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

 

 

   “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.

   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.

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.