Water For Life™ Concerts

BANGKOK Thursday, September 02, 2010 (IRIN) - As rising food prices, growing populations and natural disasters increasingly put pressure on food production, governments and scientists are focusing on preserving the world’s agricultural biodiversity through seed and gene banks.

DHAKA Friday, September 03, 2010 (IRIN) - A Dutch engineering company is trying to make safer the dangerous job of dismantling old ships contaminated with chemicals - by building the world’s first “green dock wharf” in Bangladesh.

JIJIGA Thursday, September 02, 2010 (IRIN) - Pastoralists’ disproportionate contribution to Ethiopia’s economy is belied by their marginalized status and by policy assumptions that they would be better off farming. But those who raise livestock tend to make the most of marginal land, according to experts, and are often proficient at adapting to changing circumstances.

DAKAR Friday, August 27, 2010 (IRIN) - Further heavy rains in Niger have caused the number of people displaced by flooding to soar from 111,000 last week to 198,740 this week, says the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which is calling on donors and aid agencies to urgently send shelter materials, blankets and mosquito nets.

PHNOM PENH Thursday, August 26, 2010 (IRIN) - Late rains and record low water levels in Cambodia's two main fresh water systems will affect food security and the livelihoods of millions, government officials and NGOs warn.

MACOSSA Tuesday, August 24, 2010 (IRIN) - Albinio Matias, a Mozambican farmer, lost his daughter, Cassula, and his home to wildfires, which also damaged his crops for four consecutive years. Raising large domesticated rats could have saved him a great deal of pain.

MACOSSA Tuesday, August 24, 2010 (IRIN) - Albinio Matias, a Mozambican farmer, lost his daughter, Cassula, and his home to wildfires, which also damaged his crops for four consecutive years. Raising large domesticated rats could have saved him a great deal of pain.

JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, August 24, 2010 (IRIN) - All eyes are on the Kotri Barrage in southeastern Pakistan, the last on the River Indus before it flows into the Arabian Sea. Meteorologists expect more but moderate rainfall over the upper reaches of the river, but a scientist involved in managing the ecosystem in that part of the river is optimistic.

JOHANNESBURG Thursday, August 19, 2010 (IRIN) - On a tour of water-logged and rain-weary Pakistan, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the floods were the worst disaster he had ever seen. The response to the crisis has been less enthusiastic - only about half the US$459.7 million requested by the United Nations has materialized.

JOHANNESBURG Friday, August 20, 2010 (IRIN) - Pakistan's wheat production in 2011 would need to halve before it caused ripples in the global market, but it is still too early to predict the output, says a leading economist and grains expert.

JOHANNESBURG Thursday, August 12, 2010 (IRIN) - The floods in Pakistan, which have killed at least 1,200 people so far, are already the world's second worst in the decade from 2001 to August 2010, according to the Belgium-based Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED).

20 August 2010 -- WHO suggests that countries should be prepared to implement hospital infection control measures to limit the spread of multi-drug resistant strains and to reinforce national policy on prudent use of antibiotics, reducing the generation of antibiotic resistant bacteria.

JOHANNESBURG Thursday, August 12, 2010 (IRIN) - The floods in Pakistan, which have killed at least 1,200 people so far, are already the world's second worst in the decade from 2001 to August 2010, according to the Belgium-based Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED).

DAKAR Thursday, August 19, 2010 (IRIN) - Alcohol, excess sleep, drugs, social isolation and sex are some of the tools that humanitarians facing burnout use to switch off from the constant stress they face in a typical emergency response. But as research deepens into how stress affects the brain, mental health experts are hoping to build up natural resilience to maintain the mental health of field workers.

ZIGUINCHOR Tuesday, August 17, 2010 (IRIN) - Families in Senegal’s Casamance region have less to spend and less to eat this lean season because of a drastic drop in mango production, residents and agriculture experts say.

JOHANNESBURG Friday, August 13, 2010 (IRIN) - In Pakistan there are drowned homes and millions of lives set adrift by floods, in Russia wheat crops have been shrivelled by drought and devoured by fire. Some scientists think the floods and the fires could be linked.

JOHANNESBURG Thursday, August 12, 2010 (IRIN) - The floods in Pakistan, which have killed at least 1,200 people so far, are already the world's second worst in the decade from 2001 to August 2010, according to the Belgium-based Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED).

BAGHDAD Tuesday, August 10, 2010 (IRIN) - More than a tenth of Iraq’s 2009-2010 wheat crop has been infected by a killer fungus, according to authorities.

SANAA Tuesday, August 10, 2010 (IRIN) - Despite record rainfall in the Yemeni capital Sanaa and other areas this summer, very little is being done to harvest this water to mitigate water shortages, experts say.

10 August 2010 -- The new H1N1 virus has largely run its course and the world is no longer in phase 6 of influenza pandemic alert, but in the post-pandemic period.