By Sebastian Smith (AFP) NEW YORK — The world faces the nightmare possibility of fishless oceans by 2050 unless fishing fleets are slashed and stocks allowed to recover, UN experts warned Monday. “If the various estimates we have received… come true, then we are in the situation where 40 years down the line we, effectively, […]
BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 14, 2010 (ENS) – Clean drinking water is an increasingly scarce resource for millions of people in Iraq, according to a new report released today by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The agency says its engineers are doing their best to improve access to safe water in the face of […]
SANAA (Reuters) – Two people died in a southern Yemeni village where the military intervened to end a dispute over water rights, underscoring tensions sparked by a looming water crisis in the impoverished Arabian peninsular state. Twenty homes were damaged and unarmed residents were forced to flee Shara’ab, in the southern province of Taiz, during […]
By Mohammad Saber HERAT, Afghanistan, May 13, 2010 (ENS) – Mullah Samandar finds it hard to control his emotions as he swings his axe at the trunk of the pistachio tree. “When I cut down pistachio trees, I cry and my tears don’t stop,” the 55-year-old said, explaining that he has no other way to […]
Yunnan’s worst drought for many years has been exacerbated by destruction of forest cover and a history of poor water management. By Jane Qiu in Beijing Born into a farming family in south Yunnan province, China, Zhu Youyong’s life has always been tied to the soil. At the age of 54, however, Zhu — now […]
By Michael B. Marois and William Selway May 11 (Bloomberg) — California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will seek “terrible cuts” to eliminate an $18.6 billion budget deficit facing the most-populous U.S. state through June 2011, his spokesman said. Schwarzenegger, 62, who will introduce his revised budget plans on May 14, has said he won’t seek tax […]
By Jargal Byambasuren, Lucy Hornby, and Tyra Dempster; Editing by Sanjeev MiglaniWed May 12, 2010 9:38am EDT DUNDGOBI, Mongolia (Reuters) – The winter camps of southern Mongolia are quiet during this year’s breeding season, after an unusually harsh winter wiped out herds and left nomadic families with little but debt to their name. The […]
By ELISABETH MALKINPublished: May 4, 2010 MIXQUIAHUALA, Mexico — Night and day, Marcelo Mera Bárcenas slops the fetid water that has coursed 60 miles downhill from the sewers of Mexico City and spreads it over the corn and alfalfa fields of this once arid land. From the roads here in the Mezquital Valley, fields stretch […]
By MICHAEL BURNHAM AND NATHANIAL GRONEWOLD of GreenwirePublished: May 4, 2010 NAIROBI, Kenya — It’s the rainy season, but the sun is still baking the Mathare Valley slum. A half-million people live in this warren of shacks clustered amid 10 square kilometers of the Mathare River. When the rains fall, drops spill like marbles on […]
At sunset, the sky above Ram Ganga river in Moradabad, 200 km from Delhi, turns black with smog. Tiny chimneys belch smoke, the result of hundreds of small waste processing plants that residents have opened in their homes. A huge waste processing accident in Delhi, where one person died and seven were taken ill after […]
