Liu Xiao spends her weeks visiting sludge and organic waste treatment plants across China. The travel can be tiring but as a technical and policy adviser on waste management she must help implement President
As a war of words rages over biofuels and their impact on world food supplies, researchers in India are promoting sweet sorghum as a crop that combines the best of both worlds. The plants, which grow three metres high in dry conditions, yield grain that can be eaten by people or animals; their stalks provide sweet juice for bioethanol production and a crushed residue that can be burnt or fed to cattle.
Burma's military rulers have appealed for international help to get the county's cyclone-hit Irrawaddy delta rice farmers back to their paddy fields, amid concerns about food shortages if they miss the planting season. The request came as Burma's state television yesterday said a military-sponsored constitution had won the support of 92.4 per cent of voters in a partial referendum on Saturday. A vote in cyclone-hit areas and Rangoon has been delayed until May 24.
The death toll from Monday's earthquake in China could reach as high as 50,000 people, the state council said last night, as rescue workers still struggled to reach some of the worst affected areas. The number of deaths announced so far rose yesterday to 19,500 in Sichuan province, the centre of the earthquake. However the sharp escalation in the expected death toll indicates that hopes are fading for the tens of thousands of people who are still buried under collapsed buildings.
At least 100 people were killed and scores injured when fuel from a pipeline ruptured by an earthmover building a road on the outskirts of Nigeria's capital Lagos caught fire, the Red Cross said last night. "About 100 people have so far been confirmed dead. We have rescued more than 20 people and taken them to hospital," said one Red Cross official. Most of the deaths and injuries resulted from a stampede caused by the fire.
The New South Wales government warned yesterday that Australia's main eastern state was facing another "horror autumn" of drought to already devastated farmlands. The government said the area of the state officially in drought had increased to 48.4 per cent from 42.9 per cent a month earlier as farmers wait for rain in order to plant wheat and other winter crops. "These figures represent a real fear that our winter crop may again be savaged by this merciless drought," Ian Macdonald, primary industries minister, said.
The Ukrainian prime minister cast a shadow over a strategically important hydrocarbon exploration project yesterday, openly accusing a US energy company leading the venture of holding backroom talks with Russia's Gazprom. Announcing her government had repealed an exploration licence off Ukraine's Black Sea coast for Houston-based Vanco Energy, Yulia Tymoshenko also raised the stakes in a long-standing rivalry with Viktor Yushchenko, the president.
The global food crisis is inspiring a broad new coalition on Capitol Hill seeking to change US policies on ethanol production. Interests ranging from US food manufacturers and livestock producers to environmentalists, humanitarian aid agencies and consumer groups are calling for Congress to rethink so-called "food to fuel" mandates that would require the US to use 9bn gallons of ethanol this year. Critics say the mandates are driving up the price of corn, wheat and other grains, leading to record global food prices and political instability.
John McCain vowed yesterday to put the US at the heart of international efforts to tackle global warming, proposing aggressive targets to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions and the creation of a cap-and-trade system to encourage investment in green technology.
Burma's ruling junta was last night locked in an increasingly tense stand-off with the international community after flatly refusing to allow foreign aid workers into the country to tackle the impact of the recent cyclone disaster. Amid clear indications that between 60,000 and 100,000 people are now dead or missing in the region, the Burmese junta said it was prepared to receive offers of aid from foreign sources, including the US.
South Africa's government was urged on Tuesday to implement an immediate review of its land reform policies in a hard-hitting report from a leading think-tank that said the current approach had a dismal record and threatened to lead to a crisis. Without a rapid and thorough change of policy towards reversing the injustices of land ownership under apartheid, agricultural production, investor confidence, race relations and the future of the poor were all under threat, the paper found.
