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Kazakhs get loan to save Aral Sea By Natalya Antelava BBC News, Aral Sea The sea's retreat spells disaster for local people The Kazakhstan government has secured a multi-million dollar loan from the World Bank to help save the Aral Sea. The money will be used to implement the second stage of a project aimed at saving the northern part of the sea. The United Nations has said the disappearance of the Aral is the worst man-made environmental disaster. But this new project could mean that at least part of the Aral - once the world's fourth largest inland body...

Traces of an ancient settlement found on the dry bottom of the Aral Kyzylorda. November 5. KAZINFORM. The scientists of the Institute of Archeology named after Alkey Margulan found some traces of an ancient town on the dry bottom of the Aral Sea. The area of the town amounts to about 6 ha and goes back to the 13-14 centuries, i.e. the epoch of the Golden Horde. As a result of archeological researches there have also been found the relics of different workshops, windmills and storehouses for ceramic articles and the burial ground where the noble representatives of that...

December 3, 2002 C.I.A. Hunts Iraq Tie to Soviet SmallpoxBy JUDITH MILLER he C.I.A. is investigating an informant's accusation that Iraq obtained a particularly virulent strain of smallpox from a Russian scientist who worked in a smallpox lab in Moscow during Soviet times, senior American officials and foreign scientists say. The officials said several American scientists were told in August that Iraq might have obtained the mysterious strain from Nelja N. Maltseva, a virologist who worked for more than 30 years at the Research Institute for Viral Preparations in Moscow before her death two years ago. The information came to...

Russia reviving massive river diversion plan 09:30 09 February 04 Russian scientists are reviving an old Soviet plan to divert some of Siberia's mightiest rivers to the parched former Soviet republics of central Asia. Its backers say it will solve a growing water crisis in the region and replenish the now desiccated Aral Sea, once the world's fourth-largest inland sea. The $40 billion scheme could also gain international support. Recent increases in the flows of Siberia's rivers, probably due to global warming, have raised fears that a less salty Arctic Ocean could shut down the Gulf Stream and trigger icy...

Pro-choice leader and senator trade compliments By WASHINGTON — Nearing the end of her long career as maybe the nation's best-known abortion rights advocate, Kate Michelman — president of NARAL Pro Choice America — was asked Monday which of her opponents she respects the most. "Sen. (Orrin) Hatch," she said with only minor hesitation during questions from the audience after a speech to the National Press Club. She said the Utahn, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, "is a thorn in my little side when it comes to judicial nominations." But, she added, "he and I have had...

Kazakh dam condemns most of the shrunken Aral Sea to oblivion Desperate step after water row with Uzbeks Paul Brown, environment correspondent Wednesday October 29, 2003 The Guardian (UK) A seven-mile dam is being built across a small northern section of the shrunken Aral Sea in Central Asia, which is described as the world's worst environmental disaster. The saline inland sea, divided between the former Soviet states of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, has been drying out for 25 years, since the USSR began a vast irrigation scheme drawing water from its two tributary rivers to grow cotton and rice in the...

Satellite shows dramatic Aral loss By Ivan Noble BBC News Online science staff These two images from space show how unsustainable water use in Central Asia has caused a dramatic retreat in the Aral Sea. The Aral Sea in 2003 and 1985 Images courtesy Esa and Nasa In the 18 years which separate the images, the sea has virtually split in two and a great white expanse of salty desert has claimed the seabed revealed by the contracting waters. The most recent image was taken this month by the European Space Agency's Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (Meris) on board Envisat,...