UN conference sounds warning on spread of deserts
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The global spread of deserts poses a severe challenge to humanity that transcends any international borders, a UN-sponsored conference in Madrid heard Monday.
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Asia-Pacific risks an AIDS crisis similar in scale to Africa's unless governments across the region step up efforts to combat the spread of the disease, the United Nations is warning.
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The amount of dust blowing around the world may have serious environmental effects, geographers say.
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United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today voiced his hope to an international meeting on water, sanitation and hygiene that one day the world will no longer have to face the dire consequences of inadequate access to safe drinking water and basic
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The next report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should deal with the "frightening" possibility that both Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets start melting at the same time, the chief U.N. climate scientist said Tuesday
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The desert locust infestation that  descended on West and Central Africa this year is likely to  return in 2005 and officials will have to be better prepared to  avoid major damage to crops, experts said on Monday.
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The huge locust swarms that have ravaged swaths of western Africa are likely to plague the region for several years, a senior U.N. official said.
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Hundreds of millions of livelihoods will be affected by the world's declining ice and snow cover, the UN warns.
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Urbanisation and population growth are threatening the goal of improving water access, UN bodies warn.
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United Nations experts called on governments around the world to build early-warning systems that can cut death tolls from natural disasters like the Indian Ocean tsunami that has killed nearly 40,000.
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Natural disasters are affecting more and more people, the UN says ahead of a conference on reducing the risks.
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UN scientists have delivered their starkest warning yet about global warming, saying fossil fuel pollution would raise temperatures this century, worsen floods, droughts and hurricanes and melt polar sea ice.
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By Victoria Sekitoleko  According to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, more than 250 million people are directly affected by desertification. In addition, some one billion people in more than 100 countries are at risk.
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UNITED NATIONS A high-level panel is calling for changes in the United Nations to better handle global threats in the 21st century.
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The desert locust infestation that descended on West and Central Africa this year is likely to return in 2005 and officials will have to be better prepared to avoid major damage to crops, experts said on Monday.
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World leaders gathered at the United Nations on Tuesday to confront an agenda dominated by new terrorist threats, a humanitarian disaster in Sudan, turmoil in Iraq
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Science & environment: In pictures:  A UN report has warned of the dangers posed by global warming.