February 22, 2011 (AFP) — Fifty million “environmental refugees” will flood into the global north by 2020, fleeing food shortages sparked by climate change, experts warned at a major science conference that ended here Monday. “In 2020, the UN has projected that we will have 50 million environmental refugees,” Cristina Tirado, a professor at the […]
The lives and livelihood of communities living in arid and semi-arid lands were affected by the worsening drought conditions in 2010. Wajir district, in northern Kenya was the worst hit and continued to record deterioration of pasture, livestock body conditions, and access to water since August 2010. Worsening conditions were also reported in parts of […]
By Staff WritersFeb 17, 2011 United Nations (AFP) – Somalia, home to one of the world’s largest population of displaced people, is teetering on a crisis with drought now threatening some 2.4 million people, a UN official said Thursday. “Somalia … is on the brink of a much larger disaster due to the threat of […]
There will soon be seven billion people on the planet. By 2045 global population is projected to reach nine billion. Can the planet take the strain? By Robert KunzigJanuary 2011 …Antoni van Leeuwenhoek started with an estimate that around a million people lived in Holland. Using maps and a little spherical geometry, he calculated that […]
[Austerity measures begin in the US. As usual, these cuts are aimed at the citizens who are least capable of defending themselves. Meanwhile, America’s ruinously expensive land wars in Asia drag on.] By Charles Riley, staff reporterFebruary 12, 2011: 8:10 AM ET NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — President Obama’s 2012 budget will propose cutting $2.5 billion […]
By Saman Dazaee05 Feb 2011 Baghdad – A spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity said on Saturday that resolving the energy crisis that has plagued the country in recent years will cost an estimated $6bn. Musab al-Mudaris told AKnews that the ministry has asked parliament to provide appropriate funds in the 2011 budget to […]
By Evan Abramson, Yale Environment 360February 8, 2011 For thousands of years, nomadic herdsmen have roamed the harsh, semi-arid lowlands that stretch across 80 percent of Kenya and 60 percent of Ethiopia. Descendants of the oldest tribal societies in the world, they survive thanks to the animals they raise and the crops they grow, their […]
By Staff WritersFeb 9, 2011 Beijing (AFP) – China called Wednesday for higher rice output to offset damage to its wheat crop in the drought-stricken north and pledged $1 billion in spending to battle a problem the UN warned could be “very serious”. The drought affecting large swathes of northern China is the worst in […]
By JEFF RUBIN, Globe and Mail BlogPosted on Wednesday, February 9, 2011 6:21AM EST It’s more than coincidence the Arab world is convulsing with social unrest just as the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization’s widely watched price index recently soared past the previous food price peak set in the summer of 2008. After all, […]
3 February 2011, Rome – World food prices surged to a new historic peak in January, for the seventh consecutive month, according to the updated FAO Food Price Index, a commodity basket that regularly tracks monthly changes in global food prices. The Index averaged 231 points in January and was up 3.4 percent from December […]
