Attempts to tame Indus River contributed to disaster in Pakistan

By ROBERT MACKEYAugust 18, 2010, 6:57 pm In a radio interview broadcast on Wednesday, Daanish Mustafa, a scholar who studies the intersection of development and water resources, told the BBC that attempts to tame the Indus River, beginning during British rule in the 19th century, laid the foundations for the deadly floods that swept Pakistan […]

Desperation grows over Pakistan flood damage

By WAQAR GILLANIPublished: August 17, 2010 LAHORE, Pakistan — With disastrous flooding spreading yet more widely in Pakistan, reports of looting and protests over food on Tuesday deepened the sense of desperation across Punjab Province, the country’s most populous region and its agricultural hub. Flood survivors told stories of taking the search for aid upon […]

Krugman: America Goes Dark

By PAUL KRUGMANAugust 8, 2010 The lights are going out all over America — literally. Colorado Springs has made headlines with its desperate attempt to save money by turning off a third of its streetlights, but similar things are either happening or being contemplated across the nation, from Philadelphia to Fresno. Meanwhile, a country that […]

Electrical grid fails Iraqis — ‘Democracy didn’t bring us anything’

By STEVEN LEE MYERSAugust 1, 2010 BAGHDAD — Ikbal Ali, a bureaucrat in a beaded head scarf, accompanied by a phalanx of police officers, quickly found what she was out looking for in the summer swelter: electricity thieves. Six black cables stretched from a power pole to a row of auto-repair shops, siphoning what few […]

Worsening electricity shortages fuel growing global crisis

By Tamsin CarlisleLast Updated: July 24. 2010 6:50PM UAE / July 24. 2010 2:50PM GMT Global electricity demand is growing again after a lull last year related to the economic slowdown. The result is more countries face electricity shortages. This is not just a matter of insufficient fuel or high energy prices as the world […]

Lloyd’s of London adds its voice to dire ‘peak oil’ warnings

Business underestimating catastrophic consequences of declining oil, says Lloyd’s of London/Chatham House report By Terry Macalister, www.guardian.co.uk Sunday 11 July 2010 15.28 BST One of the City’s most respected institutions has warned of “catastrophic consequences” for businesses that fail to prepare for a world of increasing oil scarcity and a lower carbon economy. The Lloyd’s […]

As world prices peak, Vietnam runs out of shrimp to sell

Source: Tuoi treMonday, 21/06/2010 (GMT+7) VietNamNet Bridge – Shrimp prices have spiked since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but Mekong Delta production is at a cyclical low. CEO Le Van Quang of Minh Phu Seafood Company says there’s been a surge in demand by US shrimp importers since the oil spill disaster cratered Gulf […]

Kuwait heat wave: A humid 126 degrees

The Associated Press CAIRO — Temperatures in Kuwait have dropped slightly from the record 126 degrees Fahrenheit earlier this week – a record surge of heat that had pushed the tiny OPEC nation’s power grid to the brink. Kuwait’s meteorological agency said the temperature in the shade in Kuwait City on Thursday was hovering around […]

Dmitry Orlov: Checkmate

By Dmitry OrlovTuesday, June 15, 2010 In all of the descriptions of perilous situations that I have studied, arising during adventures on the high seas or in the high mountains, or during armed conflict, a single mistake rarely proves fatal. More often than not, death comes as a result of a sequence of bad choices […]

Droughts causing power blackouts in hydro-dependent Kenya

By MICHAEL BURNHAM AND NATHANIAL GRONEWOLD of GreenwirePublished: May 10, 2010 NAIROBI, Kenya — The restaurant manager shrugs as his customers eat in darkness and his kitchen limps along on half power. “What they told us in the newspaper last week was that one section of the city would have a blackout for maintenance purposes, […]

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