Acid water in East Java threatens biodiversity and local welfare
She went to investigate the local ecology. Yet during her field work on East Java, Dutch biologist Ansje Lohr became increasingly involved with the local residents, whose harvests failed and whose health was deteriorating due to extremely acidified and polluted river water. Lohr has recently received a second grant to help the Javanese population. Lohr's Ph.D. study was part of a larger pr...Overfishing in inland waters reduces biodiversity and threatens health
Systematic overfishing of fresh waters occurs worldwide but is largely unrecognized because of weak reporting and because other pressures can obscure fishery declines, according to an article in the December 2005 issue of BioScience. Although the status of inland waters and their fish species should be of broad concern, threats to freshwater fisheries and associated biodiversity have recei...Horseshoe crab decline threatens shorebird species
Each year, the red knot, a medium-sized shorebird, makes a 20,000-mile round-trip from the southern tip of Argentina to the Artic Circle ?one of the longest migrations of any bird. And each year from April to June, the red knot stops over in the Delaware Bay to feed on horseshoe crab eggs resulting from the largest spawning of horseshoe crabs found on the East Coast of the United States....Report shows deforestation threatens Brazil's Pantanal
Deforestation from increased grazing and agriculture has destroyed 17 percent of the native vegetation in Brazil's Pantanal, considered the world's largest wetland. A new study published by Conservation International sounds an alarm for the Paraguay River Basin, which includes the Pantanal. Continued deforestation at the current rate would cause all of the Pantanal's original vegetation to...Ocean acidification threatens cold-water coral ecosystems
Corals don't only occur in warm, sun-drenched, tropical seas; some species are found at depths of three miles or more in cold, dark waters throughout the world's oceans. Some cold-water coral reefs are home to more than 1,300 species of animals, a diversity rivaling some better known tropical coral reefs. Until now, scientists believed bottom trawling ?a commercial fishing method in which vessels...New UK Policy Threatens The Flexible Working Scheme
The British Medical Association (BMA) said that the financial crisis would put an end to the new scheme, which helps the lady doctors wanting to work part-time after childbirth. // This scheme comes under the National Health Center (NHS). But ministers are posing a threat to stop the scheme and transferring the powers to the regional health bosses. This move was taken mainly...Britain Hospital Staff Threatens Strike
Employees angry over plans of British hospitals to outsource medical transcription to India have voted to go on strike if the plans are not shelved.// Several hospitals in Britain have outsourced or are in the process of outsourcing the work of typing up patients' notes to India to save costs at a time when they are facing financial deficits. These include hospitals in Staffordshire, L...Dengue Epidemic Threatens Pakistan
The Dengue Epidemic, an acute infectious tropical disease, which started to spread across from early September, has so far claimed 35 lives across //Pakistan especially from south province Sindh & northwest frontier Peshawar. A local media reported on Thursday that around 1,400 patients out of 3640 have been declared positive for dengue virus. They were admitted to hospitals across th...Climate Change Threatens Sundarbans and World Heritage Sites
Climate change and human interference may destroy much of Sundarbans in India and Bangladesh as well as 25 other World Heritage sites, says a new UNESCOreport.// "Sea-level rise is the greatest threat and challenge for sustainable adaptation within South and Southeast Asia. A 45 cm rise in global sea levels would lead to the destruction of 75 percent of the Sundarbans mangroves," the...NRI Threatens to Move US Congress for Justice in India
An Indian American doctor has threatened to mobilise US congressmen and senators against Indian authorities denying him information// under the Right to Information (RTI) Act in a case relating to his crusade against the corrupt healthcare system here. Kunal Saha, whose wife died of alleged wrongful treatment in India in May 1988, said: "I am going to appeal to my senators and congre...