This paper presents a status report of the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) on two crucial development parameters—inequality and poverty—that have a significant bearing on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs; especially SDG-1 and SDG-10). The paper tracks the origins and movements of absolute and relative poverty, …
GLOBAL collaboration in space exploration has taken another giant leap forward with the signing in August of a us $190 million deal - to develop and launch the first module of a new international space station called Alpha - between Russia's Krunichey Space Center and the Boeing Defense and Space …
AFTER holding up obstinately Lrgainst a volley of criticism for 3 long months, the Russian government has finally buckled down and scrapped its plans of introducing a law which would require foreign visitors staying in Russia for more than 3 months to undergo a compulsory screening for the HIV virus. …
A collapsed sewerage system and an acute water crisis are causing misery to the residents of Kharkov, Ukraine's 2nd largest city. Up to 200,000 cubic metres of untreated sewage has been pouring daily into the 3 rivers running through the city. Add to this the long lines for water, and …
THERE comes a day when every American president has his shot at immortality. Twenty years ago, in August 1975, Jimmy Carter, one of bullyboy America's rare presidential doormats, desperately wanted an unique event to pump steroids into his image of a gentle, bumbling urpacifist. He also wanted something to immortalise …
Atlantis and Mir did an intimately interlocked fandango for 5 days, and its crew of 6 Americans and 4 Russians sprinted through an impeccably and precisely scheduled series of 28 experiments, 15 of them aboard the Atlantis shuttle: the Atlantis' 60-feet-long bay carried a huge (by spartan extraterrestrial standards) laboratory …
THOMAS Crapper, the inventor of the commode, had never anticipated the headache involved in the act of hitting the pot in space. There has been a steady and gainless drain of US $3 million on R&D; on the no-gravity commode before every blastoff. The Russians, with more on their minds …
What are the most serious environmental problems facing Russia at present? More than 15 per cent of Russia's territory is ecologically unsafe. The poor quality of drinking water and radiation are the main problems, along with air and chemical pollution. Some 75 per cent of Russia's waterbodies are highly contaminated …
THE inefficacy of locally made vaccines, according to doctors, is fanning the resurgence of a diphtheria epidemic in Russia and the newly independant states of the former Soviet Union. In the first 9 months of 1994, 21,622 people had contracted the disease in Russia alone. So far this year, 45 …
AMONG many other issues of political and economic sovereignty, Russia's policy on nuclear waste management is on the mat. While environmentalists are clamouring for a ban on nuclear waste imports into Russia, the desperately cash-poor government sees this as a gold mine for its sagging foreign exchange reserves. A new …
ACCORDING to ecology experts, extensive nuclear testing and largescale secret dumping of radioactive wastes in the far north have transformed the Barents and Kara seas in the Russian Arctic into what are probably the most polluted waterbodies on Earth. For over 3 decades now, the 750 km-long Novaya-Zemlya archipelago and …
RUSSIA's nuclear industry faces a battle for survival in the coming years. Last year, the industry produced 97.8 billion kilowatts (kw) of electricity, 18 per cent less than in 1993 - the decline apparently caused by fuel shortages, transmission problems and reduced demand. The main problem is finance. At present, …
IT's happened again in Russia. On April 27, huge walls of fire enveloped a thick swath of uninhabited forest land after a 44-metre-long gas pipeline exploded in the Komi Republic, 1287.2 km north-east of Moscow. The pilot of a Japanese aircraft.flying over the inferno reported that the flames billowed as …
THE Arctic Ocean could be another Chernobyl in the making, says Alexel Yablokov, head of Russia's Interagency Commission on Ecological Security, pointing a finger at Russia's environmental callousness. He reports the scut- tling of nuclear submarines in shallow waters, careless storage of spent nuclear fuel rods, and nuclear pollution from …
IT MAY finally be curtains for Ukrain notorious Chernobyl nuclear PCN station. Ukrainian President Lea Kuchma told a European Commun (EC) delegation in mid-April that country would shut down 2 nuc reactors still functioning at the by AD 2000. EC officials are elated this development. "This is the first that …
SECRETS spills of radioactive nuclear waste in Russia are creeping insidiously into the seas and may plague the world for the next 300 years. For more than 3 decades during the Cold War, billions of gallons of atomic waste had been secretly pumped directly into the earth at 3 sites …
AOTHER disaster in Chernobyl could well be in the making, warn Western and Russian scientists. A report funded by the European Commission, and flashed by The Observer, a UK daily, says that the pillars supporting the reactor building and the 2,000-tonne roof are in danger of collapsing. This could send …
JULY 16, 1945. With a deafening roar, a part of the New Mexico desert blew up into an umbrella, with the brightness of a thousand suns: America had exploded its first atomic bomb. Only 4 years later, rival Russia echoed that blast in Semiplatinsk. And 40 years after the dust …
The deadly environmental effects of World War ii may stage a reappearance. At a late January conference on marine pollution in Brussels, Russian experts expressed apprehension that around 120,000 chemical weapons dumped off the British coast after World War ii may leak from their containers and poison the sea. "There …
Russia's poor environmental record has come under severe global scrutiny after the Komi oil spill in October, branded third largest in history, and roughly 8 times the volume of the Exxon Valdez spill. Though experts contest the size of the spillage -- ranging from the us Department of Energy's estimate …
Yet another burning oil slick, the third-largest reported in history, threatens the ecologically-fragile Arctic. The 60,000-tonne slick in the Russian province of Komi has reportedly originated from leaks in a 47-km pipeline managed by Komineft, a Russian oil company. According to US officials, the spill, releasing 8 times the oil …
