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Nearly half of the garbage and toxic waste produced in Italy is controlled by the mafia. Photo credit: Photo Stock.

Nearly half of the garbage and toxic waste produced in Italy is controlled by the mafia. Photo credit: Photo Stock.

Report

By Francesca Colombo

Mafia Dominates Garbage Industry

An estimated 158 families in organized crime rings in Italy are getting rich off the trafficking of 35 million tons of garbage a year. The industry moves 2.6 billion dollars a year and has given rise to a new concept: "eco-mafia".

Accents

Ballenas jorobadas

Humpback whales. Photo credit: Photo Stock.

By Diego Cevallos

Whales in Search of Safe Seas

Ecologists are celebrating the approval of the International Whaling Commission’s so-called "Berlin Initiative", which could go a long way towards saving whales, large and small, from extinction.

From our files:

Accents

By Mario Osava

Methyl Bromide on Its Way Out in Brazil and Cuba

Pioneers in Latin America, the two countries have reduced consumption of this ozone-depleting pesticide by hundreds of thousands of tons, well ahead of the reduction goal of 20 percent by 2005.

From our files:

Accents

Chainsaws in action. Photo credit: Sergio Dorantes

Chainsaws in action. Photo credit: Sergio Dorantes

By Jorge A. Grochembake

Logging and Fire Lay Siege to Guatemalan Forests

Conservationists say they are faced with an environmental tragedy, as 95,000 hectares of Guatemalan forests are lost each year. The Mayan Biosphere Reserve and the Laguna del Tigre national park are two of the victims of trafficking in lumber and drugs.

Desertification

Desertification and drought leave in their wake severe economic, environmental and socio-political troubles around the world. Every year, six million hectares of productive land disappear and millions of dollars in income are lost due to land degradation and declining agricultural productivity.

Weather radars to be installed in Venezuela... Brazil prepares first National Convention on Environment... More unleaded fuel-burning cars in the Chilean capital... El Niño could be behind Cuban drought... Searching for origin of DDT found in breast milk among Nicaraguan mothers... Protecting forests in Aguán, Honduras... Guatemala and Mexico hone bilateral environmental agenda.

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Questions and Answers with La Ley, Café Tacuba, Deepak Chopra, José Saramago and Isabel Allende