3 Pearl River Delta, China:
This near-unbroken urban
conglomeration, including Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Macau and
Ghangzhou, is home to more than 42 million people.
One of China’s
economic jewels (estimated GDP: $690bn or Dh2.5 trillion) is spread
across a flood plain threatened by all manner of natural disasters:
it
is the number one metropolitan area for storm surge, with 5.3 million
people affected, the third-highest for cyclonic wind damage (17.2
million), and the fifth riskiest city for river floods.
4 Osaka-Kobe, Japan:
Osaka-Kobe is home to 14.6 million
people living under the threat of earthquakes such as the one that
killed thousands of people in 1995. It also suffers from brutal storms
and the risk of river flooding.
And then there are the storm surges, in
which heavy winds from typhoons of the kind that hit east Asia whip up
gigantic waves: the metropolitan area’s location on a large coastal
plain means three million people are at risk. It is also the third-most
tsunami-prone city in the world.
5 Jakarta, Indonesia:
Fully 40 per cent of Jakarta is
below sea level; it lies in a flat basin with soft soil near a fault
line. This means earthquakes can be particularly dangerous to its 17.7
million inhabitants, as the soft soil can magnify the intensity of the
tremors.
Quakes can also liquify Jakarta’s poorly drained soil, causing
the ground to lose its structural integrity and react like a liquid. Add
to that Jakarta’s risk of river flood and it becomes one of the most
exposed cities on the planet.
6 Nagoya, Japan: Tsunami risk dominates in the Pacific.
The most exposed cities, dotted along the active faults of the western
ocean, are in Japan – led by Tokyo-Yokohama and Nagoya, each with around
2.4 million people potentially affected.
With 12 million people in
total at great risk, tsunamis affect by far the fewest people of the
great five natural disasters analysed here – but the death tolls can be
enormous.
7 Kolkata, India:
River floods also affect Kolkata,
with 10.5 million people at risk – but the eastern Indian city is also
fifth in terms of tsunami risk, with more than half a million people
exposed.
It is also threatened by hurricanes, human-made disaster like fire and rampant transportation vehicle accidents.
8 Shanghai River, China:
With so many cities built on
flood plains and river deltas, flooding is the most common risk they
face. India and China face the most significant risks; with 11.7 million
residents directly threatened, Shanghai is a particular hot spot for
flooding, but other such risky cities include Bangkok, Mexico City,
Baghdad, Paris and Doha.
9 Los Angeles, United States:
Its location on the San
Andreas Fault makes Los Angeles one of the most earthquake-prone cities –
although not as vulnerable to tsunami as might be expected. Subduction
zones, where oceanic plates dive underneath the continental crust,
generally create much larger tsunamis than so-called “strike-slip”
faults such as the San Andreas and Northern Anatolian faults.
Small
comfort to the 14.7 million inhabitants of the area threatened by
earthquake.
10 Tehran, Iran:
San Andreas
fault or the Pacific Ring of Fire as being the riskiest zones for
earthquakes, but not everyone is immediately aware that the Northern
Anatolian fault is one of the most dangerous in the world.
The entire
13.6 million population of Tehran is exposed, as are the residents of
Bucharest, Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, and much of Turkey.
The
last quake in Tehran was in 1830, and its building regulations are
shakily followed at best – making it a city living on borrowed time.
Source: Agencies
MANILA - The Philippines on Sunday filed a
formal plea to the United Nations challenging Beijing’s claim to most of
the South China Sea, defying Chinese warnings, a day after a dramatic
maritime stand-off with the Asian giant.
Philippine Foreign Secretary
Albert del Rosario said Manila has filed the plea before a UN
arbitration tribunal to declare China’s claims over the strategic and
resource-rich waters as a violation of international law.
Manila has argued that
China’s claims cover areas as far as 870 nautical miles (1,611
kilometres) from the nearest Chinese coast and interfere with the
Philippines’ exercise of its rights to its continental shelf.
