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 …
Plans to convert the world's largest fast-breeder reactor Superphenix into a research centre and nuclear waste incinerator, may have to be shelved. Ruling on a lawsuit filed by several environmental groups, the Council of State, France's highest court, recently struck down a 1994 government order authorising operation of the nuclear …
daylight is not all dewdrops and honey. It also contributes to the destruction of the ozone layer in the stratosphere, say Patrick Aimedieu of France's National Space Research Centre and Bob Sheldon of the University of Houston, us, who base their claims on studies using balloons above southern France ( …
alarmed by rising levels of smog in Paris, the French government recently announced new rules to improve air quality in the city. Air quality is determined by the amount of sulphur dioxide, ozone and nitrogen dioxide present in the air. The new restrictions recently announced by the French environment minister …
The Geneva-based 61-member UN disarmament commission began its 1997 session on January 21 to establish a committee on a fissile materials cut-off treaty, a top priority on the UN's agenda since March 1995. But the developing countries' insistence on multilateral talks to eliminate all nuclear weapons within a fixed period …
The damage that textile production causes to the environment has been a bone of contention for environmentalists. Pollutants from textile production (zinc, sulphides or copper salts) are non bio-degradable. But now, a French fashion designer, Olivier Lapidus, is all set to launch a collection of clothes made from eco-friendly fibres …
Apternotus albifrons , a fish that continuously emits electricity at a frequency of about 1,000 hertz can be used as a detector of pollutants, say scientists at the International Water Centre in Nancy, France. The electric signals given out by the fish are very stable under normal conditions, but vary …
france is in the midst of another nuclear controversy. Barely four months after creating an international outrage by carrying out nuclear tests in the south Pacific waters, it is facing new allegations over the proposed shipment of radioactive wastes to Japan through the Pacific Ocean. Greenpeace (gp), the international environmental …
after the Americans, the French have followed suit. Recently, families of two lung cancer victims filed separate lawsuits against seita, the company that makes France's most famous brands of cigarettes. They have charged the company with inadequately warning consumers about the relation between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. It is …
THE French are quitting the Mururoa and Fangataufa atolls in the South Pacific, but are leaving in their wake fears of possible nuclear contamination. After conducting at least 123 nuclear tests beneath the Mururoa rocks and eight under Fangataufa between 1975 and 1996, France finally announced to the world that …
Investigators in France have shown that bioengineered plants that disrupt fungal cell walls are resistant to fungal pests and they can reduce or eliminate the need for chemical fungicides. The group has devel oped a transgenic rapeseed ( Brassica napus ) that produces a chitinase gene at high levels enabling …
shaken out of apathy by a recent study on the health hazards posed by industrial fibre, the government finally announced a ban on asbestos from next year. The ban, which is already in effect in most other industrialised nations, came after a new study revealed that asbestos
HERE is good news for all those trying to beat hunger pangs and stay on the slimmer side. Scientists from the institute of Health and Medical Sciences (INSERM), France, are a few steps away from developing a new diet control therapy that involves the use of neurotransmitters, which are chemicals …
THANKS to French researchers, farmers can do away with nitrogenous fertilisers which contribute to pollution of rivers and other reservoirs. Molecular biologists at the National Agronomic Research Institute (INRA) in Toulose, have succeeded in growing leguminous plants in soil that is poor in nitrogen. it has long been known that …
FOR almost 800 years, the Bell tower of Pisa's cathedral has been tilted a wee-bit towards south and for almost as long, engineers, far and near, have tried to stop the tower from what it does best - leaning. In 1989, however, when a similar tower fell down, killing five …
WATER with arsenic in it may be the most poisonous drink for us, but for two strains of bacteria, discovered by French researchers, it is the daily means of sustenance. A stream flowing through the abandoned Carnoules lead and zinc mine in the Cevennes mountains in southern France was found …
QUITE A SAVING: Those suffering from skin cancer will now have to dish out less money for their medical bills. Scientists from the Cancer Research Campaign in Britain have invented a light emission device called Paterson Lamp that cures the disease at a lOth of the price of laser therapy. …
IN AN apparent move at safeguarding its citizens, the French government began handing out iodine pills to some 400,000 people living near nuclear plants in the last week of April. The act was more significant in the wake of the 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on April 26. …
A POSSIBLE lowering of the hazards posed by the use of lead has come about with, the first international agreement on measures to reduce its use. At a two-day meeting in Paris in the last week of February at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 26 nations have …
WITH the air in France turning out to be a potential killer, the government has decided to develop 'green pqtrol' by AD 2000. The bio-fuel will contain organic elements such as diester, derived from rapeseed, and ethanol, -extracted fr 'or beetroot. The bio-fuel canreportedly reduce the emission of pollutants like …
France, which had raised the ire of many nations by going ahead with its underground nuclear testing programme from September last, may have to face some more music. Reportedly, the atomic tests were not all that safe as the French had vociferously proclaimed. Radioactive elements -iodine 131, cesium and tritium …
