"The world is tantalisingly close to eradicating guinea worm disease, which would make it only the second disease of humans to be wiped from the planet, according to former US president Jimmy Carter."

"Nairobi, Kenya, and Johannesburg -- More than 60 people died Monday in a densely populated Nairobi slum after an explosion and fire caused by gasoline from a leaking pipe. At least 116 badly burned people, many of them children, were taken to hospitals. Many were not expected to survive, as medical staff struggled with shortages of blood for transfusions."

"A U.N. report has criticized Shell and the Nigerian government for contributing to 50 years of pollution in a region of the Niger Delta which it says needs the world's largest ever oil clean-up, costing an initial $1 billion and taking up to 30 years."

"The worst drought in 60 years is causing a severe food crisis in East Africa. In Kenya, the world's largest refugee camp is overwhelmed as 10,000 climate refugees from across the drought-stricken region arrive each week seeking water, food and shelter."

"Aid agencies have launched multimillion-pound appeals to address a mounting humanitarian emergency in east Africa, where severe drought and high food prices have left 10 million people requiring assistance."
 

"Lead poisoning linked with illegal gold mining has killed a further 400 children in northern Nigeria since November, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said on Monday."
 

"As South Africa declares a national disaster due to flooding, other countries in the region hold their breath while water levels continue to rise."

Nomadic herdsmen in East Africa have adapted to shifting patterns of water and forage for thousands of years. Now climate change is forcing them farther afield, and communities are killing each other.

Egypt's 80 million people have always depended on the Nile River. Under a 1929 treaty, 80 percent of the river's flow is reserved for Egypt and Sudan, which were then ruled as a single country. Now the seven upstream countries (Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, and Rwanda) want to revise the treaty, calling it an unfair relic of colonialism.

"The nations of East and Central Africa and some of the world's largest conservation organizations have developed a 10-year conservation action plan to save thousands of endangered eastern chimpanzees."

"Africa contributes the least to global warming, but stands to suffer the most. That is the case African leaders are making at U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen. ... But ... daily survival remains the focus of many Africans."

"Researchers cannot agree whether the melting is attributable mainly to humanity’s role in global warming."

Refugees from global warming are arriving at camps in Kenya.

Nigeria may start harnessing the natural gas flared off from its oil fields to produce electric power for the impoverished communities whose protests and violence have often hampered production.

"Trafigura, an independent trading company, said Sunday that it had settled a long-running toxic dumping case, agreeing to pay £950 to each of as many as 30,000 residents of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, who said they were injured by a dump in 2006."