A new ICRC/Norwegian Red Cross policy brief "Making Adaptation Work" presents how the humanitarian consequences of environmental degradation and climate change are aggravated by armed conflict in the Near and Middle East, and which adaptation approaches are emerging to face the compounding impact using examples from Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
A s the silver waters of the Kishanganga rush through this north Kashmir valley, Indian labourers are hard at work on a hydropower project that will dam the river just before it flows across one of the world's most heavily militarised borders into Pakistan. The hum of excavators echoes through …
Mismatch In Favour Of Production 1st Time Since ’04-05, Prices Drop 25% In 4 Months New Delhi:Strange things are happening in the world of oil. Crude prices have dropped more than 25% in the past four months. Global oil consumption has dropped below global production for the first time since …
North Korea has resumed construction work on an experimental light water reactor (ELWR) in a move that could extend its capacity to produce more material for nuclear weapons, website 38North reported on Thursday. Based on April 30 satellite images, work halted in December at the reactor had now re-started, said …
Corals, trees and marine sediments, among others, are direct evidence of the climate of the past, but they are not the only indicators. A team led by Spanish scientists has interpreted records written in Iraq by Arabic historians for the first time and has made a chronology of climatic events …
Fresh water supplies are unlikely to keep up with global demand by 2040, increasing political instability, hobbling economic growth and endangering world food markets, according to a U.S. intelligence assessment released on Thursday. The report by the office of the Director of National Intelligence said that areas including South Asia, …
Gene banks represent an overdue push to preserve crop biodiversity. It also needs conserving on farms. WITH a heavy clunk, the steel outer doors of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault closed on February 28th, shutting out a howling Arctic gale and entombing a tonne of new arrivals: 25,000 seed samples …
Indian companies tried to export nuclear grade material to Syria and Iran in violation of international conventions and desisted only after the matter was raised by the US, WikiLeaks has revealed. The secret US diplomatic correspondence says that a public sector unit was also trying to export high grade conventional …
European Union members escalated the pressure on Syria’s government on Friday by banning all imports of Syrian oil in response to its violent suppression of the nearly six-month-old uprising there. It was the most punitive action by the European Union to date over the crackdown in Syria, which sells nearly …
The European Union has agreed to ban oil imports from Syria, the most significant economic sanctions imposed on the regime of Bashar al-Assad for its use of military force to suppress pro-democracy protests. “We have adopted these restrictive measures as a direct consequence of the appalling and unacceptable escalation of …
An invasive alien weed, silverleaf nightshade, is threatening cotton and wheat crops in Syria and Iraq and could spread to Lebanon and Jordan, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Tuesday. More than 60 percent of the farmland in Syria, growing mainly cotton and wheat, has been …
ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of state- owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), has made two significant oil discover- ies of 185 million barrels of oil in a block in northeast- ern Syria. OVL and its partner IPR Mediterranean Exploration Ltd discovered Rashid and Abu Khashab oilfields in …
Diverting water from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to supply agriculture, alongside a warming climate, means the once-bountiful region is becoming desert.
In a region already considered the world's most water scarce and where, in many places, demand for water already outstrips supply, climate models are predicting a hotter, drier and less predictable climate in the Middle East. By redrawing maps of water availability, food security, disease prevalence, population distribution and coastal …
This article reviews work that had the objective of introducing agricultural technologies in a marginal dryland area, the Khanasser Valley, northwestern Syria. The highly variable rainfall is barely sufficient to support livelihoods in this traditional barley
Turkey has boosted the flow of the Euphrates river passing through its dams upstream of Iraq to help farmers cope with a drought after Iraqi complaints, but it is still not enough, a top Iraqi lawmaker said on Saturday. Iraq is mostly desert and its inhabitable areas are slaked by …
Iraq's parliament voted on Tuesday to force the government to demand on a greater share of water resources from neighbours upstream of its vital rivers, Turkey, Iran and Syria, in any bilateral deals with them. In a resolution, Iraqi lawmakers agreed to block any agreement signed with the three nations …
North Korea said Wednesday that it would start a uranium enrichment program, declaring for the first time that it intended to pursue a second project unless the United Nations lifted sanctions. Calling the United Nations Security Council
This study describes a modeling methodology for using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools to identify potential areas for the introduction of supplemental irrigation. In their most simple concept, such areas would be characterized by the presence of arable soils, non-constraining slopes, agricultural land use, and would be within proximity of …
In Syria water harvesting is not much adopted by farmers. One of the reasons is that the agricultural research and extension support services in Syria lack specific and systematic knowledge on potential areas and suitable locations for water harvesting. The objective of this study is to provide a rapid GIS-based …
