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 …
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 …
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. …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
A EUROPEAN Community plan to introduce a carbon tax to reduce oil consumption and pollution may run into heavy weather in Japan, Malaysia and some other East Asian states, whose officials say they would prefer to cut the lead and sulphur contents in oil that is considered harmful. "We believe …
What do you think of Agenda 21, especially as there are so many who would prefer to find fault with the document? It's a broadbased question. Agenda 21 should be taken for what it is -- a broad inter-governmental agreement on a number of principles and objectives that is long …
USE OF additives, irradiation and the threat of pesticide residues and food-borne infections have led to the quality of diet being questioned these days as never before. Factory Farming comes as a comprehensive review of modern livestock farming and its implications, mainly in the context of Europe and North America. …
ALL THROUGH the second half of the 20th century, whenever Western governments have seen their industries lagging behind globally, they have resorted to updating their technology policies. The result has been that technology strategies became the key to economic growth not only in the US and in several European nations, …
ATMOSPHERIC pollution is taking a heavy toll of European trees. The 1991 survey of trees conducted by the UN Economic Commission for Europe shows nearly a quarter of all trees are defoliated.The majority of critically affected forests are in Bulgeria, erstwhile Czechoslovakia, Germany, Poland and the UK. Overall conifires are …
THE EFFICACY of azidothymidine (AZT) in delaying the onset of AIDS symptoms is in serious doubt following a three-year study in Europe, which indicates it makes little difference whether AZT treatment starts early or late. The Anglo-French study, called Concorde, found 29 per cent of the volunteers who took AZT …
TWO HUNDRED years ago, Thomas Malthus had asked at what point man's population would exceed his means of subsistence. The world's population then had not reached 1 billion. Today, a year before the population conference in Cairo, the total number of people in the world is fast approaching 5.5 billion. …
TILL THE 16th century, so little was known in Europe of Africa and Asia that the main task for Western scholars in the 16th and 17th centuries was to record the bewildering variety of strange new worlds and reconcile them with their constricted medieval vision of the earth. The works …
