The National Basketball Association fined Boston coach Doc Rivers 25,000 dollars on Wednesday for an argument with officials that saw him tossed from a game. Rivers, speaking before Boston's game against New Jersey, admitted he was disappointed by the move. "They admit that the . . . call was wrong," Rivers said before the Celtics' game against the New Jersey Nets.

The Red River that divides Hanoi is at its lowest level in more than a century, and global warming could be a factor, a Vietnamese official said on Thursday. "The level of the Red River was measured at only 0. 66 metres (2. 2 feet) on Tuesday morning, the lowest level in more than 100 years," said Le Thanh Hai, deputy director of the National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting.

After decades of delay and wrangling by resisting riverine communities, Nigeria has launched a multi-million-dollar dredging exercise to boost navigation and commerce on the Niger River. Plans are to deepen the river channel and stabilise its banks along a stretch of 572 kilometers (376 miles) as to allow passage of large vessels and open up inland ports.

Blocks of ice up to 40 centimetres (16 inches) thick have closed long stretches of three German rivers to shipping, authorities said Monday as the cold snap claimed another fatality.

Several German rivers, including a 100-kilometre (60-mile) stretch of the Elbe in the east, were frozen over Friday, blocking ship traffic, authorities said.

Gazing at the Soviet-era factory that looms over his northern Vietnamese commune, Quang Van Vinh remembers what the farmland here looked like before it became known as a "cancer village".

KINSHASA, Oct 4, 2008 (AFP) - Rescuers searched Saturday for survivors of a capsized ferry in the Democratic Republic of Congo that left four confirmed dead and about 10 people reported missing, officials said.'At least 80 people have been saved (but) four bodies were pulled out of the water,' Lukolela district administrator Jean-Willy Atali told AFP.

PARIS, Sept 16, 2008 (AFP) - The skipper of a Paris tourist boat was put under investigation Tuesday in connection with the sinking of a smaller craft in the Seine River that killed two people, a judicial official said.

PARIS, September 14, 2008 (AFP) - Two people, who were seriously injured when a pleasure boat carrying 12 people sank in the River Seine in Paris, died Sunday, police said.

PARIS, September 14, 2008 (AFP) - Two people, who were seriously injured when a pleasure boat carrying 12 people sank in the River Seine in Paris, died Sunday, police said.The pair, a man in his forties and a six-year-old boy, died within hours after they were trapped in the sunken boat near the capital's Notre Dame cathedral for some 20 minutes before frogmen found them.