Troubled Waters

SRI LANKA: Tsunami Demons Haunt the Coast

Seven years after monster waves crashed into homes, hotels and vehicles on Sri Lanka’s coast, people in this island nation continue to be haunted by demons from the sea.

ARGENTINA: Water – Some Waste It, Some Want It

In Argentina, the availability of water far outstrips demand, yet 11 percent of the population still lacks piped water, while a large proportion of the rest squanders it without a second thought.

MIDEAST: Life Without Water a Growing Threat

"Taking our water is not like taking a toy. Water is life, they cannot play with our lives like this," says Maher Najjar, deputy general director of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU) of the recent Israeli threat to cut electricity, water and infrastructure services to the occupied Gaza Strip.

HAITI: Waiting Five Years for a Drop of Water – Part 2

Despite, or perhaps because of, a host of international actors, 2.5 million U.S. dollars in funding and five years of empty promises, residents of some of Port-au-Prince's poorest neighbourhoods have yet to see running water in their vicinity.

/CORRECTED REPEAT*/HAITI: Waiting Five Years for a Drop of Water – Part 1

2.5 million U.S. dollars to supply water to several marginal neighbourhoods in the capital. Approved in 2006. Five years later the water has yet to run. Children are still in the streets bearing bottles and buckets.

Belo Monte Dam and Hunters Endanger Amazon Turtles

Luiz Cardoso da Costa was horrified as he watched the Amazonian manatee, a large docile beast, bleeding out from the knife wound he had dealt it, yet greedily gulping down grasses as if eating could somehow stave off death.

Bangladesh Demands Climate Justice

Mosammet Monwara walks more than three km every alternate day to fetch water for her family of five in a heavy earthen pitcher.

SOUTH AMERICA: Coming Together to Preserve the La Plata Basin

Five South American countries have launched a joint sustainable management programme for the Río de la Plata basin, to preserve one of the largest fresh water reserves in the world.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Himalayan Nations Yet to Break the Ice

Chungda Sherpa, a former herder from eastern Nepal, has a warning tale ahead of the United Nations climate change conference in Durban.

U.S.: Bottled Water Companies Target Minorities, But So Do Soda Firms

Water is the lifeblood of this planet, whose inhabitants are watching its accelerated spiral into crisis mode even as they struggle to address the issues and lifestyles that are stretching the earth's resources thin.

CENTRAL ASIA: Together They Lose

Rarely have so many donor countries spent so much for so long to achieve so little. In fact, the scores of Western countries ranging from the Netherlands to the United States that have tried for 20 years to coax the Central Asian nations to use their water cooperatively and create a win-win situation for all have found that the Central Asians are cooperating less and less, not more and more.

ASIA-PACIFIC: Refugees of Climate Change Rising Steadily

Asian countries, home to about 60 percent of the world's population, will be hit hardest by changing weather patterns and a degrading environment, research indicates.

Floods Leave Thai Economy Gasping

No guns are needed in this battle. Only the muscle of Thai soldiers defending a sprawling industrial estate on the eastern end of this city from an advancing enemy - flood waters.

CLIMATE CHANGE: A Rising Sea Threatens Pacific Islands

As world leaders gear up to spend the coming weeks in South Africa haggling over economically bearable cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, climate change is already exacerbating environmental conditions and threatening the lives and livelihoods of thousands of Pacific Islanders.

Fishermen's boats on the warlord-infested Mekong River in northern Laos.  Credit:  Irwin Loy/IPS

China Steps in to Patrol the Lawless Mekong

China plans to send armed patrol boats down the Mekong River and assert its authority over a corner of Southeast Asia infested by warlords and drug traffickers.

On the Yucatán coast, some species recover more quickly from hurricanes and rising sea levels than others.  Credit: Courtesy of Víctor Vidal

Climate Change Arouses Scientific Curiosity in Mexico

Climate change has inspired dozens of scientists at Mexican public universities to conduct research on its effects and seek ways to confront them.

Arzu Begum testifies at the climate hearings for women in the deltaic village of Char Nongolia.  Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

CLIMATE CHANGE: Bangladeshi Women on the Brink

Char Nongolia village is a basket case when it comes to climate change impacts such as increasing salinity, frequent cyclones, tidal surges, erratic rainfall and extended droughts.

Early morning in submerged Bangkok on Nov. 1, 2011. Credit:  Withit Chanthamarit/CC BY 2.0

ENVIRONMENT-THAILAND: ‘Bangkok Ignored Warnings’

This sinking mega-city’s eight million people are paying the price of ignoring warnings over many years concerning its climate vulnerability and the incapacity of its soggy foundations to handle flooding.

Geomembranes to collect and filter rainwater. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

LATIN AMERICA: Communities Should Go to Court Over Water

Local communities in Latin America should go to court more often to fight for access to drinking water, regarded as a universal right, and combine legal action with social protests and political lobbying, experts say.

EL SALVADOR: Water Bill Stagnates in Congress

A bill for protection, recovery and use of water resources in El Salvador, drafted by a platform of about 100 social, religious and academic organisations, has been bogged down in parliament for the past five years in spite of the country's water crisis.

A poor neighbourhood in Altamira, Brazil, flooded during the rainy season, will be left permanently under water by the Belo Monte dam.  Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

BRAZIL: Boycott of Dam Hearing Shows ‘Radical’ Foreign Policy Shift

Activists opposed to the construction of the Belo Monte hydropower dam in the Amazon jungle say the Brazilian government's decision to boycott an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights hearing represents a "radical" shift in the country's foreign policy.

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