Climate change in the Arctic is not likely to spark an immediate boom in oil and gas exploration, according to a new study published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. But it will increase shipping there, and shipping-related emission of greenhouse gases will intensify in the region.

In North Dakota the waters kept rising. Swollen by more than a month of record rains in Saskatchewan, the Souris River topped its all time record high, set back in 1881. The floodwaters poured into Minot, North Dakota's fourth-largest city, and spread across thousands of acres of farms and forests. More than 12,000 people were forced to evacuate. Many lost their homes to the floodwaters.

Areas where food supplies could be worst hit by climate change have been identified in a report.

Some areas in the tropics face famine because of failing food production, an international research group says.

The Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) predicts large parts of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa will be worst affected.

Its report points out that hundreds of millions of people in these regions are already experiencing a food crisis.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon yesterday warned that no country or city was immune from natural or man-made disasters, as a report underlined the soaring, trillion dollar, economic risks the world faces.

Ban told a four-day UN Conference on disaster risk that the devastating earthquake and tsunami in highly-prepared Japan and the ensuing nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant on March 11 gave the world "a grave warning for the future."

"As we have learned again and again no country or city - rich or poor - is immune," the UN Secretary General said.

Published: February 28, 2011

BEIJING — China’s environment minister on Monday issued an unusually stark warning about the effects of unbridled development on the country’s air, water and soil, saying the nation’s current path could stifle long-term economic growth and feed social instability