Two people have been taken to hospital in Edinburgh after a chemical spill on board a ship at Leith Docks.
The incident happened at about 0900 GMT on a vessel berthed at the Cemex plant within the dock complex.
Lothian and Borders Fire Service said the spill had been contained on board the ship and there was [...]

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Train operator First ScotRail has submitted plans to build a wind turbine at Leuchars station in Fife.
It would supply all the electricity needs for the station and surplus power would be sent to the national grid.
The firm has lodged a planning application for the 6kw turbine, which it said was part of its strategy to [...]

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SCOTLAND’s leading rural estates yesterday condemned wildlife crime and pledged to banish members who did not do enough to uphold the law.
The Scottish Estates Business Group (SEBG), which represents the likes of the Buccleuch Estates and Atholl Estates, said its members should discipline or sack employees who were involved in harming birds of prey.
The [...]

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A badly injured whale which became trapped in a sea loch off Lewis has died, rescuers have confirmed.
The northern bottle-nosed whale became beached in Loch Roag, on the west of the Hebridean island, on Monday morning before managing to free itself.
It later vanished and experts hoped it had managed to find its way back to [...]

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Radioactive waste exported to Peru from Scotland almost 10 years ago has been returned to the Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness.
It has emerged that 2.9 tonnes of thorium nitrate arrived safely at the site on Wednesday after a marathon sea and road trip from South America.
The waste was originally produced at the Caithness nuclear plant [...]

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FARMERS yesterday said the ban on meat exports, imposed following the outbreak of foot and mouth in England, should be lifted early in Scotland.
The three-month ban was brought in after the discovery of the virus on a farm in Surrey.
Last time foot-and-mouth hit Britain, it led to the culling of between 6.5 and ten million [...]

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THE FIRM responsible for the oil spill which polluted the Firth of Forth earlier this month has been given a deadline to come up with solutions to prevent oil spills from recurring.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) has given the Ineos oil refinery in Grangemouth until Monday to implement interim measures which will reduce the [...]

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A school has been left without water after a stream was dammed to divert the supply to the new home of a former health board chairman.
Engineers called out to investigate the shortage at Cliasmol School on Harris found a dam had been built illegally.
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A PLAN to build a £53 million wind farm on a Highland estate took a step forwards yesterday when councillors ignored officials’ advice and backed the project.
British-Dutch developer Infinergy/LZN had applied to erect 22 wind turbines, up to 410ft high, with a capacity of 66 megawatts (MW) on the Lochluichart Estate, near Garve in [...]

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HALF an hour from the banks of Loch Lomond and yet only a short train journey from Glasgow city centre, the towns of East Dunbartonshire were yesterday named the best places in Britain to bring up a family.
The area’s superior schools, leisure facilities, low crime rate and attractive family housing saw it ranked number [...]

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[Might be better to have real football pitchs instead of building houses on them-ed]
Youngsters will be able to use a mobile football pitch during the latest initiative to cut street crime.
The £42,500 scheme in East Renfrewshire will use the specially-designed pitch to keep young people off the streets.
Police and East Renfrewshire Council staff will install [...]

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A new report commissioned by Edinburgh City Council and green pressure groups has said the capital could be a world leader in fighting climate change.
The report said Edinburgh could consume less gas and slash its CO2 emissions if more locally-generated power and small-scale renewable energy was used.
The report called for more use of [...]

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Preliminary tests have confirmed the H5 avian flu virus in a sample from a swan found dead in Fife, health officials have revealed.
The exact virus strain is not known, but tests were continuing and further results were expected on Thursday.
The Scottish Executive said restrictions had been put in place around Cellardyke, east of [...]

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[Why are these people not called 'extremists'. This is a simple word trick to fool the readers. Have you ever heard anti immigration people being called 'activists' in the mainstream media? No, they are called 'extremists', and this makes people fear them without any due cause-ed]
Dog track ‘targeted by activists’
Animal rights [...]

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[Would it not be too cold living in a caravan in winter up north?-ed]
The controversial proposal is for five permanent pitches on former agricultural land in the Dyce area.
However, Aberdeen City Council planners are against the move and enforcement action may have to be taken to halt any unauthorised development.
The plans will be [...]

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Red kites have had their best breeding season in Scotland since they were reintroduced 16 years ago.
The bird of prey was extinct in Scotland for more than a century but was brought back 16 years ago.
RSPB Scotland said the number of breeding pairs and the young they hatched last year was probably [...]

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A DUCK shot in Scotland was suffering from a strain of bird flu, it emerged yesterday, amid growing fears of human cases of the virus in Turkey.
The mallard, shot in West Lothian in October, was tested in a UK-wide survey of hundreds of birds to check for the virus.
Out of 280 birds [...]

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The year 2005 is likely to be one of Scotland’s five warmest years on record since 1914, according to WWF Scotland.
The environmental group said 10 of the 11 months so far had been warmer than the long-term average.
Met Office data showed that November was the third sunniest on record and the sunniest since 1996. [...]

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Oil giant Shell has cut its plans for North Sea exploration, blaming Chancellor Gordon Brown’s tax hikes for the move.
The company had planned to hire three drilling rigs, but has decided to reduce the number to two.
Shell said it took the decision after a review prompted by the chancellor’s decision to increase [...]

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FASLANE submarine base and the nearby Coulport missile depot are vulnerable to a deadly mortar or suicide boat attack, a nuclear weapons expert warns in a new book.
Dr Brian Jamison says the geographical position of the two facilities makes them susceptible to an al-Qaeda attack, and claims that submarines are rarely escorted by armed [...]

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