2024 Disasters in Numbers
<p>In 2024, the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) recorded 393 natural hazard-related disasters. These events caused 16,753 fatalities and affected 167.2 million people. Economic losses totaled US$241.95
Asia
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Trouble s back door entry
Eu members recently agreed over eu fisheries commissioner Joe Borg's proposal to send fishing boats to tsunami-affected Asian countries. But experts warn that instead of having a positive effect,
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Go ahead for Indo ASEAN free trade agreement
Green light for Indo ASEAN free trade agreement
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Healthy idea
But a poor way to bell the malnutrition cat
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A safety valve!
Alarmed by super rapid industrialisation in Asia and the Pacific, the Asian Development Bank suggests urgent corporate voluntary action and diluted regulations
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Snippets
<font face=arial size=3 color=#CE181E><b>•</b></font> Army contractors halted operations at the Newport Chemical Depot, in western Indiana, as nearly 500 gallons of caustic wastewater containing hydrolysate, leaked into a sealed area at the facility. This plant is used for destroying Cold War era chemical weapon VX.<br>
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Coal prices may set new record on Asian demand
Banpu Pcl, Thailand's biggest coal miner, expects prices of the raw material to set new records as demand growth in Asia, led by China and India, outpaces supply. India will raise purchases at a faster pace in the next two years, compared with 2007 and 2008, as the nation completes power plants, Philip Gasteen, head of marketing and logistics, said during the McCloskey Group coal conference in Singapore yesterday. Indonesia, the world's second-biggest thermal coal exporter, is promoting coal-fired power output to cut oil use. Benchmark prices at Newcastle, the world's biggest export harbor for thermal coal in Australia, dropped $4.71 to $134.45 a metric tonne in the week ended February 22 after four weeks of records, according to the globalCOAL NEWC Index. Prices had climbed after heavy rains in Australia, power shortages in South Africa and snowstorms in China cut output. "Things got tighter because of growth,'' Gasteen said in the interview. China's export ban after the nation's worst snowstorms in 50 years will pull 8 million tonnes out of the Pacific basin during the first quarter and "is a big loss,'' he said. China, the world's second-biggest energy consumer, banned coal exports so that local utilities "don't have grounds to raise prices'' amid government efforts to curb inflation, Gasteen said. Vietnam's exports Vietnam, China's largest coal supplier, plans to reduce exports 32 per cent this year and gradually eliminate the sales to meet rising domestic demand, Nguyen Khac Tho, vice director of the Ministry of Industry and Trade's energy and petroleum department, said February 15. Exports may drop to a forecast 22 million tonnes from 32.2 million in 2007 and the government is recommending halting overseas shipments after 2015. Coal producers are keeping inventories at half of typical levels of 6 to 7 per cent of annual output because of rising demand, Gasteen said. Banpu is maintaining stockpiles at about 3 to 4 percent of annual production, he said. "Demand has been very high so producers have been shipping out higher proportions than production and not putting as much in stock ,'' he said. Gasteen declined to comment on prices being negotiated with Japanese customers for annual supplies starting in April. Australian miners are seeking between $125 and $136 a tonne under one-year contracts, compared with offers from Japanese utilities to pay $110 a ton, Peter Ball, vice president for marketing at PT Bumi Resources, Indonesia's largest thermal coal exporter, said earlier this week in an interview. In the year ending March 31, the price is about $55. Japan is Banpu's biggest export destination, representing 25 per cent to 30 per cent of its sales. Banpu also ships to buyers in Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea and Italy, Gasteen said.
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The 2005 global report on purchasing power parity estimates: A preliminary review
The fifth (2005) round of the World Bank's International Comparison Program, which produces estimates of the gross domestic product at purchasing power parity prices, has been the most extensive and
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5 million Asians have HIV, 8 million more by 2020, warns report
Nearly five million people are living with HIV in Asia with 4,40,000 people dying each year.
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Is it time for Asia to abandon the dream of an effective multilateral climate treaty and adopt new approach?
<p><em>For growing economies the stress has to be on patterns of natural resource use and not on the status of natural resources; that is, dealing with the causes rather than the symptoms of the problem
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Decoding climate change risks
<p><strong><img alt="" src="http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/media/iep/homepage/msanwal_blog.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 117px;" /></strong></p> <p><strong>Small changes in urban human behavior