The Citizens for Clean Environment (CCE), an NGO, has called upon the Supreme Court of Pakistan to take suo motu action against the proposed Daral Khwar hydropower project on Daral river, a tributary of the Swat River in Bahrain, Swat.

The ambitious $10-billion project to connect Gulf nations through a modern rail network, stretching over 2,000 km, is expected to become operational by 2018, with authorities working to ensure that construction starts on it by 2014.

Authorities across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) want the project to provide cost-effective means to transport goods and services in the region and plans are also afoot to ultimately link the railway network to Yemen via Muscat.

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are set to spend around $54 billion in the near future to increase the capacity of their electricity networks by 32,000 MW, a new report has said.

The report issued by the Kuwait Financial Centre (Markaz) indicates that the GCC states — namely Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and Bahrain — have taken some giant steps towards developing their electrical power networks, noting that an increase in the Gulf countries’ population and consumption levels played an integral part in creating the demand for these increases.

Natural disasters threaten to trigger widespread damage and distress in emerging economies, many of which are already on the brink because of the global recession, a United Nations body said on Sunday.

Bahrain Days From Extinguishing Oil Well Blaze UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: April 16, 2008 DUBAI - An oil well fire that started in Bahrain on Saturday could take days to extinguish as the country waits for specialist fire-fighting equipment to arrive, a spokesman at Bahrain's state oil company Bapco said on Tuesday. Output from Bahrain's onshore 35,000 barrel per day (bpd) Awali field was unaffected by the fire, which broke out during routine maintenance, said Bapco's acting manager of public relations Mohammed Shehab.

A 41-page critical study by 2 independent inspec- tors says that UN development agencies have bungled science and technology (5& T) projects in Africa. Evaluating 16 projects, the inspectors argue