Australia, New Zealand Lead Earth Hour Environment Campaign

Australians switched off their lights for 60 minutes Saturday to mark "Earth Hour," a campaign by environmentalists to raise awareness about global warming. The event was started a year ago in Sydney by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The campaign has spread to major cities worldwide - from Dublin to Chicago and Bangkok to Manila - making Earth Hour 2008 a global movement. From Sydney, Phil Mercer reports.

Fireworks explode near the Sydney Opera House at the conclusion of Earth Hour in Sydney

Sydney's symbolic act of switching off some of its lights has caught on.

Tens of thousands of people have taken part in the event in Australia and across the Tasman Sea in New Zealand.

Environmentalists say more than 370 towns and cities across Asia, Europe and North America will also take part in Earth Hour this year.

Organizers say the purpose of Earth Hour is to show that communities care passionately about climate change and want to keep pressure on governments to act decisively.

Critics though have dismissed the event as simply a gimmick that will not make any difference.

That is a charge rejected by Andy Ridley from the World Wildlife Fund, who says interest has been immense.

"We're aware of villages in Norfolk in England that are doing Earth Hour and we're aware of the big cities like Chicago and Sydney that are doing it," he noted. "But I think another amazing thing about Earth Hour that surprised us is that it seems to have transcended across borders. It seems to be really popular in South America. You know, places like Vietnam, we've got Seoul on board as a supporting city. You know, that's an amazing side of it, I think, that it does seem to transcend politics and cultures."

There have been a host of celebrations across Australia to mark Earth Hour, including traditional Aboriginal torchlight performances, environmentally friendly dinner parties and special candlelit evenings for single people.

Some nightclubs have also operated without lights while many Australians have marked the occasion quietly in the darkness at home.

Lights on iconic landmarks like the Sydney Harbor Bridge and Opera House have also been dimmed.

Global warming is a big issue here with good reason. Australia is one of the world's worst per capita emitters of greenhouse gases. Many believe that recent droughts and floods are the result of man's destabilizing influence on the climate.

Environmentalists say last year more than two million people and two thousand businesses turned off their lights for one hour in Sydney, cutting energy consumption by 10 percent.

Other cities officially involved in "Earth Hour" include Atlanta, Montreal, Odense and Tel Aviv along with communities in the South pacific island states of Tuvalu and Fiji.

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1. This is a news about reducing the energy consumption. The campaign was held by arousing awareness of global warming.

2.
decisively
dismiss
gimmick
transcend
iconic
dimmed
capita emitter
destabilize

3.
dismiss
gimmick
reject
immense
transcend
occasion
dimmed
consumption
involve in

4. Global warming is a worldwide issue that everyone should be concern. I think the " Earth Hour " is a good idea to cut energy consumption.

Zimbabwe Waits to Learn Outcome of Election

Zimbabweans are anxiously waiting for the results of four elections held Saturday. Election monitors in say tensions are rising as people wait for the release of official results. Peta Thornycroft reports from Harare that political parties have been announcing the outcome at many individual polling stations around the country. The chairman of Zimbabwe's election commission says results from Saturday general elections will be announced early Monday.

Zimbabweans look at election results taped onto the wall of a tent in the surburb of Mbare, in Harare

With the exception of the presidential election, the outcomes of the parliament, senate and local government polls have to be collected at the regional level and then transmitted to the Zimbabwe Election Commission in Harare.

Some rural telephone lines are not working and mobile networks are barely functioning. Some results in remote mountainous areas will have to be taken by foot or vehicle to the nearest urban center.

The results for the presidential vote go directly from the polling stations to Harare.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change claimed victory early in the day, based on what the party says was a clean sweep in the second city, Bulawayo, and in the urban areas of the three Mashonaland provinces in central Zimbabwe, traditional strongholds of the ruling ZANU-PF.

In elections in 2002 and 2005 the party also claimed victory early on, but lost in the final outcome. International observers ruled both of those elections flawed. It is still unclear how many people voted.

