The river Ganges is the lifeblood of the indian subcontinent feeding water to hundreds of millions of people. But the river’s future is under threat. A UN climate report indicates that the Himalayan glaciers, which feed the Ganges, may disappear in 20 years.

Hamish Macdonald reports from Varanasi, the Holy City on the Ganges. The problem is not a new one. We’ve known about the threat to the Ganges for a decade. We just refuse to take the steps required. From a 1999 BBC:

The sacred river Ganges in India is one of the most enduring images of the country.

With its banks lined with holy men and devout Hindu pilgrims, the river flows inexorably from the mountains to the sea. The waters are believed to have a healing or preservative effect.

Hindus believe that sins can be washed away by bathing in the Ganges.

Pilgrimage routes criss-cross these mountains, and the devout brave harsh conditions to do their religious duty.

No Himalayan pilgrimage is more important than the journey to the source of the Ganges.

A test of faith

Two days hard walking from the nearest road, remote, rugged – a place to let the cares of the world flow downstream with the sacred river.

One pilgrim, known as Kalidas, said that people of all ages come – on foot.

“It is very important to walk,” he says.

“While walking, the suffering that a person goes through individually will make that person transcend from the body level to the mind.”

In a wall of ice at the end of the Gangotri glacier the Ganges is born.

The icy waters are deeply sacred to many Indians, and here holy men bath away their sins and offer prayers, even as the ice crumbles above them.

Environmental damage

But concern is growing in India about environmental degradation and its effect on the sacred river. That is the problem. In recent years, the glacier has been retreating and the implications for India are frightening.

According to geologist Dr H C Nanwal, glaciers are the major source of India’s fresh water.

“If they melt faster than they form, it means shortages and drought downstream,” he says.

He adds: “We have to do something to stop this destruction.”

In the past 50 years, the ice has been melting five times faster than before.

Sometime in the next millennium, the holy Ganges could dry up.

2030 looms fast.

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Bloomberg Television talks with President of the Republic of Congo Dennis Sassou-N’Guesso about oil in the Congo. President Dennis Sassou-N’Guesso is embroiled in a corruption scandal brought on by a lavish lifestyle exposed by a vulture hedge fund.

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In his address to the United Nations General Assembly, U.S. President Barack Obama spoke about the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea. Several countries, led by the U.S., are considering additional sanctions against Iran and North Korea if they dont curb their nuclear programs.

I will repeat that I am committed to diplomacy that opens a path to greater prosperity and a more secure peace for both nations if they live up to their obligations, Obama said. But if the governments of Iran and North Korea choose to ignore international standards, if they put the pursuit of nuclear weapons ahead of regional stabilityif they are oblivious to the dangers an escalating nuclear arms race in both East Asia and the Middle East, then they must be held accountable.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he expects next week’s discussions with the West about Iran’s nuclear program to be free and open, but called on the worlds nuclear powers to give up some of their weapons too.

Mansour Farhang is a professor of international relations at Bennington College and was revolutionary Irans first ambassador to the United Nations. He joins Daljit Dhaliwal to discuss how Ahmadinejads nuclear stance is influenced by domestic Iranian politics, Israel and other concerns.

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The most important speech given today at the United Nations was not that of Barack Obama, who represents a facade of change, but rather that of a true giant among men, Mohammed Nasheed, the President of the Maldives. Ironically, President Nasheed’s alloted time was sandwiched between that of China’s and the United States. Ironic because China and the United States are the world’s two biggest emitter of carbon dioxide and the Maldives is one of the nations most impacted by global climatic change. The Maldives stands to disappear under the Indian Ocean if sea level rise much beyond a half meter. So worried is the Maldives that the government there has undertaken the creation of one billion dollar sovereign fund to buy land elsewhere to resettle the Maldivian population.

In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, President Nasheed made a desperate plea to the United Nations to make sure that the upcoming climate summit in Copenhagen will not be a failure.

“We can not make Copenhagen a pact for suicide,” he told world leaders.

President Nasheed, a former political prisoner who unseated Asia’s longest serving dictator last year in the Islamic country’s first democratic elections, also called on the world to set a target of returning the levels of CO2 in our atmosphere to 350 parts per million–the level Dr. James Hansen of NASA says we need to be below to stabilize the climate. Nasheed also invited others to join the 350 International Day of Climate Action on October 24, 2009. Please join the movement. If we wait for governments to act, even our own hope-laden one, nothing will get done. (more…)

Ida Northover is known fondly in her community as Miss Gene. She is a volunteer community leader battling stigma and discrimination in one of the poorest inner city communities on the outskirts of Kingston, Jamaica. Miss Genes leadership has proven a successful model for encouraging tolerance and support for people living with HIV.

World Focus correspondent Lisa Biagiotti, producer Micah Fink and director of photography Gabrielle Weiss report on how the Jamaican government is targeting community leaders like Ida Northover to educate people on HIV and change the stigma surrounding the disease.

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