By Richard BlackEnvironment correspondent, BBC News website Governments need to crack down on illegal tiger trading if the big cats are to be saved, the UN has warned. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting in Doha, Qatar heard that tiger numbers are continuing to fall. Organised crime rings are playing an […]
Writing by Conor Humphries; Editing by Jon Hemming MOSCOW (Reuters) – Some 2,000 people protested against the release of what they said were toxic fumes in a small town on Russia’s Pacific coast Sunday, one of a series of unusually large protests across the country in recent months. Russians traditionally shy away from public protests […]
By Rebecca Lindsey and Norman Kuring Phytoplankton swirled across the Arabian Sea on February 18, 2010, drawn into thin green ribbons by turbulent eddies. The bloom stretches from the shores of Pakistan (top) to the coast of Oman (lower left). The washed out appearance at the upper left of the image is due to sunglint, […]
March 12, 2010 (AP) – Eleven rare Siberian tigers kept in small cages and fed only chicken bones have died of malnutrition at a cash-strapped zoo in China’s frigid north-east, state media have said. A manager at the Shenyang Forest Wild Animal Zoo in Liaoning province, however, said the animals had died of disease. Siberian […]
The Aral Sea, located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in central Asia. Left: 2000. Middle: 2004. Right: 2009. Once one of the largest inland bodies of salty reservoirs in the world and the second largest sea in Asia, the Aral Sea has shrunk dramatically over the last 30 years. One of the main reasons why is […]
BLANCHE This is Desdemona News for Friday, March 12th, 2010. Melting Arctic ice could cost global agriculture, real estate, and insurance anywhere from 2.4 trillion to $24 trillion by 2050, in damage from rising sea levels, floods, and heat waves, according to a report released last Friday. EDDIE Severe forest fires in Vietnam’s northern mountainous […]
By Martha Ann Overland / Hanoi Thursday, Mar. 04, 2010 Every year, even at the peak of Vietnam’s dry season, when the Red River is at its lowest, Hanoi’s skilled captains manage to negotiate their flat-bottomed boats through its shallow waters. But this year, with a drought gripping the entire country and water levels at […]
DAMASCUS, Syria, March 8, 2010 (ENS) – Up to 60 percent of Syria’s land and over one million people are gripped by the worst drought in 40 years, but a deep funding shortfall for emergency assistance has left the United Nations aid agencies at a loss. The humanitarian arm of the United Nations is being […]
MANILA (AFP) – A WORSENING drought is exacting a terrible toll on the world-famous mountain rice terraces of the northern Philippines, local officials said Tuesday. A state of calamity was this week declared for the Banaue area that is home to many of the ancient stone-walled paddies and one of the Southeast Asian nation’s most […]
Contact: Tara Shyamt.shyam@irri.org656-773-0801International Rice Research Institute Singapore: Singaporeans consume around 275,000 tons of rice each year, which requires 688 billion liters of water to be produced – 2.5 times Singapore’s annual domestic water use. Competition for water is getting fiercer and water supplies are dwindling, yet Singapore can contribute to securing its rice supply by […]
