Khu bảo tồn thiên nhiên quốc gia vùng rừng hồ Kẻ Gỗ (KBTTN Kẻ Gỗ) được xác lập bởi quyết định số 970/TTg ngày 28/12/1996 của Thủ tướng Chính phủ. Sau khi thành lập, KBTTNKG là một trong những khu bảo tồn động thực vật lớn nhất Việt Nam với hơn 40 loài cây thân gỗ quý, 567 loài thực vật bậc cao có mạch thuộc 367 chi và 117 họ và 392 loài động vật có xương sống thuộc 99 họ, 47 loài thú, 298 loài chim, 100 loài bò sát và lưỡng cư.
Nhìn bên ngoài khu bảo tồn này hết sức bình lặng, thế nhưng, cuộc đột nhập của nhóm PV Dân trí vào sâu bên trong mới thật xót xa. Nhiều cánh rừng quý như lim xanh, sến mật, vàng tâm, dổi, trường, trín, bời lời vàng… của khu bảo tồn này đang bị lâm tặc xẻ thịt một cách dữ dội.
Đau lòng ở chỗ, chính những cán bộ được nhà nước trả tiền để bảo vệ rừng lại ra tay, tiếp sức cho lâm tặc tàn phá, rút ruột khu bảo tồn này.

At the core of the controversy surrounding dams on the Mekong River is China’s role in supporting and financing the construction of dams in Cambodia and Laos. China plans to build a total of 19 large dams on the Mekong. Five are already operational in China’s Yunnan province. Nine of the planned dams will be built in Laos and two in Cambodia. The dams’ environmental effects, including damage to fish production and increased risk of natural calamities, will be felt most strongly along the Lower Mekong—in Cambodia, Vietnam, and, to a lesser extent, Laos.

The risks of global warming are already pressing upon Earth's natural systems and, to a lesser extent, humanity, and research undertaken since 2007 is yielding sober warnings about greater frequency and intensity of extreme weather events; hits to farm production in many areas, especially in developing countries; and dramatic changes to ecosystems, including extensive loss of species.
That assessment is contained in a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released Monday, which includes plenty of examples of global warming's already-observed effects.

Nobel laureate says 'people of conscience' must break ties with oil and gas companies that are destroying planet's future
Archbishop of South Africa and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu is saying their is no longer any excuse for not doing everything humanly possible to fight climate change and called on Thursday for an international "anti-apartheid-style boycott" against the fossil fuel industry.

The levels of arsenic and cadmium at the study site are not high enough to provoke alarm, she emphasized. Still, it is dawning on scientists like her that rice, one of the most widely consumed foods in the world, is also one of nature’s great scavengers of metallic compounds.
Consumers have already become alarmed over reports of rice-borne arsenic in everything from cereal bars to baby food. Some food manufacturers have stepped up screening for arsenic in their products, and agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration now recommend that people eat a variety of grains to “minimize potential adverse health consequences from eating an excess of any one food.”

Japan's whaling program hangs in the balance after the International Court of Justice on Monday ordered an immediate end to its annual slaughter of whales in the Southern Ocean.
The verdict came four years after Australia petitioned the UN court to rule that the expeditions in the icy waters of the Antarctic were not, as Japan has long claimed, for scientific research, since meat from the hunts is sold in Japanese supermarkets and restaurants.
A panel of judges agreed by 12 votes to four that Japan had failed to prove that its annual cull quota of almost 1,000 minke whales and 50 fin whales was of any scientific value.

BEIJING — The Chinese government released a report on Thursday that said nearly one-fifth of its arable land was polluted, a finding certain to raise questions about the toxic results of China’s rapid industrialization, its lack of regulations over commercial interests and the consequences for the national food chain.
Hunan Province, in central China, has some of the worst soil pollution because it is one of China’s top producers of nonferrous metals. But it is also a large rice-growing area, producing 16 percent of the country’s rice in 2012, according to one market research company. Officials in Guangdong Province last year found that some rice had excessive levels of cadmium. Most of that rice was from Hunan.

Nearly 60% of China’s underground water is polluted, state media has reported, underscoring the severity of the country’s environmental woes.

The country’s land and resources ministry found that among 4,778 testing spots in 203 cities, 44% had “relatively poor” underground water quality; the groundwater in another 15.7% tested as “very poor”.

Thầy Vũ Ngọc Hải - Hiệu trưởng Trường PTDT bán trú Tiểu học Mản Thẩn (Si Ma Cai) niềm nở, nhờ được hỗ trợ gạo và một phần chi phí ăn mà học sinh đến trường đều hơn. Còn Hiệu trưởng Trường PTDT Bán trú THCS Mản Thẩn Lê Đức Hà cho hay, ba năm gần đây tỷ lệ học sinh đi học chuyên cần dẫn đầu Si Ma Cai. Đặc biệt, không còn tình trạng học sinh nữ bỏ học xây dựng gia đình sớm...

(Dân trí) - Ngày 18/4, tin từ Khoa Sản, Bệnh viện Trung ương Huế cho biết thời gian qua đã có nhiều trường hợp trẻ em với độ tuổi 16,17 tuổi, thậm chí là 14 tuổi vào khoa sinh nở.