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Amazon’s double dry spell worries scientists
Posted by Agenece France -Presse: None Given on February 3rd, 2011
Agenece France -Presse: A pair of unusually severe droughts have parched the Amazon in recent years, raising concern about the rainforest's future as a major absorber of carbon emissions, said a study on Thursday.
A rare drought in 2005 was billed as a once-in-a-hundred-years event, but then it was followed by another drought in 2010 that may have been even worse, said the team of British and Brazilian experts in the journal Science.
Since the droughts killed many trees, the scientists predict that the Amazon will...
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Iraq water shortages raising ethnic tensions
Posted by Agenece France -Presse: None Given on January 29th, 2011
Agenece France -Presse: A worsening water shortage in Iraq is raising tensions in the multi-ethnic Kirkuk province, where Arab farmers accuse the Kurdistan region of ruining them by closing the valves to a dam in winter.
"We are harmed by the Kurds, and the officials responsible for Baghdad and Kirkuk will not lift a finger," said Sheikh Khaled al-Mafraji, a leader of the Arab Political Council that groups mainly Sunni tribal leaders.
At the heart of the conflict is the Dukan dam, built in 1955 in Iraq's northern...