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Environment
KAZAKHSTAN: Fisheries Experts Keep Watch on Decreasing Fish Stocks
BALKHASH, Kazakhstan, Nov 30 (Asia Water Wire) - It's difficult for Balkhash-born Daut Shishov to just sit back and watch his beloved lake, whose waters he had enjoyed as a young boy, destroyed and die before his very eyes. 
KAZAKHSTAN: Planned Nuke Plant Generates Worries
BALKHASH, Kazakhstan, Nov 4 (Asia Water Wire) – Residents taking a stroll along this town’s sandy beach, strewn with broken bottles and discarded tyres, often talk about the prospect of a nuclear power plant being built a few hundred kilometres from here. 
KAZAKHSTAN: Balkhash Lake Headed for another Aral?
BALKHASH, Kazakhstan, Nov 3 (Asia Water Wire) - Lake Balkhash, one of the largest inland bodies of water on Earth, is in danger of turning into an environmental death zone whose impact would be felt throughout Central Asia.
No Bluefin Tuna Dishes on the Menu?
TOKYO, Oct 23 (IPS) - Fish vendors in this seafood-crazy country have yet to recover from the shock of seeing their government accept a drastic 50 percent cut in Japan's catch of the prized southern bluefin tuna.
Days of the Eucalyptus Numbered
LAHORE, Pakistan, Sep 27 (Asia Water Wire) — Debates and a huge outcry are hounding the Punjab government a month after it began cutting down thousands of eucalyptus trees that line this northern Pakistani city.
Endless rows of eucalyptus trees are marked with red, which means they face the axe soon. Many of the trees are along the banks of the canal that passes through the city.
Tanneries ‘Kill’ the Buriganga River
BASILA, Bangladesh Sep 11 (Asia Water Wire) - Until about five years ago, the Buriganga River near Dhaka had enough fish to support the roughly 100 families that live in this settlement, located on the outskirts of the Bangladeshi capital.
EUROPE: Gas Pipeline Threatens Fragile Marine Ecosystems
HAMBURG, Germany (IPS) - The North European Gas pipeline (NEGP), a Russian-German joint venture to deliver Russian natural gas to Europe in 2010, will destroy rich and fragile marine ecosystems along the Polish and German coastlines, prominent environmental activists say.
The only way the pipeline's official 2008 start date for construction can be met is "if national and international environmental standards that similar projects have to fulfil are not respected," Jochen Lamp, head of WWF's Baltic project office in Hamburg, told IPS.
ENVIRONMENT: Deserts Bring Beauty and Challenge
BONN (IPS) - The United Nations marked June 17 as the World Day to Combat Desertification to focus on the devastating consequences of land degradation.
"The issue is often obscured by a common misperception: that it is a 'natural' problem of advancing deserts in faraway developing countries," says Hama Arba Diallo, executive secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
Project Brings Hope for Clean-up of Rawalpindi's 'Shame'
Efforts are now underway to clean up the Nullah Lai stream, which has become a dumping ground for Rawalpindi.
“I know its wrong but I am forced to do it,” he utters hesitantly. “There is no proper place to throw waste and we can not go out of city for the purpose,” he adds.
