The report presents a mixed picture. Over the past 25 years, there have been notable improvements in child well-being in the group of countries examined in this report: steady decline in child mortality, overall reduction in adolescent suicide and increase in school completion rates. But the last five years have …
the appellate body of World Trade Organisation (wto) has upheld the French ban on asbestos. Canada, a leading exporter of asbestos, used to export nearly 30,000 metric tonnes of Chrysotile, or "white' asbestos each year to France till 1996, when France imposed a ban on its asbestos. Canada, alleging that …
Nuclear waste sent from Australia for reprocessing in France cannot be unloaded because it does not have proper authorisation, a French court recently ruled, backing a complaint by Greenpeace, an international pressure group. Cogema, the world's leading nuclear fuel reprocessor, was due to handle the Australian waste. In its appeal, …
catalytic converters, meant to clean up car exhausts, are polluting the environment. A group of Italian and French researchers have found traces of heavy metals emitted from the devices in remote regions of Greenland. Seth Dunn of the Worldwatch Institute, a non-governmental organisation based in Washington dc, usa, says, "They …
The administrative tribunal of Paris has ordered the French government to publish a list of sites in the country where genetically modified (GM) crops are being grown on a trial basis. The court has directed the government to disclose the list on the basis that it is public information. The …
the French government's plan to introduce ecological tax reforms got a serious blow on December 28, 2000, when the country's constitutional court rejected a planned industrial energy tax. The ruling threatens the government's wider ecological tax reform programme. The constitutional council's ruling was part of its review of the 2001 …
french president, Jacques Chirac has stated that his country is ready to host a global meeting of non-governmental organisations ( ngo ), for preparing the basis for a un environment conference, which is scheduled to be held in the year 2002, almost 10 years after the Rio de Janerio Earth …
september 22 was declared "European car-free day'. Over 800 cities decided to take part. The truly pan-European event was aimed at emphasising the importance of improving air quality, highlighting the adverse effects of unlimited car use in city centres and the importance of cycling and other forms of transportation. While …
under the aegis of the United Nations, an international agreement was signed by eight countries to develop globally uniform environmental regulations for motor vehicles. The agreement, pending for the past two years, is expected to "harmonise' the world's automobile standards. According to an announcement made by the United Nations Economic …
despite global opposition, the French government has decided not to reduce its dependence on nuclear power. According to Christian Pierret, the country's junior minister for industry, though France has tapped the hydropower potential to the maximum, it still gets 80 per cent of its electricity from nuclear energy. Non-fossil energy …
one of the intriguing mysteries of molecular biology is the reason why living organisms choose a particular handedness of molecules rather than their mirror image counterparts. For instance, crucial molecules like amino acids and sugars come in both right-handed and left-handed versions, but for some reason, living organisms only use …
the French have always wanted to set up a World Environment Organisation ( weo ). It is therefore not surprising that the French prime minister, Lionel Jospin should once again raise the issue of setting up a weo . So what exactly is a weo? As conceived by its proponents …
in a late disclosure that triggered the wrath of environmentalists across Europe, the seed company Advanta issued a statement that farmers in Britain, France, Germany and Sweden were unwittingly growing genetically modified ( gm ) rapeseed crops. The seeds had apparently been contaminated by its gm variety in Canada from …
the last 15 years have seen a virtual explosion of intergovernmental negotiations to formulate global environmental treaties. This ecological globalisation is the result of the ongoing process of economic growth and globalisation which has linked the world's economies and now threatens to overuse the world's ecological systems to fulfill national …
france has drawn the attention of the European Court of Justice for failing to fully enact the European rules for environmental impact assessments ( eia ) in wildlife habitat areas. According to the assessments made by the court, the guidelines France did use were not sufficiently clear and precise. Moreover, …
two French geophysicists have claimed that the combined force of the wobble of the Earth's spinning core and the gravitational pull of the Sun and the Moon may have triggered massive volcanic eruptions in the past. They have put forward a model that correlates these activities leading to eruption of …
the world's first double-hand transplant has proved a success with a 33-year-old patient, Denis Chatelier, able to move the fingertips of both hands. Twenty-five days after the operation, Chatelier, from western France, raised both plaster-encased hands and said he was "very, very happy'. Still confined to a wheelchair, Chatelier said: …
The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea has ordered the release of the ship Camouco registered in Panama and its Spanish master against a security of us $1.2 million. The vessel, licensed to catch Patagonian toothfish, was arrested by a French frigate for illegally fishing in the exclusive …
as france pressed on with mopping-up operations to cleanse parts of its Atlantic coastline polluted by an oil spill recently, a Dutch orinthologist said that oil from the sunken tanker Erika may contain cancer-causing additives. French president Jacques Chiraq, who toured the area along the coast which was badly damaged …
it will take up to two centuries to restore France's forests, devastated by freak Christmas weekend storms which killed over 85 people, said the National Forestry Office ( onf ). The onf said gales blowing up to 200 kph uprooted or broke in half 270 million trees, the equivalent of …
