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• Zoo Authority does not want to monitor circuses

  The Central Zoo Authority wants to shed its responsibility of monitoring the upkeep of elephants in circuses, saying the task should be entrusted with the Animal Welfare Board in view of frequent instances of violation of norms by the owners. It has written to the environment ministry to keep the circuses out of its ambit, citing inability of circus owners to comply with the provisions of its Recognition of Zoo Rules 1992 in the upkeep of elephants.

  • 20/05/2008

  • Tribune (New Delhi)
  • • Animal Care
    • Animal Cruelty
    • Zoos
    • Elephant

• 70pc still without food aid in Myanmar: UN

  About 70 per cent of Myanmar's hungry cyclone survivors remain without UN food aid more than two weeks after the disaster, forcing them to leave their villages, relief workers said on Monday. With the junta so far resisting calls to allow enough foreign disaster experts in to help direct the emergency effort, supplies are stacking up in Yangon with only small trucks to get aid to some two million needy people.

  • 20/05/2008

  • New Age (Bangladesh)
  • • Food Aid
    • UN
    • Myanmar
    • World Food Programme (WFP)

• Government asked to take steps to save poultry industry

  The country would be deprived of its poultry stock if wheat, the basic ingredient of poultry feed, would remain out of their reach due to ban on its purchase from farm and open market. This was stated by the Chairman Pakistan Industrial Traders Associations Front (PIAF), Mian Abuzar Shad after holding a meeting with a delegation of poultry industry on Monday.

  • 20/05/2008

  • Business Recorder (Pakistan)
  • • Poultry

• UK, Australia to help improve healthcare

  Britain and Australia on Monday pledged Rs13.7 billion for improving mother and child healthcare facilities in Pakistan. According to a press release, an agreement to the effect was signed here on Monday. It aims to help save 30,000 women and 350,000 children. The UK's Department for International Aid (DFID) will provide Rs11.7 billion over five years and the Australian government Rs2 billion. The initiative will help train 12,000 midwives and strengthen obstetrics and newborn care in district hospitals across the country.

  • 20/05/2008

  • Dawn (Pakistan)
  • • Health
    • Children

• Over 2.2m suffering from hepatitis in NWFP, Fata

  More than 2.2 million people in the NWFP and Fata have been infected with hepatitis B and C. This was revealed at an awareness seminar held here on Monday to mark the World Hepatitis Day. Dr Ihsanullah Turabi, provincial coordinator of the hepatitis control programme, while speaking on the occasion urged preventive measures against the deadly disease, saying that more than 700,000 people in NWFP and 124,000 in Fata suffered from hepatitis B. "In Frontier, an estimated 1.1778 million people while in Fata about 0.19 million had hepatitis C,' he added.

  • 20/05/2008

  • Dawn (Pakistan)
  • • Health
    • Hepatitis

• First polio case of the year in NWFP

  A polio case has been reported in the district, which is the first this year in the Frontier province. The victim is 18-month-old Niamatullah, son of Musa Jan, of the Azakhel village, Nowshera. Health officials said the stool sample of the child had been sent to laboratory on April 27, and the report confirmed the child positive for polio. The provincial health department has announced to conduct a three-day mop up campaign from May 22 in areas surrounding the Nowshera district, including Mardan, Peshawar, Swabi, Malakand region and the Khyber Agency.

  • 20/05/2008

  • WHO
  • • Health
    • Polio

• Water conservation: case for change of lifestyle

  Every morning when Sohail Maqbool Malik turns on the overhead shower, he can't help marvelling at the travails that the first tiny drops coming from his shower must have gone through to make it to his home. "I see that every drop that hits my face has a connection with the glaciers in the Himalayas which travels from the mountain, along the plains and into the Indus, fights sea-intrusion and survives

  • 20/05/2008

  • Dawn (Pakistan)
  • • Lifestyles
    • Glaciers
    • Water Conservation

• 'No Diversion Of Food Land For Fuel'

  Energy expert and Planning Commission member, Kirit S. Parikh spoke to Outlook ... Excerpts: The debate over food versus fuel has made biofuel a dirty word...

  • 20/05/2008

  • Outlook (New Delhi)
  • • Food Crops
    • Jetropha
    • Biofuel
    • Farmers
    • Energy

• Water scarcity hits cotton sowing

  An acute water shortage has hit cotton sowing on 200,000 acres with Nawabshah growers facing heavy financial losses. Dad and Nusrat irrigation divisions are in water rotation schedules for last couple of months. Growers of four talukas are facing the onslaught as standing sugarcane, banana, and vegetable crops are not being supplied with water. Growers have held several demonstrations demanding irrigation minister and concerned officials to ensure regular water supply but in vain.

  • 20/05/2008

  • Dawn (Pakistan)
  • • Cotton
    • Water Demand
    • Irrigation

• 2.5 lakh get infected with hepatitis a year

  Around 2.5 lakh people get infected with hepatitis viruses a year in the country, experts at a discussion said yesterday. Hepatitis, a serious disease which affects the liver, is 100 times more infectious than HIV, they said. Liver Foundation of Bangladesh organised the discussion at the National Museum auditorium in the city to mark the World Hepatitis Day.

  • 20/05/2008

  • Daily Star (Bangladesh)
  • • Health
    • Hepatitis
    • Bangladesh

• Suspected cases of Chikungunya reported in Addu atoll

  Several cases of what is believed to be the mosquito-borne Chikungunya disease has been reported in Addu atoll, the Hithadhoo Regional Hospital has said.

