Policymakers need better information about the regional impact of climate change on water supplies, and on ways of adapting to it. For centuries, food production — and thus social development — has depended heavily on access to the water needed to grow crops or rear livestock.

Vietnam has "huge potential" for further collaboration with Africa on agriculture as part of its policy towards the continent.

The 7th Pyongyang International Scientific Books Exhibition opened here at the Center for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries on Monday. There are 14 countries and regions including China, Russia, Spain, Germany, 46 groups taking part in the exhibition, which has 34 display counters and nearly 10,000 books.

For nations to understand the effects that climate change will have on their locality, it is essential to gather local data into an internationally coordinated database, the meeting, organised by the UK's Meteorological Office, agreed.

Scientific cooperation between Islamic countries has a lacklustre record, marked by a shortage of resources and a lack of political will for investment. The few countries that have invested heavily in recent years — including Iran, Pakistan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia — have chosen to work instead with scientifically advanced countries in North–South collaborations that offer more obvious benefits than partnerships among themselves.

Under mounting political pressure, some countries are now balking at the mega-price tags of lofty regional cooperation projects such as the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), home to the "Big Bang Machine" that sprawls for miles across this complex straddling the picturesque border of Switzerland and France.

The African Union Scientific Awards, some of which are scheduled to be given later this week (9 September), will be officially renamed at the ceremony as the African Union Kwame Nkrumah Scientific Awards in order to increase the AU's international visibility.

The new website CienciAmérican (Science of the Americas) -- the brainchild of a Cornell neurobiologist -- combines some functions of Facebook and Craigslist. It launched Aug. 16 to help Latin American scientists exchange ideas among themselves and their North American colleagues.