An alarming reduction in water supply from tube wells to the federal capital has shocked Capital Development Authority (CDA) Water Supply Directorate.

The CDA officials noticed this development when they learnt that tube wells designed to produce 400 to 500 gallon water per minute were now producing only 40 to 50 gallons water per minute, sources told Daily Times.

Pakistan can overcome impending water scarcity challenges by adopting proper and timely strategies besides enhancing its reservoirs and reducing water losses in the country, water experts said at a two-day conference which began here on Tuesday.

The federal government has agreed in principal to provide Rs 9 billion to Sindh government for the construction of 14 small dams in different parts of the province to overcome the water scarcity. It will be recalled that there was a longstanding disagreement between Islamabad and Sindh on their respective monetary share in the Rs 12 billion project of developing over 200 small dams across the water-thirsty province.

The residents of Kurri and adjoining villages on Wednesday welcomed the orders of Islamabad High Court (IHC), which stayed the execution of Kurri Landfill Project.

"We are happy that Islamabad High Court (IHC) has stayed the execution of the project and served notices on Capital Development Authority (CDA) chairman, chief commissioner and Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pak-EPA) director general,' Shabbir Abbasi, a resident of Maloot Village told Daily Times.

The health ministry on Thursday put hospitals in the capital on alert as one more positive case of dengue fever was confirmed by National Institute of Health and vowed to prevent the disease from becoming a serious threat to public health this year.

The second dengue fever case is also being treated at Polyclinic Hospital.

The first case was reported on Wednesday when a Frontier Constabulary jawan Jannas Khan tested positive and became the first case of this season.

Doctors detected the first positive case of dengue fever of the season on Wednesday and warned of possible outbreak of the disease in the capital city. A Frontier Constabulary constable was the first to contract the disease from the barracks where he had been staying. He was later admitted to Polyclinic Hospital with high fever, where he is still being treated. "We are sure that he contracted the disease from there because he had not been out of the city for the past 30 days,' doctor treating him at the hospital said.

Transparency International Global Corruption (TIGC) Report 2008 Wednesday revealed that President Pervez Musharraf has converted army-granted farmland worth US$690,000 in Islamabad into US$10.34 million of moveable assets. According to the TIGC Report 2008 analysis," the scale of the inroads made by the military into 'civilian' sectors of Pakistan's economy, including land, construction, property, manufacturing, fertilizers, agriculture, road building, trucking etc; and that full generals enjoy individual wealth in excess of US$8.3 million,"

To efficiently manage scarce water resources in Balochistan, the government here on Wednesday inked an agreement with the World Bank for provision of International Development Association (IDA) credit of SDR 15.8 million ($25 million). The Balochistan small scale irrigation project will mainly focus on Pishin Lora Basin in the northern parts of the province.

Authorities on Sunday reported a new outbreak of avian flu at a commercial poultry farm in the country's north-west, killing thousands of birds, officials said. Tests conducted at a government-run laboratory in Islamabad confirmed the presence of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu at a farm in Swabi district, local livestock department chief Ibrahim Khan told AFP. "The virus was detected after the owner of the farm informed us on Friday that some 4,000 birds had died within the past few days," he said.

Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) would provide financial and technical assistance to tackle environmental problems in Pakistan particularly to mitigate the affects of climate change, vehicular emissions, deteriorating sanitation conditions, glaciers melting and air pollution. This was agreed in a meeting between Resident Representative of Jica Takao Kaibara and Federal Minister for Environment Hameedullah Jan Afridi.