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 …
IN FRANCE, We are used to thinking that the sea is infinitely generous. Proof: world fishing catches have multiplied five times over just 25 years. But now the golden stripes are fading. Fish resources have run out, catches tend to be depressed. Since the record production of 1989 - 100 …
Crash H - bomb The French government's move to carry out nuclear tests in spite of protests from many countries and environmentalists lends a great amount of curiosity to Richard Rhode's book, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb. In this riveting book, he tells the H-bomb. He reveals …
France has a network of 20-odd documentation centres on developing countries based in its different cities, The oldest one, CRIDFV, based in Rennes and founded by the eminent soil scientist Alain Ruillan, recently completed 20 years of its existence. As part of its anniversary celebrations, cmow invited me to deliver …
France is in a frenzy to be friends again with the rest of the world. Especially with the countries in the South Pacific, which have been smouldering with indignation ever since the Chirac government decided to resume underground nuclear tests in French Polynesia. It has joined hands with Britain and …
Grecripeace, the international environmental group has targetted France once again. Suing the country in a US court in Los Angeles, it has demanded the return of its ship and one million dollars in damages. Mark Serlin, the attorney for the environmental group after filing the lawsuit on October 17, said …
The Mururoa rocks are blast proof. This is the latest from the French front. The French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), is making a valiant bid to convince the world that holding nuclear tests in the South Pacific - that has set the entire planet aflame - was not such an …
Thefamous i9th century pipe organ at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris has gone hi-tech. The French ministry of culture has spent US $2.2 million to digitise the organ. Now, a system of microprocessors and sensors interprets how the keys and pedals have been pressed. The system, once perfected, will …
AUSTRALIAN premier Paul Keating called it .an act of stupidity," and the rest of the world exploded in anger - but Paris remained undeterred. In the wee hours of Septembei 6, the French did what they had resolved to do 3 months ago: they set off the first of the …
FRANCE's nuclear testing shenanigans the Mururoa atoll have caused an international furore (see Down to Earth, 31, 1995). Among the most hostile ics of the French moves on the atol the international environmental gram Greenpeace. The group claims that 45 founder David McTaggart and 2 grove members had infiltrated the …
PARIS, the pride of the immaculate and stylish French people, is growing dirty: it has joined the ranks of the world's polluted cities. For some time now, the pollution monitoring equipment around the city have been displaying nigh readings, but the message was driven home very sharply only on July …
Anti-abortionists are giving sleepless nights to the French judiciary. While a Paris court recently allowed a group of save foetus" activists - who had barged into a hospital and started praying outside the operation theatre where abortions were being performed - go scot free, in Bourg-en-Bresse, central France, 12 activists …
INDOMITABLE France lit the fuse again. Barely a month after the Big 5 nuclear nations made a solemn pledge at New York, during the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (npt) Conference, to exercise "utmost restraint", France reneged and flexed its muscles. The newly-elected French President, Jacques Chirac, has announced his decision to …
The much-maligned diesel fuel is being cleaned up. Rhone-Poulenc, the French chemicals and pharmaceuticals group, has developed a technology which it claims reduces carbon emissions from the fuel by 80-90 per cent. The system is being tested on the fleets of the urban transport authority and Trois Suisses, a mail …
IN A French government report on the space sciences, strong recommendations have been made to the authorities to move away from the European Space Agency (ESA) partners who are allegedly holding "enterprising French scientists" back with their feet-dragging tactics when it comes to coughing up funds for research. The report …
RECENTLY, a woman in France was convicted to 10 years in prison for letting her quadriplegic husband rot to death. What would that man have given to be able to use his hands can well be imagined. But awaiting the us Food and Drug Administration's approval is a medical device …
The UK-based NEC Corporation and Ezaki Glico, a Japanese confectionary company, claim to have mastered the art of controlling and altering the catalytic properties of enzymes. For instance, the structure of neopullunase, a sugar producing enzyme found in starch, can be made to produce 30 per cent more sugar than …
AMSTERDAM, St Paul, Kerguelen and Crozet, the French-governed sub-Antarctic group of islands in the southern Indian Ocean, are crawling with some of the world's richest wildlife diversity. Now, biologists who have been camping in the islands to study the fauna are accusing the administration of the French Southern and Antarctic …
French prime minister Edouard Balladur has stirred up a hornet's nest by reviving the Rhine-Rhone Canal project first proposed and also rejected in 1961. The environmentalists, including France's Green Party are opposing this decision tooth and nail. The canal will have 23 locks and will cost around us $32,645,161. Dominique …
THE current "blood scandal" in France has taken a gory turn. Early this year, 4 eminent physicians were accused of treating French haemophiliacs (patients suffering from a blood disorder) with blood untested for hiv. All were convicted and 2 were imprisoned. But, the present situation is far more grim with …
