Environmental Peacebuilding Association

International

Conflict Minerals: EU Plan Aims to Restrict Trade in Gold Used to Fund Conflict

Nov 23, 2016 | Associated Press

European Union officials have announced a plan to restrict the trade of gold and other minerals used to finance armed conflicts. An agreement reached Tuesday…

Liberia: Mixed Bag for Frontier Oil Reserves Offshore Liberia

Nov 23, 2016 | Daniel J. Graeber, United Press International

A division of Exxon Mobil announced Wednesday it started drilling its first well targeting reserves off the coast of Liberia. Exxon's Liberian affiliate is working…

Land Mine Casualties Jump 75% as Funding for Their Removal Declines

Nov 23, 2016 | Rick Gladstone, New York Times

Despite a global treaty that bans land mines, casualties from those weapons and other unexploded munitions lurking in current and past war zones rose sharply…

South China Sea: Oil Becoming Code for Sovereignty in Contested South China Sea

Nov 23, 2016 | Ralph Jenning, Voice of America

The search for oil and natural gas is seen as a driving factor in rival claims to the South China Sea, with many of the…

Conflict Minerals: EU Agrees Law to Curb Flow of Conflict Minerals

Nov 22, 2016 | Reuters

The European Union agreed a deal on Tuesday to stem the flow of gold and other metals used to fund armed conflicts or produced in…

Myanmar: What Myanmar Could Learn from Singapore about Urban Water Management

Nov 21, 2016 | Aye Sapay Phyu, Myanmar Times

Here is a vision of Yangon’s future. Its 17 reservoirs, fed by 8000 kilometres (5000 miles) of drains, rivers and canals, provide ample fresh water…

Iraq/Kurdistan: Two Kirkuk Oil Fields to be Fenced Following Attacks by ISIS

Nov 21, 2016 | Rudaw

The Avana and Bai Hassan oilfields in Kirkuk province are to be fenced in the coming months in a step to upgrade security, following recent…

Colombia: Colombian Campesino Land Defender Assassinated

Nov 19, 2016 | teleSUR

Erley Monroy Fierro, director of Ascal-G, one of the most important campesino associations in the eastern amazonian region, was assassinated on Friday. Since discovering that…

Iraq/Kurdistan: Iraq's Exports from Kirkuk Fields Drop on Power Outages - Official

Nov 19, 2016 | Reuters

Iraq's exports from the Kirkuk oil field through an export pipeline to Turkey have dropped because of power outages, an official at state-run North Oil…

Myanmar: Chinese Land Grabs Concern Kachin Villagers

Nov 18, 2016 | Eleven

The residents of Kachin State are worried by Chinese entrepreneurs’ massive land acquisition, sources say. The Chinese have acquired thousands of acres of vacant land,…

Colombia: OAS Says Armed Groups Occupying Land Abandoned by FARC

Nov 18, 2016 | Julián Villabona Galarza, PanAm Post

Roberto Menéndez, head of the OAS Support Mission to the peace process in Colombia, sounded the alarm in an interview given to the Colombian newspaper…

Iraq: Iraq's Oil Contracts Make Joining OPEC Output Cut More Painful

Nov 18, 2016 | Ahmad Ghaddar and Ahmed Rasheed, Reuters

Iraq would have to compensate international oil companies for limits placed on their production, according to industry sources and documents seen by Reuters, further reducing…

Afghanistan: USAID Expands Support for Afghan Agricultural Exports by $16 Million

Nov 18, 2016 | Khaama Press

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announced a three-year extension to its 2010-2016 Commercial Horticulture and Agricultural Marketing Program (CHAMP) to widen its…

China/Vietnam/South China Sea: Satellite Images Reveal the Island Runway That is Vietnam's Latest Move in its Escalating Row with Beijing over Influence in the South China Sea

Nov 18, 2016 | Thomas Burrows, Daily Mail.

Vietnam has extended its runway on an island in the South China Sea also claimed by Beijing in a move that will anger the regional…

Myanmar: Drugs, Money and Wildlife in Myanmar's Most Secret State

Nov 17, 2016 | BBC

The remote Wa region of Shan state in Myanmar's east is a place few outsiders have seen. The people who live in this unofficial, effectively…

Iraq: Toxic Pollutants Choke Iraqi Children Caught in Islamic State Retreat

Nov 17, 2016 | Cathy Otten, Thomson Reuters Foundation

A month into their battle with Iraqi forces for control of the city of Mosul, the jihadists are leaving behind not just physical devastation but…

Myanmar: Cardinal: Time to Reverse Myanmar’s Decline, Keep Resource Wealth

Nov 17, 2016 | Catholic News Service

Yangon Cardinal Charles Bo said it was time to “reverse the trend” of a 60-year decline in Myanmar, designated the “least-developed country” by the World…

Sudan/South Sudan: Abyei Solution Elusive as UN Extends Peacekeepers' Mandate

Nov 17, 2016 | Jill Craig, Voice of America

The U.N. Security Council voted this week to extend the mandate of the peacekeeping force in the disputed oil-rich Abyei area between South Sudan and…

DRC: Controversial Deal Between DRC Mining Firm & Foreign Investor Raises Concerns

Nov 17, 2016 | Caroline Theuri, Face2Face Africa

A state mining company in the Democratic Republic of Congo has sold the royalty rights of a lucrative copper mining project to a company owned by…

Afghanistan: Why Does Afghanistan Grow So Much Opium?

Nov 16, 2016 | Patricia Nilsson, Economy

Colombia: Illegal Gold Mining in Colombia is Destroying the Rainforest

Nov 16, 2016 | Bram Ebus, Newsweek

Colombia’s 52-year-old civil war has devastated the country’s Pacific coast, so close to 80 percent of the people who voted in the recent referendum supported…

Iraq/Kurdistan: Several Oil Wells Still on Fire Near Mosul, Affecting Health and Environment

Nov 16, 2016 | Rudaw

Almost three months after the retreating Islamic State set oil wells ablaze in Qayyara, 60 km south of Mosul, more than a dozen oil wells…

Bolivia: Bolivia's Water Warriors, Reignited

Nov 16, 2016 | Nasya Razavi

“They’re charging for air,” laments a Cochabamba resident. It is July 2016, and a serious drought has affected Cochabamba and its surrounding municipalities. After the…

Myanmar: Farmers Decry 'Landgrabbing' in Mindanao

Nov 16, 2016 | Angelo Caballero, ABS-CBN News

Over 600 farmers staged a protest in front of Lapanday Foods Corporation office in Barangay Pampanga to voice out their struggles over land rights Wednesday.…

Syria: Poor Rains, Supply Issues Exacerbating Food Security Woes in War-Torn Syria, UN Warns

Nov 16, 2016 | News Tribe

Reeling under the effects of a seemingly unending conflict, Syrian farmers may have “no other option” but to abandon food production, with grave consequences on…

Afghanistan:Climate Change Fuels Insurgency in Afghanistan

Nov 15, 2016 | Agence France-Presse

The mountainous land-locked country was classed in 2012 as among the most vulnerable to climate change, a worldwide problem that is the subject of a…

Sudan/South Sudan: Security Council Extends Mandate of Interim Security Force for Abyei, Recognizing Situation as Serious Threat to International Peace

Nov 15, 2016 | United Nations

Recognizing that the situation along the Sudan-South Sudan border remained a serious threat to international peace and security, the Security Council decided this afternoon to…