  • 20/05/2008

  • Haveeru Daily (Maldives)
  • • Health
    • Chikungunya

• WTO deal critical to ease food crisis: Mandelson

  A World Trade Organisation agreement removing barriers to commerce is "absolutely essential'' to bring down soaring food prices, European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said. "We have to address the underlying problems of demand and supply of food,'' he said in a Bloomberg Television interview on Monday in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, where he and hundreds of business executives are attending the Middle East's World Economic Forum. "To do that, we have to bring about a fundamental reform of trade in the world, and that can only be brought about by a WTO deal.''

  • 20/05/2008

  • Financial Express (New Delhi)
  • • Food Prices
    • Food Supply
    • WTO
    • Food Security

• Pass The Sugar, Please

  Fuel From The Fields: A Balance-Sheet What are biofuels? Made from renewable sources, biofuels promise a viable, eco-friendly substitute to fossil fuels. Can be made from a variety of crops like maize, sugarcane, beetroot, palm oil, jatropha-anything that is rich in sugar and carbohydrates. Typically, blended with petrol or diesel. Why are they controversial? Countries like the US are diverting their corn and maize crops to produce biofuels, thus contributing to the tight foodgrain position and spiralling global prices. What are the types of biofuel?

  • 20/05/2008

  • Outlook (New Delhi)
  • • Jetropha
    • Biodiesel
    • Petrol
    • Biofuel
    • India
    • Chhattisgarh
    • Faridabad (T)
    • Madhya Pradesh
    • Orissa (Odisha)
    • Rajasthan
    • Food Security
    • Indian Oil Corporation (IOC)

• Biofuels policy needs pragmatism

  From panacea to pariah, biofuels have come full circle. Not unlike other advances of modern sciences

  • 20/05/2008

  • Financial Express (New Delhi)
  • • Bio Fuel Crops
    • Biodiesel
    • Ethanol
    • Biofuel
    • China
    • Indonesia
    • India
    • Food Security

• Asia's worst natural disasters since 2004 tsunami

  Asia's worst natural disasters since 2004 tsunami Hundreds of aftershocks have rattled China's Sichuan province following last Monday's devastating quake which killed nearly 32,500, state news agency Xinhua said. Early on Sunday, another 6.1 magnitude tremor caused thousands to flee as buildings swayed in the provincial capital, Chengdu. Here are some of the region's worst natural disasters since the Asian tsunami of 2004.

  • 20/05/2008

  • Daily News (Sri Lanka)
  • • Natural Disasters
    • Earthquakes
    • Tsunami

• Carbon credit trading & tax

  The need for a reduction in carbon emissions was debated at the United Nations Conference on Environment & Development (The Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, resulting in the adoption of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international treaty on environment. The Kyoto Protocol, 1998, was adopted by the parties to the UNFCCC with the objective of achieving quantified emission limitations through specific policies and measures to minimising the adverse effects of climate change.

  • 20/05/2008

  • Financial Express (New Delhi)
  • • UNFCCC
    • Carbon Tax
    • Climate Change
    • Climate Mitigation
    • Emissions Trading
    • Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
    • Certified Emission Reduction
    • India
    • Andhra Pradesh
    • Himachal Pradesh
    • Karnataka
    • Maharashtra
    • Punjab
    • Rajasthan

• Manmohan Singh's Top 10

  Key points from the PM's detailed document listing the administrative and legislative measures taken to implement the NCMP. ...... | e-mail | one page format | feedback: send - read | Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's assessment of his government's implementation of the National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) is not a mere propaganda pamphlet. It is a detailed document listing the administrative and legislative measures taken to implement the NCMP. Here are some key points: Employment * National Employment Guarantee Act has been passed and is being implemented.

  • 20/05/2008

  • Outlook (New Delhi)
  • • Agriculture
    • Development
    • Health
    • Tribals
    • Women
    • Children
    • National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA)
    • Education
    • Right To Information (RTI)

• Chronic diseases at workplace to cost India $237 bn: Study

  China is expected to be the worst sufferer with an income loss of $558 billion, while Russia and the UK will face a loss of $33 billion each. India is expected to suffer an income loss to the tune of $237 billion between now and 2015 due to the rising tide of chronic diseases

  • 20/05/2008

  • WHO
  • • Lifestyles
    • Occupational Health

• G8 environment heads to talk CO2 cuts in Kobe

  The Group of Eight environment ministers will open on Saturday a three-day meeting in Kobe on ways to meet Japan's proposal to halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The ministers will seek G8 cooperation on promoting the "co-benefits approach" to help developing countries achieve economic growth while curbing pollution and waste, Environment Ministry officials said. The ministers will also discuss steps to protect biodiversity and to ensure the efficient use of resources with the "3Rs" approach of reducing waste by promoting reuse and recycling, the officials said.

  • 20/05/2008

  • Japan Times (Japan)
  • • Pollution
    • Carbon Dioxide
    • Climate Change
    • Green House Gases
    • Biodiversity

• Giving an oil behemoth its due

  This is the conclusion of a two-part series on the global oil scenario and ONGC. The first part was published on May 6 In India, oil production grew by 6% in the last five years up to 2006-07. It was during the second half of 1994-95 that ONGC's medium-sized fields

  • 20/05/2008

  • Financial Express (New Delhi)
  • • Energy Policy
    • Oil Exploration
    • Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC)