China says dams not to blame for low Mekong levels

By Ambika Ahuja, Editing by Alan Raybould and Ron PopeskiHUA HIN, ThailandMon Apr 5, 2010 8:41am EDT (Reuters) – China on Monday denied that its dams were reducing water levels on the Mekong River and blamed problems along the river on unusually dry weather, but it also offered to share more data with its neighbors. […]

Sierra Leone allows pair trawling despite signing international fishing conventions

By Tatafway Tumoe – SEM Suddenly, with the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) indicting former Fisheries and Marine Resources Minister  Haja Afsatu Kabba, everyone it seems has suddenly become interested in the manner in which this sector is operating in the country. What most people have however failed to realize is that the present government is […]

China attempts inducing rain for drought

By Staff WritersBeijing (UPI) Mar 30, 2009 In an attempt to bring relief to drought-stricken southwestern China, the government fired cannons and launched rockets loaded with cloud-seeding chemicals throughout the weekend. Results ranged from drizzle to moderate rain to downpours in 11 cities and prefectures, yet meteorologists said the induced rain would have a limited […]

Drought causes coal shortage in central China province — Three Gorges reservoir six meters lower than last year

13:22, April 04, 2010Source:Xinhua About 300,000 tonnes of thermal coals were needed in central China’s Hubei Province as lingering drought in the upstream region has cut the hydropower, local officials said Sunday. About 30 percent of Hubei’s electricity capacity comes from hydropower generation, but the drought in southwest China has lowered the water level in […]

U.N. urges Central Asia talks on shrinking Aral Sea

  By Patrick Worsnip and Conor Sweeney; editing by Philippa FletcherMOYNAK, UzbekistanSun Apr 4, 2010 9:51am EDT MOYNAK, Uzbekistan (Reuters) – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Central Asian states to work together to tackle the disastrous effects of the shrinking Aral Sea Sunday after local people urged the United Nations to resolve a regional […]

East Siberian Arctic Shelf releases 8 teragrams of methane per year

(AFP) Recently a team from Russia, the US, and Sweden found that the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) is releasing around 8 teragrams of methane from subsea sediments each year. Now team member Natalia Shakhova and colleague Dmitry Nicolsky have come up with a new model for the Dmitry Laptev Strait region of the shelf […]

Fishing banned on the Sea of Galilee

Fishing in the Sea of Galilee has been banned, Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture has announced, amid claims stocks have fallen to a dangerous low. By Nathan Jeffay, in Tiberias and Anita SinghPublished: 8:00AM BST 03 Apr 2010 It is the site where Jesus told his disciples: “I will make you fishers of men.” As the […]

Countries blame China, not nature, for water shortage

By THOMAS FULLERPublished: April 1, 2010 BANGKOK — In southern China, the worst drought in at least 50 years has dried up farmers’ fields and left tens of millions of people short of water. But the drought has also created a major public relations problem for the Chinese government in neighboring countries, where in recent […]

Ecologists fear for Lake Baikal as Putin saves factory

  BAIKALSK, Russia (Reuters) – On the shores of Lake Baikal, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is held up as a savior and cursed as a scourge after allowing a Soviet-era paper mill to reopen beside the world’s largest freshwater lake. Ecologists have branded Russia’s most powerful man as the killer of Baikal, a 25-million-year-old […]

Desert spreading like ‘cancer,’ Egypt conference told

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AFP) – The desert is making a comeback in the Middle East, with fertile lands turning into barren wastes that could further destabilise the region, experts said at a water conference on Thursday. “Desertification spreads like cancer, it can’t be noticed immediately,” said Wadid Erian, a soil expert with the Arab League, at […]

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