Breaking News, Latest Philippines Headlines, World, Entertainment, Politics, Weather & Video News
by Kamal Taha GHOR AL-HADITHA, Jordan (AFP) — Ahmad Daoud surveyed his shrivelled tomato plants near the Dead Sea in Jordan, where severe drought in what is already one of the world’s most water-deficient countries is hitting hard. “Look at how the land thirsts,” he said, walking on cracked earth stained with white salt patches, waving at the five hectares (12 acres) of his farm. “Everything I planted… is dead.” He inspected a tomato the […]
by Raziye Akkoc KARAPINAR, Turkey (AFP) — Sinkholes wide enough to swallow a bus dot the drought-stricken breadbasket of the Turkish plains, worrying farmers as they spread and creep closer to residential homes. “The drought situation is getting worse,” said farmer Tahsin Gundogdu, whose harvest includes potatoes he sells to the US food giant PepsiCo. The 57-year-old has seen the huge holes yawn open in the past 10 to 15 years as the overuse of […]
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AFP) — More than one million households and businesses in Taiwan’s heavily industrialized central regions were put on water rationing Tuesday, as the island battles its worst drought in 56 years. The shortage is expected to particularly impact the water-intensive microchip manufacturing sector during a global shortage of semiconductors that power everything from cars to iPhones and computers. The state water company is now cutting supplies in Taichung, Miaoli and northern Changhua county […]
GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The United Nations said Tuesday that $76 million was urgently needed to help over one million people in southern Madagascar facing potentially life-threating shortages of food, water and health assistance. The UN humanitarian agency OCHA issued its so-called flash appeal after the impoverished island country in eastern Africa saw its agricultural season ruined by the worst drought in a decade. At the same time, the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic […]
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar (AFP) — The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) appealed on Tuesday for emergency aid of $35 million to fight hunger in southern Madagascar, hit by the coronavirus pandemic and a third consecutive year of drought. “Some 1.35 million people are projected to be food insecure — 35 percent of the region’s population,” the WFP said in a statement. “With severe malnutrition rates continuing to spiral and many children forced to beg in […]
by Marlowe HOOD Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Available freshwater is on track to decline sharply across two-thirds of Earth’s land surface toward the end of the century mostly due to climate change, with the number of people exposed to extreme drought doubling, researchers have reported. Even under a scenario of moderate decline in greenhouse gas emissions, land area scorched by extreme to exceptional drought conditions increases from three to seven percent, […]
by Kelly MACNAMARA Agence France-Presse LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Songbirds in tropical rainforests curtail their reproduction to help them survive droughts, according to a study Monday. Species with longer lifespans were better able to cope with this environmental volatility than previously thought, researchers found. With more record hot spells gripping parts of the planet and biodiversity threatened by human encroachment on habitats, a crucial question is whether species can adapt to these ever-harsher conditions. […]
by Marlowe HOOD Agence France-Presse Paris, France (AFP) — Overlapping environmental crises could tip the planet into “global systemic collapse,” more than 200 top scientists warned Wednesday. Climate change, extreme weather events from hurricanes to heatwaves, the decline of life-sustaining ecosystems, food security and dwindling stores of fresh water — each poses a monumental challenge to humanity in the 21st century. Out of 30 global-scale risks, these five topped the list both in terms of likelihood […]
by Diana SIMEONOVA / Vessela SERGUEVA Agence France-Presse PERNIK, Bulgaria (AFP) – Forced to “live without water, in the 21st century, in a European Union country”: Bulgarian Yana Stoyanova is not bemoaning climate change, but the incompetence of the authorities which has left some 100,000 people with an acute water shortage. Accountant Stoyanova does not live in an isolated backwater, but around 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the capital Sofia. She is at the sharp […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) – Helicopter-borne marksmen killed more than 5,000 camels in a five-day cull of feral herds that were threatening indigenous communities in drought-stricken areas of southern Australia, officials said Tuesday. Aboriginal leaders in South Australia state said extremely large herds of the non-native camels had been driven towards rural communities by drought and extreme heat, threatening scarce food and drinking water, damaging infrastructure, and creating a dangerous hazard for drivers. The cull in […]
by Holly ROBERTSON Agence France Presse SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Snipers took to helicopters in Australia on Wednesday to begin a mass cull of up to 10,000 camels as drought drives big herds of the feral animals to search for water closer to remote towns, endangering indigenous communities. Local officials in South Australia state said “extremely large” herds have been encroaching on rural communities — threatening scarce food and drinking water, damaging infrastructure, and […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea is experiencing its worst drought in over a century, official media reported Friday, days after the World Food Programme expressed “very serious concerns” about the situation in the country. The isolated, impoverished North — which is under several sets of sanctions over its nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs — has long struggled to feed itself and suffers chronic food shortages. It recorded its worst harvest for a […]
