http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080325/hl_afp/afghanistanresourceswater

Tue Mar 25, 2:18 PM ET

KABUL (AFP) - About 70 percent of Afghans do not have access to safe drinking water, a government minister said Tuesday at the opening of the first of a chain of hydrological stations to monitor water supply.

"Only 30 percent of people have access to the safe drinking water while in rural areas it's only 15 percent," Deputy Minister for Energy and Water Shojaudin Ziaie said at the event at Qargha dam just outside Kabul.

The Qargha hydrological station is the first of 174 to be erected across Afghanistan to measure water resources, including rainfall, as well as water quality and levels, Ziaie said.

The 6.8-million-dollar World Bank funded-project will help scientists collect data about water resources over a period of about two years.

After three decades of war, Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world and lacks basic infrastructure for its people.

It is also plagued by drought, with UN officials warning last month of new water shortages with winter rains and snowfalls not as heavy as necessary.

By Patrick McGroarty
Friday, April 11 2008
Source: Daily Times

A new partnership between the UN refugee agency and Google allows users of Google Earth search tool to track refugees in global conflict regions.

Nearly 35 million people across the globe have been uprooted by violence, political conflict and catastrophe. Now the United Nations is partnering with Google in a new effort to keep track of them.

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees unveiled on Tuesday a multimedia system to monitor refugees in conflict regions using Google Earth, the internet search giant's global mapping software.

The new system works as a "layer" of multimedia tools that a Web user can place on top of Google Earth's interactive satellite maps. Google Earth has around 300 million users. The interactive system, available for download at unhcr.org/ googleearth, currently includes multimedia information on refugees and the persecution they face in three places: Colombia, Sudan's Darfur region and Iraq.

As a user drags her cursor across each region, she can read about the violence there that forced people from their homes, learn the name and population of nearby refugee camps and watch a series of video reports or photo essays.

For the full article, please visit: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C04%5C11%5Cstory_11-4-2008_pg4_2