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, …
At a time when the threat of war looms large over Iraq, here's more ammunition for peaceniks to confront warmongers with. The United Nations Environment Programme (unep) recently released the findings of assessments conducted in the violence-wracked Occupied Palestinian Territories and Afghanistan. The reports have brought into sharp focus the …
Iraq War Us-based magazine Editor and Publisher (e&p)'s surveys of us newspaper editorials show that a majority of the top newspapers oppose any attack on Iraq without broad international consent. The huge antiwar demonstrations in cities across the us seems to have registered. The first two e&p surveys (January 20 …
Recently, I met some senior British diplomats. Conversation moved to the impending war in Iraq and its "rationality". It became heated. I wish to share a piece of Bushspeak the discussion ended with, leaving me stunned. "Remember, there will be war. The us wants it. But if you are with …
Internet Games Video games on the Internet no longer spell just mindless escapism for misguided kids. Many of the most popular games today also involve role-playing, and players aren't necessarily participating to escape their daily grind. Instead they are increasingly using online games as virtual soapboxes for staging cyberspace protests. …
The first comprehensive UN survey of Afghanistan's environment brings out the dismal state of affairs in the country. After more than two decades of war and three years of drought, air and water quality in the largest towns is badly degraded. The study also reveals chemical pollution, massive deforestation, declining …
oil is the lifeline of the world’s eco nomy. Dependence on oil has skewed incomes within nations and altered power relations among them. While oil provides multiple benefits to society, every stage of its lifecycle has harmful effects on health and environment. These are broad in scope and degree. The …
Animal rights activists were shocked and dismayed as the Indian Navy announced its plans to use dolphins for planting advanced limpet mines on enemy ships and submarines, following successful trials. O P Yadav, general manager at the Ammunition Factory at Kirkee, Maharashtra, which manufactures these mines, said dolphins were chosen …
The post-war boom had brought gas-guzzling vehicles, expanding highways and mushrooming suburbs in the industrialised countries, especially the US. This boom was fuelled by oil - the industrialised economies depended almost entirely on intensive use of fossil fuels. The world learned about its dependence on oil in 1973. The Yom …
The Caspian region has possibly the third largest oil and natural gas reserves in the world (after the Persian Gulf and western Siberia), estimated to be up to 15 per cent of the total reserves of the world. Hardly any of this potential has been tapped as yet, and it …
India's prominence in the energy market is that it is the world's sixth largest energy consumer - and yet woefully short of energy sources. It has large coal reserves but the worrisome part is petroleum, which accounts for about 30 per cent of the total energy. India produces only 30 …
"One of the ironies at the turn of the century is that, in an age when the pace of technological change is almost overwhelming, the world will remain dependent, out to the year 2020 at least, essentially on the same sources of energy - oil, natural gas, coal - that …
The US President George W Bush is raring to launch an attack on Iraq. Whether it has weapons of mass destruction or not, Iraq certainly has the world's second largest reserves of petroleum after Saudi Arabia. Thanks to UN sanctions, it produces a mere fraction of its potential. The US, …
"Not since the rise of the railroads more than a century ago has a single industry [energy] placed so many foot soldiers at the top of a new administration." - Newsweek, May 14, 2001 George W Bush took over as president of the US on January 20, 2001. Within two …
As war clouds hover over Iraq, it has been alleged that territorial waters of the Gulf country are being polluted with fuel by the us navy. This charge was recently levelled by an Iraqi satellite tv channel. It stated that the us frigates were deliberately causing contamination and such dumping …
War has taken its toll on agriculture in Afghanistan. The country's seed collections have been destroyed, putting its crop diversity at risk. Taking stock of the situation, a consortium of international crop genebanks led by Future Harvest
THE IRRITABLE HEART: THE MEDICAL MYSTERY OF THE GULF WAR Jeff Wheelwright . W W Norton & Company . New York . 2001 . 427 pages Bill is 46 and a military veteran in the United States. In February 1991, during the Persian Gulf War, he was based north of …
THE BULLDOZER IN THE COUNTRYSIDE: SUBURBAN SPRAWL AND RISE OF AMERICAN ENVIRONMENTALISM By Adam Rome . Cambridge University Press . UK . 2001 Everybody wants a slice of the urban dream. Own a home - dream merchants tell you. Doesn't matter if you cannot live within the city. Live near …
They say the eye of the storm is calm. This is what I found when I visited the epicentre of war-tensions in India, the city of Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir. This was a week when foreigners were leaving India, fearing a war, even a nuclear war, between India and …
After 20 years If the bombs didn't kill, the land will. Afghanistan's natural resources are all but dead survival is an impossible dream in Afghanistan. Last December, as Afghans looked up to the deceptively beautiful sky for rain, bombs rained from endless streams of b-52 bombers
