SciDevNet: The goal of the UN's third conference on disaster risk reduction, which starts tomorrow in Sendai, Japan, is to agree new guidelines for how nations can reduce the devastation caused by tsunamis, earthquakes and other disasters. The ten-year Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA), an international agreement that has guided these activities for the past decade, is due to be replaced by these guidelines, which are informally called HFA2. This may even be legally binding, depending on the result of negotiations...