BAHIR JONAI, India — The wall of water raced through narrow Himalayan gorges in northeast India, gathering speed as it raked the banks of towering trees and boulders. When the torrent struck their island in the Brahmaputra river, the villagers remember, it took only moments to obliterate their houses, possessions and livestock.

No one knows exactly how the disaster happened, but everyone knows whom to blame: neighboring China.

CHICAGO, April 13 (Reuters) - More than 2.6 million pregnancies a year end in stillbirth, a tragedy which mostly hits women in poor countries and accounts for more deaths than AIDS and malaria combined, researchers said on Wednesday.

A series of studies published in the journal Lancet by researchers from the World Health Organization and some 50 organizations in 18 countries offered the first comprehensive look at the impact of the problem around the world.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Nearly 3 billion people, or two-fifths of the world's population, were at risk of contracting malaria in 2009 and closer study of the mosquito's life cycle is needed to combat the disease, researchers said in two reports. In the first study, scientists mapped out the geographical spread of the Plasmodium vivax -- the most common parasite that causes malaria -- using reported cases of malaria and details on temperature and aridity. "We estimate that the global population at risk of P.

Earth has been growing warmer for more than fifty years

State of the Climate in 2009: Report Cover.