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 …
GREEN is not a popular colour in Europe at the moment -- at least not with industry. Flattened under the weight of over 200 environment protection rules, many European companies are afraid that they may lose the sharp edge of the market wedge. British prime minister John Major clarified Britain's …
IN NOT too distant a future, much of the pep and zing may disappear from environmental campaigns. Business may well reduce a concern for the environment into advertisement copy to burnish its own image among the public and in stockmarkets. Business today has its own vision of an approach to …
FORON, a firm formerly called DKK Scharfenstein based in eastern Germany, was on the brink of bankruptcy last year after reunification when Greenpeace, an international environment group, gave it orders for 10 prototypes of refrigerators that use eco-friendly chemicals as coolants. FORON turned out a prototype that uses a mixture …
The problem coolant:CFCs-To be phased out ine developing world by 2010 under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that deplete the Ozone Layer. Deplete the Ozone Layer. Deadlines could be advanced by 4 years. The possible substitutes In favour Against Hydrochloroflurocarbons such as HCFC-22 Can only be a temporary substitute to …
AFTER much dithering, Russia has joined Europe, Canada and Japan in the US-led international space station project. Russia will merge its Mir programme with the US Freedom programme for the project, the first of its kind. Orbiting where Russia's Mir 1 is currently deployed, the project will consist of the …
INDIAN fridge manufacturers may find an alternative to chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) in a technology that is being revived in some European countries. Besides being eco-friendly, the adoption of this technology will rid Indian manufacturers of dependence on Western companies for a CFC substitute. Most substitutes on offer today for ozone-depleting CFCs, …
SCIENTISTS at Hyderabad's Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) recently announced they can now produce in the laboratory HFC-134a, a hydrofluorocarbon that is seen as the best substitute for CFCs, especially in USA and Japan. With access to the multilateral fund set up under the Montreal Protocol, IICT scientists plan …
What do you think went wrong with scientific progress and the scientific establishments in Europe after the Second World War? The Second World War was a period of rapid technical achievement. Radar, jet engines and nuclear energy were successfully put to use in a very short period of time. As …
SCIENTISTS say the increase in the atmospheric concentration of methane -- a major greenhouse gas -- is fast levelling off (New Scientist, Vol 140, No 1991). Evidence of a halt in methane rise comes from measurements of atmospheric gases made at 26 stations around the world. In the 1970s, the …
THE VICUNA, South America's graceful camelid coveted for its soft, silky hair, is falling prey to well-organised gangs of international rustlers "working for brokers within Latin America who then ship the fibre in bales to Europe and Asia", according to an expert with Conacs, Peru's quasi-government agency for camelids, which …
France has 58 million people living in 22 regions, 96 departments (counties) and 36,000 municipalities, varying in population size from 100 to 2 million. Two-thirds of the municipalities have less than 500 inhabitants and so several municipalities are grouped into boards to deal with, for example, management of water or …
WHAT CAN you do, as a citizen of India, if someone decides to set up a power plant or a polluting factory in your neighbourhood? Probably precious little. You could appeal to the local pollution control board, but if its bureaucrats disagree with you, you could demonstrate on the streets. …
IN A BID to protect its forests from a voracious, microscopic pest called the pinewood nematode, the European Community (EC) has banned imports of untreated softwood lumber from Canada. The ban affects the bulk of Canada's $388.50 million yearly export of untreated lumber to EC states. Now all Canadian lumber …
LINKING together individual molecules to make complicated structures, much in the same way as children playing with Lego, chemists are now trying to construct materials whose properties they can fix beforehand. At least half a dozen groups in USA, Canada, Europe and Australia are assembling large arrays of molecules to …
POISONING of nature is a constant obsession with BBC's Nature series. The latest episode in the series was on the ubiquitous yet controversial chlorine, a chemical the programme dubs as "The Devil's Element". The title has been derived from the words of a professor of environmental chemistry: "There are 91 …
ALTHOUGH the tulip originated in southeast Asia, the tiny European nation of Holland has transformed the flower into both a national symbol and a major foreign exchange-earner. Between March and May every year, when the tulips bloom, thousands of tourists rush to take in the sight of the rainbow colours …
TECHNOLOGY evolves so fast that the shelf life of job skills now rarely exceed 10 years. Automation and rationalisation have pushed entire categories of manufacturing operations, such as machine tools, away from the Western labour market. All over the developed world, companies are being forced to get more work out …
TRANSPORT authorities in USA and Europe, where the motor car culture first spawned, are now developing sophisticated technology to monitor and direct traffic in order to reduce congestion on their roads. Several US firms are developing what are called intelligent vehicle highway systems (IVHS) to regulate traffic more efficiently than …
THERE are some in India who believe that the Dunkel Draft (DD) would lead to a reduction of subsidies paid by developed countries to their farmers and this would help agricultural produce exports from India and other developing countries. They are the victims of an illusion created by the DD …
THE DAYS of the European corn borer, a notorious maize pest found in North America and Europe, seem numbered now that researchers have been able to inject into susceptible crops a gene fatal to the insect (BiolTechnology, Vol 11, No 2). But the gene, which has been taken from a …
