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.

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.

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.

By Sahana Singh

BEPPU, Japan, Dec 4 (IPS) - Although 2.6 billion people in the world -- two-thirds of whom are in southern or eastern Asia -- are living without access to basic sanitation, the issue has been a poor cousin to water supply in terms of visibility and financing.

By Lynette Lee Corporal

SINGAPORE, Nov 29 (IPS) - A report released by the Asian Development Bank (AsDB) in this affluent city-state on Thursday urges the region’s policymakers to place water-related issues high on their development agenda.

By Zofeen Ebrahim

SEOUL, Nov 24 (IPS) - It was a happy day for Sim Jae-Duck. "The World Toilet Association (WTA) history has begun,’’ said the president of the newly formed association at the close, Friday, of the four-day assembly in which it was formally established.

By Zofeen Ebrahim

SEOUL, Nov 22 (IPS) - The rhythmic beat seemed to roll away cultural taboos surrounding the act of defecation at the inaugural conference of the World Toilet Association (WTA).

By Kalinga Seneviratne*

LILOAN, Philippines, Nov 17 (IPS/AMIC) - This municipality of 80,000 people living in 14 ‘barangay’ or villages has a spectacular five-kilometre beach that is popular with beachgoers. During weekends, they come in droves from Cebu City, just a 30-minute drive away.

   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 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.