News stories by Julio Godoy* - Tierramérica

Since the end of World War II, and especially since the 1960s, the Kreuzberg district in Berlin has been a melting pot of cultures, with residents hailing from the Balkans, Central Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

In times of war, the accurate mapping of enemy positions can be the key to victory. In the war on mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, mapping the distribution and habitat of mosquitoes can play a crucial role in combating epidemics at the source.

The ruins of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor where an explosion 25 years ago led to one of the worst environmental disasters in history still contain 95 percent of the original fuel load, which remains highly radioactive.

In the 1970s, French oyster breeders introduced the Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) to the Bay of Biscay to diversify the area’s species and develop the commercial oyster industry.

Analysis based on satellite images and maps is helping to identify the flows of people fleeing the political violence in Libya to neighbouring countries.

Many aspects of gender inequality are well known and well documented. But there seems to be little awareness that male behaviour leads to greater emissions of climate-changing gases.

Unusually warm temperatures and more frequent and intense droughts and hurricanes... you have seen the headlines. As options dwindle for negotiating a global pact to fight climate change, the United Nations is pointing to today's 'extreme conditions.'

Amidst criticism and applause from environmentalists and experts, a programme is emerging in Germany to expand the total area covered by forests -- to as much as five percent of national territory. The debate centres on just how much human intervention there should be.

The bluefin tuna, an 'apex predator' fish of the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, is condemned to extinction within two years by the inaction of the industrialised North and international regulatory bodies, predict marine biologists and environmentalists.

The global environmental crisis requires replacing the existing capitalist model of production with one that promotes 'selective degrowth' of the economy and the restricted and responsible exploitation of natural resources, according to European experts and activists.