Philippine military spokesman
Lieutenant-Colonel Ramon Zagala told AFP on Sunday that authorities
were hoping the supply vessel would be able to leave the shoal without
further incident after delivering food, water and fresh troops.
While 15 countries have legalised gay marriage and another three allow
it in some areas, homosexuals remain persecuted in many parts of the
world.
Following the first marriages
amid a supposed race to wed, Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted:
“Congratulations to all same-sex couples getting married today — I wish
you every possible happiness for the future.” 
The Conservative party leader
also described the change as an “important moment for our country”, and
a rainbow flag flew above government offices in London in celebration.
1 Tokyo-Yokohama, Japan: 
2 Manila, Philippines: 
A woman was sentenced Thursday to more than 30 years in prison for
killing her husband of eight days by pushing him from a cliff after they
argued over her regrets about the marriage. 
Local officials and successful businesspeople gathered to watch the
tigers being killed as "eye-openers" to show off their social stature,
it said.
Tiger bones have long been an ingredient of traditional Chinese
medicine, supposedly for a capacity to strengthen the human body, and
while they have been removed from its official ingredient list the
belief persists among some.
ARLINGTON, Washington: The likely death toll from a devastating weekend
landslide in Washington state rose to 24 on Tuesday after rescue
workers recovered two bodies and believed they had located eight more,
the local fire chief said.
As many as 176 people remained listed as missing three days after a
rain-soaked hillside collapsed on Saturday, tumbling over a river,
across a state road and into a rural residential area where it buried
dozens of homes near the town of Oso.
The discovery of additional bodies came as crews searched in drizzling rain for survivors amid fading hopes that anyone could still
be plucked alive from the massive pile of heavy muck and debris. 
“Unfortunately we did not find any signs of life today, we didn’t locate
anybody alive, so that’s the disappointing part,” local fire chief
Travis Hots told a media briefing, adding that the official death toll would remain at 16 until the eight sets of
remains could be extricated and sent to the medical examiner.
With Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 said to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, another Malaysia Air disaster struck. According to report, one of the engines of a Malindo Air flight en route to Terengganu from Subang caught fire this morning.
Malindo Air confirmed in a statement that the aircraft's fire detection
system was activated during its climb at about 7,000 feet.
Malindo Air said the cause of the incident is being investigated and
has been reported to the relevant authorities, and the engine and
aircraft manufacturer.
Russia will face sanctions designed to harm specific economic sectors
if it fails to de-escalate the situation in Ukraine, U.S. President
Barack Obama said Tuesday.
“We are prepared to take the next step if the situation gets worse,” Obama said.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has informed the families of
those missing on flight MH370 that the plane likely crashed in the
Indian Ocean west of Perth.
No confirmed sighting of the plane has been made since, but much
debris has been found in remote waters off Australia which might be part
of the missing plane.
MANILA, Philippines - Rebel sources on Saturday evening
confirmed the arrest of the Communist Party of the Philippines’ (CPP)
highest ranking official Benito Tiamzon and his wife Wilma Austria in
Cebu, an island province in central Philippines.
In a statement, the National
Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), the umbrella organ of the
local communist movement, confirmed the news.
The CPP provides ideological direction and organisational support to the 45-year-old movement.
At the same time, he called on all members of the Communist Party of
the Philippines (CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA) to “lay down their
arms and abandon the armed struggle.”
KOTA KINABALU, East Malaysia - A horrified Universiti Sabah Malaysia (UMS)
researcher-lecturer last week stumbled upon a mass "killing field" of
protected sea turtles on Pulau Tiga located at the northern side of
Balambangan-Banggi channel, north of Kudat and about two hours by speed
boat from Karakit, the main town on Banggi Island.
Dr James said he received a tip off in January from a fishing tawkeh in
Kudat about the movement of sea turtle hunters in and out of the
Balambangan-Banggi Channel. 
Once the volume of live turtles builds up, they would translocate these
caged turtles live across the border of Balabac Strait. 
Dr James said on board the Vietnamese fishing vessels were the remains of 300 dead sea turtles! 
