West Bank, Jul 13 (IPS) - The Palestinian village of Battir, just six kilometres southwest of Jerusalem and a similar distance from Bethlehem, is the latest to be trapped in the gap between international recognition and Israel's policies in the West Bank.

Images of the immense, dark stain of oil covering the waters of the Gulf of Mexico made their way across the globe last year as one of the largest oil spills in history unfolded. Other images - of the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’, a gigantic pile of litter floating in the North Pacific Ocean; of countless felled trees in the Amazon; of tar sands in Canada - have gained much fewer headlines, but are likely to remain as monuments to the price tag of wanton human appetites.

Ornithologists say that climate change is having a profound effect on bird behaviour and suggest that this phenomenon can act as an early warning system to the dangers posed to Earth.

A group of Israeli environmentalists is campaigning to prevent oil exploration inside a nature reserve by the Dead Sea.