I'm off to Paris for a few days, so will see you next week...

I hope there's plenty of interesting news waiting for you below though, with recent stories covering the Earth Day, the CIA's predictions for the future and a planned African version of Live Aid...

If you need to know what is happening right now then I recommend the Earth Peace Project, Rebecca Blood, Tony Pierce, Invasive Species, Swamp Cottage, Sierra Activist + Hairy Eyeball weblogs as good places to start... as well as the Unknown News, Environment Media Services + ABC.net.au news sites.

Au revoir mes amies! Matt

P.S. Check out Alex Kirby's agenda-setting coverage of the need to monitor + clean-up of toxic Depleted Uranium (DU) from armour + bunker busting weapons used in Iraq.

According to a new UN report there is a risk that DU is a threat to the health of the Iraqi environment as well as veterans + local people.

So far the British Ministry of Defence has agreed to aid DU removal, whereas the US Pentagon has said that it has no intention of cleaning up any DU contamination resulting from the use of it's weapons.

Meanwhile the UK's Royal Society has demanded that maps of where these weapons have been used should be made available + scientific monitoring started - without delay.

P.P.S. Bon voyage, to my intrepid friends Dr. Kate Oddie + Dr. Nigel Barton who are about to leave the UK in order to set up a three-year long biodiversity project in Mongolia.

They are an awesome team and liable to make the same sort of impact in Mongolia as Joy + George Adamson did in Africa.

Earth-Info.Net certainly envies them the sparkling night skies, raw nature + wonderful people they'll be living amongst, if not the diet of lamb fat + fermented camel milk! I hope to see you out there one day, Kate!