By James Kilner LONDON (AlertNet) – Once one of the world’s largest lakes, Lake Chad in west Africa has shrunk by 90 percent since 1963 and pushed millions of people living along its shores into a competition for survival, the U.N. said on Thursday. The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) blamed climate change and […]
By Christophe Parayre OUAGADOUGOU (AFP) – A world away from the heated negotiations for a critical deal on stopping climate change at the UN summit in Copenhagen, Burkina Faso inhabitants are suffering the direct consequences of global warming. Jacqueline, Noroudine and Guy-Prosper are among the 150,000 made homeless by floods after the heaviest rainfall in […]
By Jeffrey Gettleman GALKAIYO, Somalia — Ahmed Mahamoud Hassan has probably one of the worst jobs on the planet: drought chairman of the Galmudug region of Somalia, one of the hottest, driest, poorest patches of one of the world’s most utterly failed states. His job is to feed people in a place where there is […]
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – As many as 6.2 million Ethiopians need emergency humanitarian assistance due to severe drought, an official from the Oxfam charity said on Monday. The Ethiopian government puts the number in need at 5.3 million. Pastoralist communities in the country’s southern Borena area have been particularly hard hit by the lack of […]
Galkayo, Somalia (AFP) Oct 4, 2009 – Living in twig and cloth shelters after fleeing raging violence in Mogadishu, a severe drought has worsened the misery of thousands of Somalis settled outside the central town of Galkayo. The prolonged drought affecting millions across war-ravaged Somalia is forcing more people into Margaga camp, which was initially […]
By Wendell Roelf CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – African farmers said on Monday floods and droughts expected to worsen with climate change have already brought poor harvests, and women workers are turning to prostitution and falling victim to HIV/AIDS. Testifying at the first pan-African climate hearings, the farmers’ stories will be relayed at December’s climate talks […]
Rotting carcasses testify to the scale of the disaster looming in East Africa. By Daniel Howden, from Marsabit, Kenya On the plains of Marsabit the heat is so intense the bush seems to shiver. The leafless scrub, bleached white by the sun, looks like a forest of fake Christmas trees. Carcasses of cattle and camels […]
By Martin Plaut, BBC Africa analyst The World Food Programme (WFP) is closing 12 feeding centres for mothers and children in Somalia. The WFP says it has simply run out of money and now has to make cuts. The decision has been made despite the ongoing crisis in Somalia, and the WFP says the reductions […]
By Craig McKune South Africa has even less water than previously thought, a study has found. Scientists have warned that the country, with 98 percent of its surface water allocated for use, faces tough decisions as it becomes hotter and drier. But the Water Resources of South Africa 2005 study, the fifth of its kind, […]
ScienceDaily (Sep. 27, 2009) — Conservationists trying to prevent the extinction of Northern Bald Ibis Geronticus eremita are distraught that one of the last remaining wild birds in the Middle East has been shot by a hunter in Saudi Arabia, bringing the known wild Middle Eastern population of this Critically Endangered species to just four […]
