Disasters

"A team of pediatricians has called for a ban on naphthalene, used in mothballs, after the death of a baby and catastrophic brain injuries to two others."

"Governments in the Asia-Pacific region face the risk of unprecedented numbers of people displaced by floods, storms and other impacts of climate change, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said in a report on Monday."

Colorado does not have enough money to fix more than 50 unsafe and potentially deadly dams. But keeping reservoir levels low to prevent disastrous failure deprives the state of water it badly needs right now.

"Federal regulators have declined to release emergency response details and worst-case spill estimates for a pipeline system that carries Canadian oil-sands crude to the United States, drawing charges of excessive secrecy from the advocacy group that sought the data."

An Associated Press investigation explains how federal regulators leave safety up to gas pipelines and utilities, whose profit-seeking decisions on safety cause fatal disasters like the one in San Bruno, Calif., that killed eight and destroyed 55 homes.

"A federal judge said Kenneth Feinberg, the lawyer paying victims of BP Plc’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill, can’t identify himself as an independent administrator of a $20 billion settlement fund."

"The future pace of drilling approvals in the Gulf of Mexico might be slowed less by new laws or regulations stemming from last year's massive spill but by a decades-old law that opens the door to longer environmental reviews and litigation."

"Royal Dutch Shell is scrapping plans to drill an exploratory well in the Beaufort Sea near Alaska this summer, after failing to secure key permits for the project."

"A severe drought has plunged millions of Somalis into crisis after rains failed for several consecutive seasons in this Horn of Africa nation, and the U.N. and aid groups are warning of the possibility of a looming catastrophe."

"Australia has endured two of its deadliest summers on record, blamed in part on global warming, but record fires, floods and cyclones have not persuaded it to take strong action on climate change. But some experts hope that Wednesday's arrival of giant Cyclone Yasi on the coast of Queensland, already hit by massive floods last month, will help bring more of a sense of urgency to the political debate over climate policy."