By PATRICK BOEHLER and SERGIO PEÇANHA 8 June 2015 (The New York Times) – Eleven million people were uprooted by violence last year, most were propelled by conflict in Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, and Afghanistan. Conflict and extreme poverty have also pushed tens of thousands out of parts of sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. Here’s a […]
By Magdalena Mis; Editing by Tim Pearce 22 April 2015 LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – More than 100,000 people in Vanuatu have no clean drinking water, a month after a monster cyclone struck the tiny Pacific nation, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Wednesday. Two thirds of the archipelago’s water and sanitation infrastructure […]
By Michael Werz and Max Hoffman 21 April 2015 (Reuters) – The migrant crisis in the Mediterranean is symptomatic of deep dislocation in the Sahel region and sub-Saharan Africa — dislocation exacerbated by climate change. Climate change is affecting such basic environmental conditions as rainfall patterns and temperatures and is contributing to more frequent natural […]
By Bill Weir, Ivan Watson, and Ray Sanchez25 March 2015 (CNN) – On a quest for what he described as “a Hawaii without hotels, a Bali before burger joints” CNN’s Bill Weir came upon the enchanting South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu. Tanna Island, the southernmost island on a strip that makes up Vanuatu, is […]
By Mario Osava 10 March 2015 SÃO PAULO (IPS) – Six million people in Brazil’s biggest city, São Paulo, may at some point find themselves without water. The February rains did not ward off the risk and could even aggravate it by postponing rationing measures which hydrologists have been demanding for the last six months. […]
By Jethro Mullen and Steve Almasy15 March 2015 (CNN) – The fury of Tropical Cyclone Pam, one of the most powerful storms ever to make landfall, has moved on, but the misery it left behind in the islands of Vanuatu is just starting to become apparent. Aid workers described scenes of extensive devastation in the […]
By Ben Brumfield and Laura Smith-Spark14 March 2015 (CNN) – A tropical cyclone killed at least six people in Vanuatu, UNICEF said Saturday, confirming first casualties from one of the most powerful storms ever to make landfall. Hardly a tree stood straight after Tropical Cyclone Pam bellowed across the Pacific island nation. Aid workers fear […]
By Ian Sample2 March 2015 (The Guardian) – The prolonged and devastating drought that sparked the mass migration of rural workers into Syrian cities before the 2011 uprising was probably made worse by greenhouse gas emissions, US scientists say. The study is one of the first to implicate global warming from human activities as one […]
By Stephen Messenger 6 January 2015 (The Dodo) – In a touching show of solidarity amidst so much devastation, a wild koala stranded by wildfires in South Australia was captured on film accepting help from a passerby — offering proof that a wellspring of hope can emerge from even the simplest of gestures, and a […]
By Erik de Castro, with additional reporting by Rosemarie Francisco, Manny Mogato, Karen Lema, and Neil Jerome Morales in Manila; Writing by Rosemarie Francisco; Editing by Nick Macfie9 December 2014 MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine emergency workers were struggling on Tuesday to reach coastal villages on an island hardest hit by a typhoon where thousands of […]
