ISIOLO/MARSABIT, 13 September 2011 (IRIN) – Pastoralists in the drought-hit northern and eastern part of Kenya are often caught up in conflict over resources as well as movements of livestock in search of water and pasture. Here IRIN offers the latest information from the region and testimony from pastoralists to illustrate the challenges they cope […]
September 8 (FAO) – The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) averaged 231 points in August 2011, nearly unchanged from July and 26 percent higher than in August 2010. The FFPI hit its all time high of 238 points in February. Firmer cereal prices in August were largely offset by declines in international prices of most […]
Tehran, Sept 5, 2011 (AFP) – The drying up of Iran’s largest saltwater lake is an “environmental issue” but some people seek to politicise it, media on Monday quoted the vice president for environmental affairs as charging. “The issue of Lake Orumiyeh is an environmental challenge,” Mohammad Javad Mohammadi-Zadeh, who is also head of Iran’s […]
[Update: Replaced “Azerbaijan” with “Iran” in the headline, thanks to reader Steve Bloom’s correction of Desdemona’s faulty geography.] By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI4 September 2011 Demonstrations were held Saturday in Tabriz and Orumieh — the capitals of East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan provinces, respectively — and in several other towns in the two provinces to protest the […]
Bodo, Nigeria, August 16 (AFP) – The air smells like poison, the creek water carpeted with crude, and the boat operator covers his nose as he steps on a jetty in a region hit by what may be the world’s worst oil contamination. “We have been living with this mess for years,” says 31-year-old Friday […]
August 30 (Al Jazeera) – As Muslims around the world mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan and celebrate Eid Al-Fitr, many Somali Muslims will not be able to participate due to the ongoing famine in the Horn of Africa. Hundreds of thousands of Somalis, threatened by drought and civil war, have wound […]
Karl Marx was right that globalization, financial intermediation, and income redistribution could lead capitalism to self-destruct. By Nouriel Roubini15 August 2011 NEW YORK—The massive volatility and sharp equity-price correction now hitting global financial markets signal that most advanced economies are on the brink of a double-dip recession. A financial and economic crisis caused by too […]
The Arctic may be the world’s next geopolitical battleground. Temperatures there are rising faster than anywhere else in the world, and the melting ice will have profound consequences on the roof of the world, opening strategic waterways to shipping, reducing the ice cap on Greenland, and spurring a rush to claim rights to the wealth […]
By Peter Gorenstein, Daily Ticker 12 August 2011 The United States military budget accounts for over 40% of the world’s annual military expenditures and, at around $700 billion per year, more than 20% of the federal budget. The Federal government wants to curb that spending as part of deficit reduction. Last week’s deficit deal calls […]
By DOROTHY SPEARS12 August 2011 During the shooting of his 2010 documentary Climate Refugees, the Irish-American filmmaker Michael Nash visited nearly 50 countries in about 18 months, interviewing politicians, scientists, health workers and victims of floods, cyclones, hurricanes and droughts. His conclusion was that short- and longer-term changes in climate are causing vast numbers of […]
