2,000 islands to disappear

Around 2,000 out of 17,000 islands across Indonesia are at risk of vanishing by 2030 due to global warming, an environmental group has warned. Pelangi, a non-governmental organization, said on Tuesday that changes in the global climate had raised the temperature here by 0.3 degrees Celsius, and would cause an increase in sea levels of between 8 and 29 centimeters over the next 25 years. "Rising sea levels pose a serious threat to an archipelagic state like Indonesia," the group's managing director, Moekti Soejachmoen, said. He regretted that the government was not paying more attention to climate changes, which were evident from the shorter but more intense rainy seasons Indonesia was experiencing. -- Antara