By Zofeen Ebrahim

SEOUL, Nov 25 (IPS) - The one message that came across at the just concluded general assembly of the World Toilet Association (WTA) was that conventional flush toilets are not only environment unfriendly but are also a serious public health hazard.

   By Shailendra Singh*

VUNISINU, Fiji, Nov 24 (IPS/AMIC) - If villagers so used to eating fish caught fresh from the sea begin resorting to tinned fish to supplement their diets, there must be something really wrong somewhere.

By Prangtip Daorueng*

CHACHOENGSAO, Thailand, Nov 16 (IPS/AMIC) - "The river has changed. It has become narrow and unusually dry in the dry season," says fisherman Pohnpaisarn Wimonrat. "There is no longer enough fish for a small fisherman like me to catch."

By Irfan Shahzad*

KARACHI, Pakistan, Nov 2 (IPS/AMIC) – Access to safe water may be touted as a human right, but inadequate supplies, crumbling water systems and the galloping needs of growing populations are forcing experts, government utilities and funding agencies ponder over devising sustainable water service networks in Asia’s teeming cities.

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 Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Sep 21 (IPS) - Compared to the rest of South Asia, Sri Lanka has impressive sanitation statistics with 90 percent of the population having access to latrines. But what happens to human waste thereafter is another story.

NEW YORK, Sep 15 — United States-based Blacksmith Institute, an independent environmental group, in partnership with Green Cross Switzerland, recently issues their Top 10 list of the world's most severely polluted places.

By Sahana Singh*

SINGAPORE, Aug 31 (IPS/AMIC) - Government officials, sanitation experts, funding agencies and civil society representatives are unanimous that Asia’s water delivery and sanitation problems should be tackled with the same urgency as disaster relief.

By Thalif Deen

STOCKHOLM, Aug 15 (IPS) - A top United Nations official has learned through personal experience what it is like to live without safe drinking water during her visits home to the Tanzanian capital.