Iran gets UN help for drought

The United Nations Scientific and Cultural organisation, UNESCO, has agreed to help Iran set up a water management centre, after its worst drought in thirty years.

A senior government official Reza Ardakanian said water shortages could reach crisis proportions in the next two decades if demand carried on at the current rate.

He said Iran had a rapidly rising population, but decreasing water resources.

This year's drought caused damage worth at least three and a half billion dollars.

People living in some of the hardest hit areas in southern, central and eastern provinces left for towns as lakes, rivers and pasture dried up.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service