Japan struggles to cope with record snowfall

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan was bracing for more snow on Friday after some of the heaviest snowfall on record that has left 57 people dead and paralysed transport.

Almost 4 metres (13 ft) of snow has piled up in the worst-hit areas of Niigata near the Japan Sea coast, though the snowiest season of the year is yet to come.

Television pictures showed drifts burying the ground floors of houses and almost covering street lamps.

Japan struck by deadly snowdrifts

Disaster relief teams have been dispatched across Japan after the heaviest snowfall on record, Japanese media is reporting.
At least 61 people have died and more than 1,000 have been injured as a result of the snowfall, which began last month.

In some of the worst-hit areas the snow is more than three metres (10ft) deep.

Some of the victims lost their lives when their homes collapsed under the pressure of the snow.

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January 'Heat Wave' Hits Upstate New York

The unseasonably warm weather will continue through tomorrow, with temperatures to again hit the 50s today and Friday across much of upstate New York.

Yesterday, the thermometer nearly hit 60 in Buffalo and Rochester, with 40- and 50-degree temperatures over the rest of the region.

Failure of Kenya's rains puts 2.5m at risk of famine

Nomadic farmers in the arid wastelands of northern Kenya are dying with their cattle, as charities warn a famine on the scale of Niger is threatening the region.

So far, scores of people, mainly children, have died and the UN has warned that 2.5 million people are at risk of starvation because seasonal rains failed for the second time in a year. The Kenyan government has declared a national disaster and called for 11 billion Kenyan shillings, about £90m, to be jointly raised by Kenya and the international community.

In the worst-hit north-eastern region close to the Somali border, many pastoral farmers have lost their entire livestock because rains expected in April and then October failed to arrive.