Two million children face starvation

Children suffer the most from the worst drought in decades in the Horn of Africa. (file photo)

Source: Press TV
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Nearly two million children are facing starvation as the worst famine in 60 years continues to batter the Horn of Africa region.

UN sources said Sunday that these children, all under five, are just a small fraction of close to 13 million people facing hunger in the Horn of Africa.

At least 30,000 Africans have already starved to death as the region experiences its worst drought in decades. In many places, there has been no rain for the past two years.

The UN has declared famine in parts of southern Somalia and says the situation will get worse unless international aid comes in soon.

In Somalia, where a child is said to be dying every six minutes, three new districts were declared famine zones last week. Almost five million people are now at risk of starvation, but help has been hampered by continued violence.

Somalia has been worst affected by the famine in the Horn of Africa, as people in parts of Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Djibouti are also affected by the epidemic.

'Food inflation threatens millions in Asia'

Source: Press TV
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According to an ADB report released on Tuesday, domestic food price inflation hit an average of 10 percent in developing Asian countries at the start of the year.

The costs of essentials such as wheat, corn, sugar, edible oils, dairy products and meat underwent a double-digit rise, while the price of rice -- one of Asia's staple foods -- is also expected to peak.

If the situation is not contained, this can push at least 64 million people -- or nearly 2 percent of Asia's 3.3 billion people -- below the poverty line of USD 1.25 a day, the Manila-based bank warned.

Coupled with skyrocketing oil prices the current food price hike could also reduce economic growth in Asia by up to 1.5 percent this year.

While Asian economies have emerged strong from the 2008 global financial crisis, the rising cost of living has become a big concern in the region.

ADB's chief economist Rhee Changyong said Tuesday that if the global food crisis is left unchecked it could even undermine recent gains made in Asia's poverty reduction.

To stem the looming crisis many Asian countries have so far imposed export bans on their products, a practice that is not helping the cause, according to Rhee.

Instead, nations should strengthen social safety nets, increase investments in agricultural infrastructure and expand storage facilities, the ADB's senior economist said.

He added that these measures will ensure that food produce is not wasted, thus helping to keep prices in check.

'Half of Niger's population hungry'

Source: Press TV
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Niger is facing the worst hunger crisis in its history, with almost half of the population (or 7.3 million people) in desperate need of food, the UN's World Food (WFP) Program says.

The WFP says 17 percent of the African nation's children, or one in five, are acutely malnourished.

The charity Helen Keller International (HKI) has accused the international community of failing to respond effectively to repeated appeals for help for Niger.

HKI's Africa director, Shawn Baker, stated, "Famine is a very loaded word. But I think if you look in terms of the number of children affected, the way the livestock have been decimated, and the population movements that were seen earlier in the year, you certainly could consider a famine situation," reported BBC.

The UN reported that more than 67,000 people lost their homes after severe rains in the past week. The River Niger, the 3rd largest river in Africa, reached its highest level for 80 years, said the regional river authority, the ABN.

Not only are many village people going short of food, but their livestock, which are their only real assets, have died off.

Global warming cuts crops, ups famine

Source: Press TV
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Scientists have warned of the effect of global warming on rice yields, saying climate change will make it harder to feed the world's growing population.

A group of scientists studied records from 227 farms in six important rice-producing countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, India, and China and found out that the yields have fallen by 10-20% over the last 25 years in some locations, BBC reported on Monday.

In a similar study in 2004, researchers in the Philippines discovered that the rice yields were dropping by 10% for every 1 degree centigrade increase in nighttime temperature.

According to the findings, global warming is cutting rice yields in many parts of Asia, and still more decline is predicted.

This is while the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has announced that one billion people are already hungry in the world and as the result, the UN has established an online petition to tackle the world's hunger epidemic.

However, scientists are very pessimistic about the future of cutting yields.

In another study on fully-irrigated farms that grow "green revolution" crops, researchers found compelling evidence for dropping of rice yields.

The findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that as the daily minimum temperature increases, or as nights get hotter, rice yields drop.

"There have been some recent studies on US crops, in particular corn, that showed the drop-off after that threshold is substantial," the lead researcher Jarrod Welch of the University of California, San Diego said.

According to environmentalists, warmer climates will bring changes to rainfall, causing drought, adding to famine and hunger.

Mercury faces huge magnetic storms

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The analysis of MESSENGER spacecraft's data reveals huge intense magnetic storms in the magnetic tail of the closest planet to the sun, the journal Science reported.

According to the journal Science, the storms occur in the planet's 'magnetic tail, part of the planet's magnetic field.

The tails are formed from solar winds made up of 'charged particles' coming from the sun. They are formed in a manner similar to water hitting a rock and reforming behind it.

Magnetic fields are common in all planets in our solar system except for Mars and Venus. However, Mercury's is the weakest and smallest magnetic field.

The MESSENGER collected the data as it flew over Mercury as the tiny planet gathered huge amounts of energy from the coming solar winds.

The planet then increased the power of its magnetic field by 2 folds in 90 seconds before suddenly returning back to normal, releasing all that energy in another 90 seconds.

This is unusual as on earth a similar situation takes an hour increasing the field's energy by just 10%.

"This is all very curious…We have very weak solar wind conditions, yet we're seeing more tail loading than what we see on Earth. What's going to happen when the [solar] wind conditions pick up?" said lead author of the report Jim Slavin, who is a solar physicist at NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center.

The best chance to answer this question will come up when the MESSENGER settles into Mercury's orbit in 2011 when the solar system may experience a peak in the sun's activities in 2012-2013.

2010 June hottest on record: NOAA

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Last month set a record as the hottest June on the planet for the combined land and ocean surface temperatures, climate scientists have reported.

According to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Thursday, the average global temperature for the planet was 16.2 °C which was 0.68 °C higher than the average recorded heat for the month of June.

The year 2010 has also recorded the highest average temperature for the period covering January to June at 12°C.

Among various regions of the planet, June recorded warmer than average temperatures in eastern and western Asia, central and eastern US and Peru, while southern China, Scandinavia and the northwestern United States recorded cooler than normal temperatures.

NOAA estimates the Arctic sea now covers 4.2 million square kilometers, which is the lowest coverage in June since recording began in 1979. The area is 10.6% lower than the area recorded for 1979 to 2000.

It also reported that last month was the 19th successive June on record with 'below average sea ice,' AP reported.

Sun reawakening 'threatens technology'

Source: Press TV
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Scientists have expressed concerns about an imminent period of intensified solar activities that is expected to wreak havoc on communication and power systems on Earth.

"The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity," Head of NASA's Heliophysics Division Richard Fisher was quoted by space and astronomy news website SPACE.com as saying.

According to another official at NASA, Lika Guhathakurta, the magnetic field on the sun is expected to get twisted and tense as a result of which powerful electric charges will be sent rocketing toward earth.

The announcement comes as the US National Academy of Sciences issued a report in 2008, saying a major solar flare could cause damages in excess of $2 trillion -- 20 times costlier than Hurricane Katrina.

Threats such as sun storms have prompted scientists to develop space weather forecast systems in order to warn of incoming dangers targeting the Earth.

"I believe we're on the threshold of a new era in which space weather can be as influential in our daily lives as ordinary terrestrial weather," Fisher said.