Coastal states have now made their bids for vast new areas of continental shelf

Sea levels are rising twice as fast as had been thought

One year on, cyclone Nargis is still taking a toll on its Burmese victims

IF A few small gold earrings escaped the cyclone the villagers pawn them, otherwise they pawn their clothes. They complain that moneylenders advance only a fraction of the item

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (Minfa) Tuesday released the findings of the baseline survey on the National Programme for Food Security and Productivity Enhancement of Small Farmers, known as Crop Maximisation Project phase-II (CMP-II).

The total volume of water on earth: 104 crore km3. The volume of accessible freshwater: 90 lakh km3. In a few decades, that might not be enough to sustain the entire humanity, warn UN agencies.

U.S. climate negotiators here gave the first broad hints of a new policy on global warming, but they provided few specifics, noting that a more detailed proposal would be submitted this month.

DHAKA

The United Nations children

With the world in economic recession, there is a temptation to downgrade or sideline climate change. That would be a great mistake.
The gathering of 2,000 scientists in Copenhagen in March found the climate change situation much worse than previously reported. They called on politicians to act quickly and decisively.

One of the world's biggest owners of oil and gas tankers has become the first major operator to announce plans to enter the market to transport captured carbon dioxide.

Maersk Tankers, part of Denmark's AP Moller-Maersk, said demand for the service could be vast - around 750m tonnes of carbon dioxide are emitted from large power plants around the North Sea alone.

The world's population will hit seven billion early in 2012 and top nine billion in 2050, with the vast majority of the increase coming in the developing countries of Asia and Africa, according to a new UN estimate, The Associated Press reported from the United Nations, New York.