Top Stories

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 03:36:51 -0500

THAILAND: River Diversion Plans For Whose Benefit?

By Kornpan Winwong - Newsmekong*

BANGKOK, Aug 4 (IPS) - Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej’s plans to divert water from rivers in neighbouring Laos to help feed agricultural production faces stiff opposition from activists, who argue the ambitious projects could threaten the environment and local people’s lives.

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Asia

MIDEAST: Sewage in Water Threatens Gazans

By Mel Frykberg

GAZA CITY, Jul 2 (IPS) - Gaza is being forced to pump 77 tonnes of untreated or partially treated sewage out to sea daily due to the Israeli blockade of the coastal territory. The fear is that some of this is creeping back into drinking water.

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India

Water Aplenty, Nor a Drop to Drink

By Keya Acharya

NEW DELHI, Apr 18 (IPS) - Over 37.7 million people in India are affected by water-borne diseases due to contaminated drinking water supply and an estimated 1.5 million children die of diarrhoea each year, according to newly available statistics.

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Cambodia

CAMBODIA: Planned Lao Dam Raises Concerns on the Mekong

By Andrew Nette - Newsmekong*

PHNOM PENH, Mar 28 (IPS) - The Lao government’s decision earlier this year to press ahead with plans to build the Don Sahong dam on the mainstream of the Mekong River in southern Laos is causing major concern in Cambodia and internationally.

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Cambodia

CAMBODIA: Bowing to Regional Hydropower Demands

By Andrew Nette - Newsmekong

PHNOM PENH, Mar 21 (IPS) - For the Cambodian government, hydropower development represents great economic opportunities. But for non-government organisations (NGOs), and the communities they serve, dams pose severe social and environmental impacts.

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Iran

IRAN: Fishing In Troubled Caspian Waters

Analysis by Kimia Sanati

TEHRAN, Feb 11 (IPS) - The unresolved issue of dividing the Caspian Sea among its five littoral states has become a sensitive one for many Iranians who allege a concession to Russia may be in the making by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government, in return for supporting Iran’s nuclear policies.

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India

INDIA: More Dams Come Up But Irrigated Area Declines

By Bharat Dogra

NEW DELHI, Feb 7 (IPS) - Recent official irrigation statistics have revealed a curious situation in which, after spending 25 billion U.S. dollars on various irrigation projects during 1990-2004, the actual area under irrigation declined from 17.4 million hectares to 14.3 million hectares in the period.

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Asia

DEVELOPMENT: South Asia Exports Sanitation Successes

By Nergui Manalsuren

India is poised to meet its sanitation and hygiene challenges with a 48 percent coverage in 2007, a marked improvement from merely 1 percent in 1981.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 4 (IPS) - Practical solutions to the global sanitation crisis will require greater knowledge-sharing among developing nations, and also even more support for those efforts by multilateral institutions like the World Bank and United Nations, experts say.

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Asia

AFGHANISTAN: Emergency Services Collapse Under Bitter Cold

By Tahir Qadiry

MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Feb 2 (IPS) - An unprecedented cold wave sweeping parts of Asia has been especially tragic in Afghanistan where emergency services have failed completely.

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China

CHINA : Coveting Neighbourhood Energy Resources

By Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Jan 25 (IPS) - Even as it expands economic cooperation with its wary South-east Asian neighbours, China’s thirst for energy is compelling it to resurrect territorial claims to resources-rich spots in the region that have lain dormant for years.

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Special Reports

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 03:39:33 -0500

Pakistan

Twin Disasters in the Making, Locals Warn

By Zofeen T Ebrahim

Centenarian Rehmat Bibi refuses to leave her home in Bhundar, an island off the Sindh coast in Pakistan.

KARACHI, Pakistan, Jan 31 (Asia Water Wire) -- To the developers of a resort project to rise on Bhundar island, Rehmat Bibi’s dilapidated hut must be quite an eyesore. Yet the spirited woman has so far stood her ground and refused to give in to the pressure – at first gentle cajoling, then sterner words – by the uniformed men to leave.

“I will not move an inch as I was here long before (the nearby) Port Qasim was here; even before this country came into existence,” says a defiant Bibi. “This is my home.”

Bibi says she has lived there since she was 10. “I will die here,” says the fragile old woman, taking a long puff at the hookah (hubble bubble) and ending her bold diatribe with a bout of cough.

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Pakistan

No Peace Pipes in Sight on Asbestos Debate

Irfan Ahmed

LAHORE, Pakistan, Dec 30 (Asia Water Wire) - It is finger-pointing time in Pakistan as various groups push their arguments for or against the use in the country's water pipes of asbestos, already banned in many parts of the world.

The government continues to allow the use of asbestos-enforced cement in pipes that supply drinking water to the public, and this has come under criticism.

Dr Muhammad Yusuf, a family physician, points to a strong link between asbestos use in water pipes and the rising number of gastrointestinal patients in different parts of this South Asian country. The consumption of drinking water supplied through such pipes also results in cancer of kidneys and lungs, he says.

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China

Decades Later, 'Model' City Still Battling Desert Storms

By Antoaneta Bezlova

KORLA, China, Nov 8 (IPS) - When the city of Korla rose from the Taklamakan desert in mid-1950s, it was hailed as a triumph of human willpower over adverse nature. Thousands of soldiers dispatched by the Chinese Communist Party put this place on the map in China's far west Xinjiang province, by digging 600 kilometres of channels to coax underground water to large collective farms.

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