This paper discusses the role of local governments as powerful, but often over-looked, actors in locally led adaptation. Local governments represent key stakeholders that have largely untapped potential to lead local adaptation action, mediate between local actors and national authorities, and manage climate finance to address local needs. This paper …
A giant dam is about to be built. Protests are about to erupt. What looked like an admittedly temporary reprieve for the swift currents and extraordinary biodiversity of the Mekong river is now over. In December the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an intergovernmental body made up of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand …
A Karnataka-based NGO is one of the eight finalists for the UK-based green energy prize, the Ashden Award. Shri Kshethra Dharmasthala Rural Development Project (SKDRDP) in Karnataka has been selected alongside seven other organisations from Peru, Indonesia, Cambodia, Africa and Afghanistan as a finalist for the Ashden Awards. A press …
Years after a malaria strain increasingly resistant to the most-effective drugs was confirmed from Cambodia in 2006, the artemisinin-resistant malaria has now been found to have spread along the Thailand-Burma border. According to 10-year-long study published in the Lancet medical journal, the containment strategy will have to be reconsidered if …
New Delhi: Malaria that is resistant to the drug of choice — Artemisinin, has now emerged along the Thailand-Myanmar border — 800km westward from where it was first confirmed in Cambodia in 2006. Artemisinin Combination Therapies (ACT) kills malaria parasite in a human bloodstream within 24 to 36 hours. With …
Nepal is looking to scale up its flagship household biogas programme, which has made forays into other developing countries in Asia and Africa. Initiated in 1992 with support from the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV), Nepal has installed over 240,000 household biogas plants with a thermal energy capacity of 444 megawatts …
Thought bird flu was gone? Recent human deaths in Asia and Egypt are a reminder that the H5N1 virus is still alive and dangerous, and Vietnam is grappling with a new strain that has outsmarted vaccines used to protect poultry flocks. Ten people have died in Cambodia, Indonesia, Egypt, China …
Asian Development Bank (ADB) has said that people in Pakistan are likely to be particularly vulnerable to water shortages due to leakage, inefficient domestic water use, or underinvestment in providing access, especially in rural and slum areas. The Bank in its recent report titled 'Green Growth, Resources and Resilience: Environmental …
The harvest of rice around the world in 2011-2012 should hit a new record of 721 million tonnes and lead to lower prices, the UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation said Wednesday. With the growing season nearly over in the northern hemisphere and well underway in the southern, the FAO predicted …
A multinational, prospective clinical study was carried out in South-East Asia (SEA) and Latin America (LA), to ascertain the proportion of inapparent dengue infections in households of febrile dengue cases, and to compare clinical data and biological markers from subjects with various dengue disease patterns. Dengue infection was laboratory-confirmed during …
Health authorities in Hong Kong are urging residents to take steps to ensure personal hygiene, and the city remains on high alert following the bird-flu-related death of a man in mainland China. Renewed fears in Hong Kong came as Chinese authorities said preliminary tests showed the Shenzhen man, who died …
Interpol on Wednesday launched a new campaign to coordinate the global fight against tiger poaching, warning that failure to protect the endangered cats would have economic and social repercussions. The international police organisation said it was imperative that the 13 nations where tigers can still be found work together to …
The high water is devastating even for a country inured to monsoon rains and waterlogged rice fields: wide swaths of Cambodia’s countryside have become giant lakes, with villagers and livestock marooned on scattered patches of dry land. Many areas in Battambang are reachable only by boat. The floods that have …
Indonesia, the current chair of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), has provided financial assistance to the six Asean countries currently affected by natural disasters. The Indonesian government is providing Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and the Philippines with $ 400,000, Vietnam with $ 500,000 and Thailand with $ 1,000,000, said a …
More than 100 people were killed in flash floods caused by heavy storms in central Myanmar this week, an official said on Sunday. “So far, 35 dead bodies were found out of 106 missing people. The other 71 people are also believed to have been killed in the floods” on …
World rice production is expected to touch a record 480.5 million tonnes this year on the back of higher output in Asia, Egypt, Argentina, Mozambique, the US and Russian Federation, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations. “The outlook for global rice production in 2011 …
Massive floods have left 500 people dead across Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, officials said Monday, as authorities stepped up efforts to reach victims of the unusually heavy monsoon rains. In Thailand, where the death toll from the country’s worst floods in decades rose to 269, thousands of soldiers fanned out …
Massive floods have ravaged vast swathes of Asia’s rice bowl, threatening to further drive up food prices and adding to the burden of farmers who are among the region’s poorest, experts say. About 1.5 million hectares (3.7 million acres) of paddy fields in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos have been …
Thailand aims to revive a long-stalled plan to become an oil trading and biofuel hub in Southeast Asia, challenging Singapore's dominance, its new energy minister said on Thursday. The net oil importer plans to boost its crude reserves, excluding refined oil products, to 29 days from 18 days now to …
At least 150 people have died in Cambodia and southern Vietnam in the worst flooding along the Mekong River in 11 years, after heavy rain swamped homes and forced thousands of people to evacuate. Most of the deaths have been in Cambodia, where 141 people have died since Aug. 13.
