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 …
IT WAS the inexorable hand of climate that spurred human evolution. This is the latest finding of Peter researcher, working with the University of Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Observatory, us. No one knows for c tain what first forced huntoem remote ape-like ancestors to forsa the trees they called home, why so …
LEADING environmental Ncos and public interest groups in Europe, persistently rooting against the patenting of genes and living organisms, are now seething with indignation against the European Patent Office (EPO). The organisation has gone ahead and presented a draft proposal at a forum in Munich in September end, claiming that …
EUROPEAN pharmaceutical companies, specially those based in Germany and are bell bent on blocking the of the low priced Spanish and wipme drugs in the European Union When Spain and Germany sed the Eu in 1985, their drugs were Red bemuse neither country offered at protection for pharmaceuticals. IM both …
A FOSSILISED jaw of Homo erectus-modern man's closest ancestor has been traced in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, could be the oldest ever found outside Africa. It has been generally believed that Africa is the evolutionary home of humans, with the Homo erectus developing from proto-human species. The new …
CORINE, the Coordination of Information on the Environment, which is the official classification system for natural habitats of the European Community (EC), is putting Europe's vulnerable wildlife sanctuaries under severe risk, alleges John Rodwell of Lancaster University. Rodwell, who is the coordinator of the British Natural Vegetation Classification, is extremely …
AS EUROPE sticks its snorkel out of the muddy and deep waters of the continent's most devastating floods this century, the efficacy of its dykes comes under pained introspection. Cutting across the Netherlands, Germany, France and Belgium is a realisation that the continent's much-praised flood control practices may be soft …
The European Commission's (EC) attempt to devise a common carbon energy tax has fallen apart. At a meeting in Brussels in mid-December 1994, European environment ministers gave their assent to the adoption of individual measures by member-states to cut down carbon dioxide emissions. uk environment minister John Gummer said that …
The European Court of Justice has finally given its verdict on the prickly question of European trade policy: the European Commission, the European Community's (ec) executive body, must share authority over trade in services and intellectual property with other ec members. The ruling in mid-November was a blow to the …
It's not time yet to write the obituary of urban biodiversity. A recent study by Czech ecologist Pavel Pysek reveals that European cities host a large number of wild plants. Berlin tops the list with 1,432 species, while Polkowice, a small city in western Poland, is at the bottom. Pysek …
The European Court of Justice has rejected Germany's complaint about the European Community's (ec) banana import rules. Germany, the largest importer of bananas, favours the Latin American variety and its grouse is that the ec regime prefers producers in Europe and its former colonies over Latin America. Until recently, Germany …
European Laboratory for Particle Physics sees little chance of an agreement g hammered out soon for the financing of Europe's next generation particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHCJ (Down to Earth, September 30, 1994). CERN's 2 host countries, France and Switzerland, continue to stonewall efforts by Germany and the …
EUROPE's largest remaining wetlands may yet be saved from devastation. The Global Environment Facility has given a $4.5 million grant to Romania to help it preserve the rare flora and fauna of the Danube delta. The greatest threat to the delta comes from the pollutants and waste accumulated by the …
Incinerating unrecyclable waste plastic is environmentally the most benign way of disposing of it, new experiments show (New Scientist, Vol 143, No 1932). Europe's Association of Plastic Manufacturers incinerated municipal waste containing 3 different proportions of plastics -- without added plastic, with 7.5 per cent extra plastic and with 15 …
The European Community has approved a draft directive under which member states will have common air quality monitoring standards and pollution limits. The directive will cover 14 air pollutants, ranging from sulphur and nitrogen dioxide to ground-level ozone and carbon monoxide. The Community envisages pollution limits for all the substances …
ONE of the few bright spots in the recently-concluded stormy European Community (EC) summit in Corfu in Greece was the unanimous decision on the need to shut down, permanently and as quickly as possible, reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Ukraine. EC leaders decided to put their might …
A carnivorous pack of bacteria has struck terror in parts of the US and Europe. Known as group A streptococcus, the bacteria, say researchers, can cause a fatal drop in blood pressure, toxic shock and organ failure. In their most macabre form, they eat away human flesh. Over the past …
IT IS time for European farmers to clean up their backyards: the European Community has launched in London its first environmental audit for farms. The brainchild of Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF), a British organisation promoting profitable but environment-friendly farming, the audit has won support from the government, conservationists, supermarkets, …
THE errant ways of humans have the most unexpected effects on ecosystems. Ecologists J Graveland and his colleagues at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology say that air pollution and the subsequent acid rain have had enormous impact on the reproduction of a common European bird -- the great tit (Nature, …
"GOING green" has turned out to be a risky proposition for paper producers in Europe, who have invested heavily in a pioneering technology that is totally chlorine free, in a bid to please their environment-conscious customers. Chlorine, normally used as a bleaching agent, is also a heavy polluter, adding toxic …
FIRST superheroes and now supercows. The USA is raising a breed of super-udders that will raise milk production in the country by 25 per cent, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). From 1 February, 1994, some farmers began injecting the hormone bovine somatrophin (BST) into cows to boost …
