By Puy Kea*
    
PHNOM PENH, Oct 31 (IPS/AMIC) - A Cambodian public official has weathered assassination threats and a slow-moving bureaucracy in this post-conflict country to create one of the most trusted and safest water supplies in Asia.

   By Kalinga Seneviratne*

ORISSA, India, Oct 29 (IPS/AMIC) – Gram Vikas, one of India’s largest non-government organisations, has a simple solution to uplift rural Adivasi (tribal) communities across this eastern Indian state – it’s a MANTRA (Movement and Action Network for Transformation of Rural Areas) of all in, or all out.

By Jie Cao*

TIELING, China, Oct 19 (IPS/AMIC) - “When I was young, if we had visitors, we’d go to the river to catch fish with a net. We could catch many big fish of different kinds,” recalled septuagenarian Xie, who lives in this village in the north-eastern Chinese province of Liaoning. “At that time, there were big willows on the riverbank, so the villagers could relax under the trees in summer.

By Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Oct 12 (IPS/IFEJ) - As a trickle of environmental problems emerging from the Three Gorges dam area steadily grows into a deluge, Chinese authorities have begun weighing plans to relocate several million people to avert an ecological catastrophe.

   By Kalinga Seneviratne*

 

The lack of clean water in their own homes prevents women from having good education and deprives them of a safe and secure future. 

 

BANGALORE, India, Oct 8 (IPS/AMIC) - It is often said that social taboos hinder the education of girls in India’s poor communities. But as the experience of some slum communities in this southern Indian city indicates, it is also the lack of access to water that deprives them of an education.

By Tharuka Prematillake*

 Singapore youth volunteers show their concern for the environment by taking part in the River Monster Educational Programme.

SINGAPORE, Oct 5 (IPS/AMIC) - “It’s exciting and makes Singapore clean,” S Vishna, a primary school student, says of his efforts, along with friends, of cleaning the Singapore river base here one weekend.

   By Irfan Shahzad*

 With a new and efficient sewerage system in place, residents in this slum area need not endure filthy surroundings any more.

 
KARACHI, Pakistan, Oct 2 (IPS/AMIC) - Unlike his neighbours in the opposite lane, Muhammad Salam lets his children play out in the street without the slightest worry.

   That’s because Salam, a resident of Ghaziaba locality in the large Orangi informal settlement in this port city, is happy with the fact that there is concrete flooring along the street he lives in. Beneath this is a sewerage lane that efficiently collects wastewater  from all 24 houses in the area.