Around 60 miners trapped underground on Tuesday after an accident and fire at Zimbabwe's Mimosa platinum mine have been brought back to the surface without injury, the company said.

"All employees have now been safely evacuated from the mine. No injuries have been reported," said a statement from Mimosa, which is a joint venture between South Africa's Impala Platinum (Implats) and London-listed Aquarius Platinum Ltd.

It said it was too early to assess the impact on output at the mine, which produced 104,000 ounces of platinum group metals in its last financial year.

About sixty miners were trapped at Zimbabwe's Mimosa mine following an accident on Monday evening, the president of the local miner workers union said.

"There are 85 people who were trapped at 5:30 pm yesterday but more than 20 have been rescued so far. A bearing which moves the conveyer collapsed and the conveyer belt caught fire," Shadreck Pelewelo, the president of the National Mine Workers Union of Zimbabwe, told Reuters by telephone on Tuesday.

The trapped men were in good condition and were receiving food, he added.

Zero tilling and organic farming will not only eradicate the need for expensive fossil fuel machinery, synthetic fertilizers and crop chemicals but also increase yields substantially and make way for farmers to return to their natural state, said Foundation for Farming, (Zimbabwe) Director Brian Oderive.

He was inaugurating an international workshop on ‘climatic change in agriculture: Adaptation and mitigation strategies,' held at Gandhigram Rural Institute near here on Wednesday.

Low-cost solar panels and solar batteries will be provided to poor communities in 14 countries in Africa and Asia in the next four years, the UN Development Programme said Thursday.

A total of 33 million people in the 14 countries will be able to make use of solar energy for commercial businesses and economic development, using the solar panels to be developed by a Mauritius-based company called ToughStuff, UNDP said.

The number of elephants in two wildlife sanctuaries in Tanzania has fallen by nearly 42 percent in just three years, a census showed on Tuesday, as poachers increasingly killed the animals for their tusks.

The census at the Selous Game Reserve and Mikumi National Park revealed elephant numbers had plunged to 43,552 in 2009 from 74,900 in 2006.

It was carried out by the east African country's wildlife authority, Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute, as part of a government plan to conserve wildlife.

Rainfall patterns in southern Africa are becoming erratic as climate change takes its toll, threatening long-term production of staple and cash crops in the region.

Countries like South Africa, Zambia and Malawi have enjoyed bumper harvests of their staple maize crop in recent years, ensuring food security in a region which has often known hunger.

But farmers, who for centuries have known when to expect summer rains, are now finding planning difficult.

PANJIM: In a development that could send shivers down the spine of Goan iron ore exporters, China on Saturday said that they have already started looking out for alternate markets considering the unstable situation of ore supply from India, especially Goa.

Chinese delegates, who were in Goa to participate and have first hand information about mining in Goa, against likelihood of a possible ban on exports, have said that capacities in Australia and Brazil would be enhanced and they would be scouting for new suppliers to compensate for the iron ore deficit from India.

Bangladesh has enhanced its status by one notch to 95th among 110 nations in a worldwide assessment of wealth and quality of life.

The country was ranked 96th in the last year's Legatum Prosperity Index that provides the only global assessment of national prosperity based on both wealth and well-being.

It assesses 110 countries, which represent over 93 percent of the world's population and 97 percent of the world's GDP, and ranks them on the basis of their performance in eight sub-indices, including economy, governance, personal freedom, and social capital.

The Earth's natural resources like food, water and forests are being depleted at an alarming speed, causing hunger, conflict, social unrest and species extinction, experts at a climate and health conference in London warned Monday.

Increased hunger due to food yield changes will lead to malnutrition; water scarcity will deteriorate hygiene; pollution will weaken immune systems; and displacement and social disorder due to conflicts over water and land will increase the spread of infectious diseases, they said.