In The News

Wavier Jet Stream “May Drive Weather Shift”

Pallab Ghosh February 18, 2014
Politicians have long assumed that they have plenty of time to cope with the onslaught of climate change, and scientists claim it is too early to link a wavering jet stream with this winter’s extreme weather in the northern hemisphere. Yet ordinary people should consider that climate change attributed to the burning of coal and other fossil fuels may be less gradual than once thought. A study...

The Philippines’ Tough Rebuilding Task

Pacific Strategies and Assessments December 9, 2013
Disaster relief and reconstruction offers especially tough challenges for developing nations like the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan. Displacement adds to immediate shelter, health, sanitation and economic problems, and that is a first priority. “The reconstruction and rehabilitation process, however, will also include rebuilding damaged infrastructures, restoring power and water supply, and...

China Increases Aid to Philippines

Barbara Demick November 19, 2013
Global leadership is the ability to overlook small differences in the face of catastrophe and display generosity, along with the power of example and rapid response. China was subjected to sharp criticism at home and abroad, after initially offering $100,000 in aid to the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan, reports Barbara Demick for the Los Angeles Times. China has since increased aid to $1.64...

Typhoon Haiyan and the Geopolitics of Disaster Relief

Rory Medcalf November 12, 2013
Powerful Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines, leaving perhaps 10,000 dead and a path of devastation. Like it or not, post-typhoon disaster relief for the Philippines involves both good-faith compassion and strategic calculations in an ongoing battle for influence, explains Rory Medcalf writing for the Interpreter, published by the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Australia. Australia...

Russia Offers Fukushima Cleanup Help as Tepco Reaches Out

Yuriy Humber, Jacob Adelman September 5, 2013
More than two years after the earthquake-tsunami disaster in Japan that destroyed the Fukushima nuclear power station, the power company and government still do not have radiation under control. Russia has repeated an offer to assist in the cleanup. In the globalized nuclear industry, all accidents are international, points out Vladimir Asmolov, of Rosenergoatom, Russia’s nuclear utility. “As...

Meteorite Explodes Over Russia, More Than 1,000 Injured

Andrey Kuzmin February 16, 2013
Chelyabinsk, transportation hub and one-time Russian industrial center for weapons manufacture, was closed to foreigners until 1992. The combination of crisscrossing highways, a million-plus population and Russians’ fondness for dashboard cameras in vehicles to collect evidence in the event of potential mishaps has given the world ample footage of a rare event – a large meteorite blazing across...

Let's Not Learn to Love Disaster

Stan Cox February 1, 2013
Countries often focus on disasters within their borders, overlooking floods, fires and storms elsewhere. Scientist Stan Cox suggests that entire economies must be restructured in an opinion essay for Al Jazeera: “Governments and corporations worldwide … have built entire economies that depend on huge energy inputs and ever-expanding consumption, and they can't back out now.” Disasters are...