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Archive for September 7th, 2010
Climate change may add to disaster death tolls
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 7th, 2010
Reuters: Natural disasters are tending to kill fewer people but climate change may add to the toll by unleashing more extreme weather and causing after-effects such as disease and malnutrition, experts say. Better warnings of cyclones or heat waves and an easing of poverty in developing nations in the past few decades have made many nations better prepared for weather extremes, helping to curb death tolls. "In terms of actually saving lives we are doing well," said Diarmid ...
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Access to clean water down due to urbanisation: UN
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 7th, 2010
AFP: Global efforts to improve access to drinking water have been hampered by rapid urbanisation, with the proportion of people in urban areas with access actually declining, according to UN figures presented at a conference in Stockholm this week. "In cities, there are today more people suffering from a poor and unsatisfactory access to safe water and sanitation than at the end of the 20th century," Gerard Payen, who heads up the International Federation of Private Water Operators ...
Food crisis worsens in central Africa
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 7th, 2010
New York Times: Torrential rains and flash floods that swept through cities and villages in West Africa in late August have intensified a food crisis in the region, leaving upwards of 10 million people suffering from severe food shortages, the United Nations and relief organizations warned last week. The floods, which destroyed crops and livestock, struck an area already on the brink of famine after successive years of drought and failed harvests. Rising world grain prices, resulting partly ...