Hillion, France (AFP) Sept 28, 2009 – Hillion is a picture-postcard Breton town with grey stone houses, a pretty granite church and long sandy beaches. But the seaside idyll has been ruined by mounds of rotting seaweed that have settled across swathes of France’s northwestern coast, giving off a potentially deadly gas. “It’s a never-ending […]
By Frank Nyakairu NAIROBI (Reuters) – Drought for a fifth year running is driving more than 23 million east Africans in seven countries toward severe hunger and destitution, international aid agency Oxfam said on Tuesday. Launching a 9.5 million pound appeal, it said the situation was being worsened by high food prices and conflict. […]
An army of deadly Chinese hornets is heading north through France towards Britain after attempts to trap and poison them failed. By Ian JohnstonPublished: 10:59AM BST 26 Sep 2009 The hornets, Vespa velutina, are thought to have arrived in Bordeaux on a container ship from China in 2004 and have been rapidly expanding their population […]
New Delhi (AFP) Sept 23, 2009 – India’s monsoon was about 20 percent below strength just over a week before the official end of the rainy reason, putting the country on course for its worst drought since 1972, weather data showed Wednesday. “Until September 21, for the country as a whole, the rain deficiency was […]
Baghdad (UPI) Sep 23, 2009 – Iraq’s water crisis is getting worse by the day, adding to the political uncertainty sweeping the country ahead of potentially incendiary parliamentary elections in January. On top of the cutbacks in the water flow of the life-giving Tigris and Euphrates rivers by Turkey, Iraq’s parched south is now threatened […]
A wall of dust stretched from northern Queensland to the southern tip of eastern Australia on the morning of September 23, 2009, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image. The dust is thick enough that the land beneath it is not visible. The storm, the worst in 70 […]
Rome (AFP) Sept 21, 2009 – Drought, conflict and displacement are causing the worst humanitarian crisis in war-torn Somalia in 18 years, the UN food agency warned Monday. Some 3.6 million people, about half the Somali population, need emergency aid including 1.3 million people displaced by fighting in the Horn of Africa country, the Food […]
Geneva (AFP) Sept 18, 2009 – The United Nations warned Friday that Guatemala is facing its worst drought in three decades, and that at least 2.5 million people have been affected by the crisis. “The country is facing the worst drought in 30 years, which has triggered a food crisis,” said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman of […]
By CHARLES DUHIGG, Published: September 17, 2009 MORRISON, Wis. — All it took was an early thaw for the drinking water here to become unsafe. There are 41,000 dairy cows in Brown County, which includes Morrison, and they produce more than 260 million gallons of manure each year, much of which is spread on nearby […]
By Jeremy Hance Kenya was once considered one of Sub-Saharan Africa’s success stories: the country possessed a relatively stable government, a good economy, a thriving tourist industry due to a beautiful landscape and abundant wildlife. But violent protests following a disputed election in 2007 hurt the country’s reputation, and then—even worse—drought and famine struck the […]
