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'Brown Clouds' Are World's Newest Environmental Threat By TINI TRAN AND JOHN HEILPRIN / AP WRITER Friday, November 14, 2008 BEIJING - A dirty brown haze sometimes more than a mile thick is darkening skies not only over vast areas of Asia, but also in the Middle East, southern Africa and the Amazon Basin, changing weather patterns and threatening health and food supplies, the UN reported. The huge smog-like plumes, caused mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and firewood, are known as "atmospheric brown clouds." Cars drive through thick smog on a street in Beijing in September 2008. Enormous brown clouds of pollution hanging over Asia are killing hundreds of thousands of people, melting glaciers, changing weather patterns and damaging crops, the United Nations said. (Photo: AFP) When mixed with emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for warming the earth's atmosphere like a greenhouse, they are the newest threat to the global environment, according to a report commissioned by the UN Environment Program and released Thursday. "All of these points to an even greater and urgent need to look at emissions across the planet," said Achim Steiner, head of Kenya-based UNEP, which funded the report with backing from Italy, Sweden and the United States. Brown clouds are caused by an unhealthy mix of particles, ozone and other chemicals that come from cars, coal-fired power plants, burning fields and wood-burning stoves. First identified by the report's lead researcher in 1990, the clouds were depicted Thursday as being more widespread and causing more environmental damage than previously known. Perhaps most widely recognized as the haze this past summer over Beijing's Olympics, the clouds have been found to be more than a mile (kilometer) thick around glaciers in the Himalaya and Hindu Kush mountain ranges. They hide the sun and absorb radiation, leading to new worries not only about global climate change but also about extreme weather conditions. "All t

BBCs Series "Develop or Die" looks at Developing Countries around Asia, and the different challenges each face to continue their development amindst Global Concerns about Climate Change, CO2 Emissions, increasing Pollution, and public demand for increased sustainable development both in developed Countries but also the rapidly developing regions of the Planet. In this Episode Malaysia (Part 1 of 2) highlights the challenges faced as transport and construction boom, while in Part 2 Vietnam sets an example with regard to the increasing Tourist Industry in Asia.

China rethinks its One Child Policy

Family-planning officials say their research indicates that 70% of women want to have two babies or more.

Jalozai was the largest Afghan refugee settlement but was demolished in June 2008 and its settlers were told either to go to their home country or move to other locations inside Pakistan. Insecurity, land disputes and lack of jobs have stopped tens of thousands of returnees from moving to their original areas and rebuilding their houses. Some households, including Jamaluddin's, have set up tents and mud huts in different parts of the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar

The Philippines has one of the highest birth rates in Asia. Economists say that unintended pregnancies are stifling growth and driving millions into poverty. However, the government has refused to promote modern contraceptives which have succeeded in curbing population growth elsewhere on the continent.

Sep 28th 2011, 13:54 by The Economist online The economic impact of demographics in Asia INVESTORS are often lured to countries like India and Vietnam by their demographic promise-by their fast-growing population of workers and consumers. Likewise, investors in China often worry that it "will grow old before it grows rich".

Dozens of baby girls in southern China have reportedly been taken from parents who broke family-planning laws, and then sold for adoption overseas.

"Thousands of young women living in a part of Pakistan once considered the country's most idyllic tourist destination have been prevented from going to school after an order from Taliban forces which have seized control of much of the area. "

Amazing case study for the effects of internal migration in China.