Many commentators believe that even though there were more polling stations than expected, voter turnout was low. The Zimbabwe Election Support Network says it believes there was a fair turnout, but is still busy compiling its statistics.

Founding MDC legal secretary, David Coltart, who was standing for the senate in Bulawayo, says he recorded 16,000 people turned up to vote in a constituency of more than 40,000 registered voters.

And Tendai Biti, secretary-general of the Morgan Tsvangirai faction of the M.D.C., says the voter rolls have been heavily padded, creating rich opportunities for rigging the poll. The Election Commission has denied such allegations.

On the eve of these crucial elections, with Zimbabwe's economy in collapse and inflation soaring beyond 100,000 percent, security services warned they were on high alert, and would crush any protests against results.

Most election observers from African countries have said that so far their impressions on election day were that the process had gone reasonably smoothly.

President Robert Mugabe who is now 84, is seeking a sixth term in office. He is challenged by the M.D.C.'s Tsvangirai, in his second attempt to win a majority of the presidential vote; and newcomer, Simba Makoni, formerly a ruling ZANU-PF party insider and finance minister.

Some observers say Makoni's entry to the presidential race demonstrated the ruling party is deeply divided; and some analysts say votes for him and candidates supporting him, will have robbed Mr Mugabe and his party of crucial support.

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1. This is a news about the democracy election in Zimbabwe.

2.

poll
commission
parliament
senate
regional
rural
urban
sweep
flaw
commentator
turnout
statistics
constituency
newcomer
3.

transmit
rural
remote
turnout
constituency
allegation
soar

4. I don't know why I choose this article. Maybe it's based on its vocabulary.

Protecting Nature in Guinea Collides with Human Needs

Where the West African nation of Guinea meets Liberia and Ivory Coast stands Mt. Nimba, the highest point in the region. The mountain range is home to rare plant and animal species. Because it is on the UNESCO World Heritage Site of areas in danger, it is illegal for the thousands of villagers who live in the area to farm the land. Kari Barber reports from the Guinea border village Serengbara about this clash between protecting the environment and the population's need to survive.

Environmentalists and local guides enter a protected area, home to a family of 13 chimpanzees. Deforestation has separated the chimps from a larger group. They are not reproducing. Environmentalists are trying to change that. Guides from the area say the chimpanzees are important to local villagers, too.

Camera Guide, Henri-Didier says they help to care for the chimpanzees, "Before we loved the chimpanzees. If you made manioc or corn, you would leave some by the road for chimpanzees to have their part."

But now relations have become strained.

Villagers try to gain illegal farm land by burning protected areas.

In the village of Serengbara, families once cultivated fields and raised livestock.

Now village leader Bakada Siomy says that is not allowed. And feeding his children is becoming difficult, "We have problems here because we are between the savanna and Mt. Nimba. It is illegal for us to go there to cultivate now."

To replace the farmland, environmentalists have built these fishing ponds for the village.

But many villagers say they are not used to fish, and do not like to eat them.

Environmental teams are now trying to plant trees and other plants specific to the diets of chimpanzees along a corridor. Local Guide, Pascal Gomi adds, "The tree's fruit, the chimpanzees can eat and the trees grow fast."

They hope this will lead the chimpanzee family to other nearby chimps so that they might reproduce. But there have been acts of vandalism against these efforts, too.

Villagers who have been living in the area for decades say environmentalists coming in from the outside do not always understand their way of life and their needs.

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1. It’s an environmental issue how African people can take a balance between the nature and the human culture.

2.
chimpanzee, chimp
deforestation
savanna
cultivate
corridor
vandalism
acts of vandalism

3.
separate
reproduce
villagers
strained
illegal
livestocks
farmland

4. I think no one can decide what the native villagers have to do. Cause outsider didn't know the traditional life that they already used to. And we have no privilege to bother or force them how do to.