Reporting by Rina Chandran; Editing by Paul de Bendern and David Fox MUMBAI (Reuters) – One man was killed and about a dozen injured in a violent protest on Thursday against water cuts in India’s largest city after the worst monsoon in nearly four decades left Mumbai authorities scrambling to ration supplies. Mumbai is facing […]
By Altaf Qadri Bhopal, India — Associated Press Published on Thursday, Dec. 03, 2009 2:22AM EST Hundreds of people marched through Bhopal with torches before dawn Thursday to mark the 25th anniversary of the world’s worst industrial disaster and demand the cleanup of toxic chemicals they say still contaminate the Indian city’s soil and water. […]
SOUTHERN Australia stands to have the worst drought conditions since the 1930s as maximum summer temperatures soar, Victoria’s rural fire authority says. In a weather presentation to federal Victorian MPs at Parliament House in Canberra, Country Fire Authority chief fire officer Russell Rees also said there was a 55 per cent chance of summer temperatures […]
Drenching spring rain has failed to to ease crisis, with dams at their second lowest level ever going into summer. For the first time in 12 years Melbourne has received above average rainfall in spring but dams are still only 38 per cent full. The only time they have been lower was last year when […]
By COSIMA MARRINERDecember 3, 2009 JENNIFER TUNLEY got a shock when news broke that her Darling Downs town of Dalby had just eight hours’ supply of water left. “We hadn’t heard how drastic our water situation was until now,” Mrs Tunley said. “There was a bit of panic.” Dalby council’s dire warning that Queensland’s rich […]
Monthly cumulative rainfall residuals for Naracoorte, Australia with IPO [40]. (IPO: interdecadal pacific oscillation). Abstract: In Australia, a persistent drought extending over a 5- to 10-years duration has produced severe water restrictions for over 90 percent of water users in the nation. The effects of the 1996-2007 drought relative to other droughts and the implications […]
Rhino poaching worldwide is on the rise, according to a new report [pdf] by TRAFFIC and IUCN. The trade is being driven by Asian demand for horns and is made worse by increasingly sophisticated poachers, who now are using veterinary drugs, poison, cross bows and high caliber weapons to kill rhinos, the report states. Since […]
HANOI (AFP) – Vietnam, the world’s second-biggest rice exporter, said Wednesday it needs help to safeguard the world’s food supply from the consequences of global warming. “The rice bowl of Vietnam will be severely affected” without action, Nguyen Khac Hieu, deputy director general of the government’s climate change agency, told reporters before key global climate […]
By Chris Buckley BEIJING (Reuters) – Droughts and floods stoked by global warming threaten to destabilize China’s grain production, the nation’s top meteorologist has warned, urging bigger grain reserves and strict protection of farmland and water supplies. Extreme weather damage can now cause annual grain output in China, the world’s biggest grain producer, to […]
The Maasai Mau Forest has been impacted heavily by encroachment, especially on the western side. Analysis of 1973 and 2005 satellite images shows that about 8,214 hectares of forest cover was lost inside the Maasai Mau Forest, and about 31,755 hectares lost outside the forest boundaries. This totals 39,969 hectares – representing about 39% of […]
