Cyprus, facing its worst drought in a decade, will start importing water from Greece within the next two months, Agriculture Minister Michalis Polinikis said on Monday. Reservoirs are dangerously low and the crisis has forced emergency water rationing and sped up plans by Cyprus to desalinate more seawater. Its two desalination plants are already running at full capacity. "We are looking at many options to find conclusive solutions to this issue," Polinikis told reporters.

Droughts in Cyprus have forced government officials to ship in water from Greece to help ease the crisis. Minister signed a deal on Monday with shipping firm Ocean Tankers Holdings to transport drinking water to the island. Eight million cubic metres of water is set to be shipped to Cyprus by the end of June following a sustained period of drought on the island, which is a popular tourist destination. Last month, the government decided to impose water cuts for the first time in seven years.

For the first time, the meteorological department will give probability estimates of drought and excess rainfall for the country as part of its much-awaited April forecast of the southwest monsoon. The department will continue to stick to a new technique it used last year for forecasting the monsoon though it led to predictions that turned out to be way off.

In the chronically drought-hit Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh where natural rainfall over the past four years has been scarce, causing a severe drinking water and agrarian crisis, creating artificial rain through cloud seeding with the help of small airplanes is being seen as a viable alternative to obviate the people's miseries. A similar experiment has yielded satisfactory results in Andhra Pradesh.

DENILIQUIN, Australia: Lindsay Renwick, the mayor of this dusty southern Australian town, remembers the constant whir of the rice mill. "It was our little heartbeat out there, tickety-tick-tickety," he said, imitating the giant fans that dried the rice, "and now it has stopped." The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere, once processed enough grain to satisfy the daily needs of 20 million people. But six long years of drought have taken a toll, reducing Australia's rice crop by 98 percent and leading to the mothballing of the mill last December.

Lindsay Renwick, the mayor of this dusty southern Australian town, remembers the constant whir of the rice mill. "It was our little heartbeat out there, ticketytick-tickety," he said, imitating the giant fans that dried the rice, "and now it has stopped." The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere, once processed enough grain to meet the needs of 20 million people around the world. But six long years of drought have taken a toll, reducing Australia's rice crop by 98 per cent and leading to the mothballing of the mill last December.

The collapse of Australia's rice production is one of several factors contributing to a doubling of rice prices in the last three months - increases that have led the world's largest exporters to restrict exports severely, spurred panicked hoarding in Hong Kong and the Philippines, and set off protests in countries including Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Italy, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, the Philippines, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Yemen, the New York Times reported yesterday.

Lindsay Renwick, the mayor of this dusty southern Australian town, remembers the constant whir of the rice mill. "It was our little heartbeat out there, tickety-tick-tickety,' he said, imitating the giant fans that dried the rice, "and now it has stopped.' Has the increase in food prices caused you to change your buying habits?

China's '08 Wheat Harvest Seen Ample Despite Drought CHINA: April 15, 2008 BEIJING - China will have an ample harvest of winter wheat in 2008 as higher yields and increased acreage offset the impact of severe drought, industry officials said on Monday. The winter wheat output will grow 1.3 percent this year to 102.6 million tonnes, lifting China's total wheat output, including spring wheat, to 107.6 million tonnes this year, up 2.5 percent from 2007, the China National Grain and Oil Information Centre said.