1,800 FEARED DEAD AFTER LANDSLIDE IN LEYTE, PHILIPPINES
ILLEGAL LOGGING MAY HAVE DESTABILIZED TERRAIN
18 February 2006

The mudslides began amid two weeks of torrential rains, which flooded and destabilized mountainside soils. Witnesses described the event as sounding "like the mountain had exploded". The entire village of Guinsahugon essentially disappeared beneath the heavy sheets of mud. [Full Story]

ARCTIC ICE MELT WILL SOON OPEN NORTH-POLE SHIPPING
BUSINESSES, NATIONS TO DIVIDE NEW RESOURCES
5 January 2006

As ice melts across the arctic north, and the Arctic Ocean opens up in summer months, the mythic Northwest Passage is expected to open to regular shipping, within a generation. The Arctic Ocean may be ice free in warm months by the end of the 21st century. [Full Story]

CARTERET ATOLLS PLANET'S FIRST CLIMATE CHANGE REFUGEES
5 December 2005

On 26 November, the Guardian newspaper first reported that inhabitants of the Carteret atolls, six islands which form part of Papua New Guinea, in the southwest Pacific, have been subject to the first officially mandated permanent climate change evacuations. Rising sea levels have placed the islands in serious danger of permanent inundation... [Full Story]