The Fragile States Index, produced by The Fund for Peace, is a critical tool in highlighting not only the normal pressures that all states experience, but also in identifying when those pressures are pushing a state towards the brink of failure. By highlighting pertinent issues in weak and failing states, …
asean health meet: Health ministers of 11 South East Asian countries met in Dhaka recently to discuss over ways to enhance cooperation to develop health care services in the region. Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia inaugurated the meeting and said that developing countries could benefit from technology transfers and the …
holocaust-denial laws are the ultimate bunkum. Just think about it. The state of Israel has used the history of the Nazis to perpetrate untold miseries on the Arab world. This is not a rant. Think about recent history. The Western powers divided west Asia, creating Israel, a Jewish oasis in …
As Israel continues airstrikes on Lebanon, the country is now threatened by its worst ecological disaster. At least 35,000 tonnes of oil gushed into the Mediterranean, after Israeli warplanes hit fuel tanks of the Jiyyeh power plant, south of Beirut. The spill has spread along 80 km of the Lebanese …
LTTE's water war: In the last week of July, the Sri Lankan army launched a ground offensive against Tamil tiger rebels to regain control over a key water reservoir in the northeastern city of Trincomalee district. The battle is considered to be the fiercest since the 2002 cease-fire agreement. Till …
The researchers explore how globalization, broadly conceived to include international human rights norms, humanitarianism, and alternative trade, might influence peaceful and food secure outlooks and outcomes.
The Peloponnesian war has baffled historians for long. Among the epic conflicts of the ancient world, the war pitted the Greek city states of Athens and Sparta against each other. The seagoing Athenians met their match in the Spartans and their allies during a conflict that stretched from 431 bc …
Among the consequences of war, the impact on the mental health of the civilian population is one of the most significant. Studies of the general population show a definite increase in the incidence and prevalence of mental disorders. Women are more affected than men. Other vulnerable groups are children, the …
The military in Congo confiscated Ferbo I, a freight ship of the African Wildlife Foundation's (awf) on on November 12, 2005, which works for wildlife conservation and development. The ship was carrying agricultural products and humanitarian supplies to provide economic benefits and relief to local communities. But the army confiscated …
Popular search engine Google's free mapping programme, Google Earth, has been criticised by various governments, including India, which feel that the satellite images with resolution as high as one metre could pose a security threat. India's apprehensions were first voiced by President A P J Abdul Kalam, who reportedly said …
A poisonous gas accident in Guangzhou city prompted the Chinese government on June 28, 2005, to call for Japan's urgent action to destroy the chemical weapons its army left behind in China during World War ii. While the Japanese side admitted that these weapons had caused the accident, a Japanese …
The Second World War (ww ii) was at its peak. The Allies (England and France) were facing the Axis powers (Germany, Italy and Japan). When Japan bombed Pearl Harbour, Hawaii on December 7, 1941, the us joined the war on the Allied side. A month later, Japan attacked Burma (now …
golden danger: The fragile eco-system of Lake Bosumtwi, Ghana's largest natural lake, is in danger. Ghana's mineral commission has reportedly permitted a Canadian exploration and development company, Norcan Resources Limited, to explore the area around the lake for gold deposits. The company now needs only the clearance of Ghana's environmental …
smokescreen: As per a study by UK-based London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Philip Morris, the world's leading tobacco manufacturer, studied the effects of smoking 30 years ago, but it did not reveal the dangers of passive smoking. powered at last: The first wind power plant of the Arabian …
In 1967-68, I was a proud 19-year old soldier with the American army's infantry division (1st/4th cavalry) fighting the Vietnamese. About 25 years later, I suffered severe back pains. I suspected lung cancer and got a full physical examination done. Sure as hell, the cancer was there
In the West African republic of Cote d'Ivoire everyone except ordinary citizens prefer war to peace. Government figures, rebels, businessmen and members of the security forces are some of the groups cashing in on the crisis. That's what the International Crisis Group (icg) claims in its report entitled
THE twenty-first century's just begun, and already its ecological contours have begun to appear. Hollywood has declared global warming will occur, spectacularly. But the day after tomorrow might bring about on Earth another
The US Department of Defense (dod) wants further exemptions from public health and environment laws in view of the country's military involvement in Iraq and the us-led war against terrorism. But environmentalists allege this is merely a part of the Bush administration's ploy to roll back environmental safeguards. The dod …
Jehadi groups in Pakistan have their coffers full with collections, post-Id. The source of their earnings: some of the over 3 million hides of animals sacrificed during the Islamic festival and donated to them by citizens. The groups raked in more than us $250 million by selling these hides. Despite …
For a country whose environment has borne the brunt of decades of war and has been sorely neglected by the erstwhile dictatorial regime, the us $1 million sanctioned by the authorities to bring about a revival seems to be a pittance. Ali Aziz Hanush, an advisor to Iraq's interim environment …
