Central to the achievement of the Agenda for Sustainable Development is an adequate, equitably distributed and fully supported health workforce. Nurses are the largest occupational group and represent an indispensable force with which to combat inequities in access to health services and progress towards health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), while …
In June last year when the Cluster mission was blown up because of a faulty launcher, most people thought that it was the end of the mission. But now the European Space Agency's Space Science Advisory Committee has recommended that the mission be reflown. All four of the mission's satellites, …
in september 1995, 84 nations met in Geneva at the third conference on the Basel Convention and agreed to ban the export of toxic wastes. The convention will come into force on January 1, 1998, if 63 of these 84 states including 24 oecd (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) …
a watered down compromise could be a possible outcome of the ongoing clash between the European Union (eu) and us over fur trade. The issue in contention involves an international agreement on humane trapping standards which eu would like to enforce and which us resists. eu has twice delayed imposing …
WITH re-emergence of diseases once thought to have been eradicated, concerned us and European health officials are establishing a global early warning network which will keep abreast of all such outbreaks in these regions and also other parts of the world. The network on communicable diseases will first focus on …
the speed of a rocket is determined by an old law: every action has an equal and opposite reaction (Newton's third law of motion). Current rocket technology is dependent on the speed of the exhaust gases emitted from its nozzle. If this speed could be increased by accelerating the gases …
Two European experiments performed with helium 3 uphold the theory of defect formation during phase transition, and clear some of the fog over the genesis of our universe
cosmology is one of those sciences where experimentation is rare. The scientist observes the universe and draws his own conclusions. But this might change now with reports of two experiments on the dynamics of phase transition in the early universe. These pioneering experiments, performed in France and Finland, have confirmed …
Annual emissions of anthropogenic Hg to the atmosphere in different regions of the world during the last decade show an interesting dichotomy: the emissions in the developed countries increased at the rate of about 4.5–5.5% yr−1 up to 1989 and have since remained nearly constant, while in developing countries the …
seventeen European countries belonging to Eumetsat, the agency responsible for European weather satellites, met recently at Darmstadt, Germany, to approve a us $2.3 billion-system of weather satellites which will help provide more accurate forecasts. The members have proposed to build three satellites, for launch from the year 2002 , to …
IT TOOK just 66 seconds for US $7 billion and 10 years of hard work put in by European space scientists, to go up in smoke. Ariane-5 - the pride of the European Space Programme - had to be destroyed along with its payload of four scientific satellites by ground …
PITY lexicographer. His job is hard as it is. But imagine how difficult it would be if, on defining the word 'up', it was necessary to add that it might just as well mean 'down'. It would be a very Alice-in-Wonderlandish dictionary, which might be worse than no dictionary at …
THE study of Neandertal bones discovered in the Vindija Cave, Croatia, in the '70s has provided important clues about the lives of these hunter-gatherers, who occupied this cave some 50,000 years ago. The first Neandertal fossils were named after Neaderthal or Neander Valley in Germany, where they were discovered in …
A recent study by Fred Spoor, a researcher from University College, London, has given fresh insights illto the lives of Cro-Magllons alld Nealldertals. The study hints at trade alldcultural contacts between some Neandertals and the Cro-Magnons, who ultimately replaced them, Researchers had excavated sophisticated tools and ornaments made from bones …
Familiarity breeds contempt. This , in a nutshell, encapsulates the oftrepeated statements of various gov- ernmentofficials on the status of the world's natural fish stocks. At the European Union (EU) conference on setting fishing quotas, which began on April 22 at Brussels in the Netherlands, the assertions of the European …
FAULTY AIDS test kits manufactured by the Chicago-based Abbott laboratories Incorporated, have forced thousands of Europeans to face the anxiety of undergoing the test all over again. The company had withdrawn the test kit from the market on March 25, following at least four complaints of the test showing negative …
OZONE levels have been depleting at the average annual rate of 4.3 per cent every decade in the Northern Hemisphere, and a slightly lower 4.1 per cent in the Southern Hemisphere, since 1979. These figures were disclosed by Rumen Bojkov of the World Meteorological Organization (wmo) in Geneva, Switzerland. The …
In a span of five years, Dutch sci4ntists R Hoekstra, C Elij and others at the Delft-based Institute of Applied Physics, have developed a spectrometer called the global ozone monitoring experiment (GOME). A spectrometer is a spectroscope equipped with a photoelectric photdAeter to measure radiant intensities at various wavelengths. GOME, …
THE squabble over fishing quotas in the European Union (EU) came to a disappointing halt in Brussels last month. EU fisheries ministries, meeting to discuss the fishing quotas for this year, tried hard to bargain against the cuts citing the cause of the livelihood of the fisherfolk which could get …
