Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it provides employment to people. Most importantly, cooking and eating give us pleasure. …
During the protracted negotiations on the Agenda 21 chapter dealing with changing consumption patterns, a strong bid was made by certain northern delegations to underscore the significance of the link between unsustainable consumption and environment. In the last prepcom in New York, the US had even wanted to delete the …
THE RECENTLY-concluded Rio conference has clearly shown that environment is now an intensely political issue with numerous contending groups of nations and peoples. The conference, known as the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), was a grand 12-day affair with over 100 heads of government present. The list was …
WHAT DIRECTIONS are science and technology going to take now that UNCED has put environment on the political agenda? Though they were not very much in the spotlight, many scientists were present in Rio to stress that while the development of science and technology has been held responsible for the …
WEN LIAN TING, Malayasia's permanent representative to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), won the epithet of "dragon lady" during the Rio summit for her unwavering opposition to the forest convention. The tough UNCED prepcom meetings, spread over a period of two years, required enormous mental and physical stamina, which …
EVERY time an American family decides to take its car out, the resulting carbon dioxide adds to the existing stock in the atmosphere for at least a hundred years. When the polar cap cannot bear the trapped heat, it will melt and drown the distant country of Maldives or Bangladesh. …
THE BRANDT Commission in 1980 had called for a world "based less on power and status, more on justice and contract; less discretionary, more governed by fair and open rules". Shridath Ramphal renews that appeal, on the road to Rio, but passion is not the sole basis of his plea. …
NEVER before has an idea with so much power and such a profoundly universal appeal been turned so quickly into an issue of narrow, sectarian self-interest of the powerful. Environmentalism, which many of us thought was an idea whose time had come the world over, is now like a dream …
THE SOUTH today is in the most vulnerable situation it has ever faced in the last 30 or 40 years. Today, more than two-thirds of the countries in this category are in a debt trap and forced to go to the North for rescheduling repayments, forced to accept structural adjustment …
VERY FEW of the pious resolutions made at Rio are going to percolate down to the ground level in our country. On the very day our environment minister was making high-sounding speeches in Rio, I can bet that thousands of resource-poor tribals and peasants would have been displaced and uprooted …
ENVIRONMENT is a class issue. The attempt to obfuscate this fact is also motivated by class interests. Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg drew attention to what had emerged as the outstanding global reality: predatory capitalism carved out colonies and empires as much for obtaining raw material at low prices as for …
SINCE 1989, the state of New Jersey in USA has issued US $5 million worth of fines and handed prison sentences amounting to 165 years for environmental crimes. It could do this thanks to the Green Police, New Jersey's answer to the growing menace of indiscriminate toxic waste disposal. The …
Forests: For the South, this is perhaps the most crucial and most difficult battle ahead. The North has been insisting on a legal framework to manage the world's forests. Each preparatory meeting saw bitter negotiations as southern countries rallied together to prevent this assault on their sovereignty. This time again, …
China, this fortnight, detonated its biggest nuclear test ever. The explosion, about 70 times as powerful as the one at Hiroshima, is seen as a sign of China's nuclear prowess. And also as a slight to the US which has been putting India under the cloud for its missile programme. …
THE GAS-guzzlers of today may speed their way to extinction as the electric car of the future changes to fourth gear. USA's Advanced Battery Consortium -- formed by Ford, Chrysler and General Motors -- recently awarded Ovonic Battery Company a US $18.5-million contract to develop a battery which will take …
TRADE wars between Japan and USA are common, but now there are major technology wars brewing. And the US companies may be getting an upper hand. Japanese electronics have flooded markets worldwide with cheaply-produced and diverse products, but their capacity to be innovative does not seem to match their manufacturing …
When governments are desperate for cash, they sell death. While South American countries deal in cocaine, the US government is taking to aggressive pushing of its tobacco industry. In Korea, the opening up of cigarette markets recently increased smoking rates among male Korean teenagers from 18.4 per cent to 29.8 …
AMERICANS will now get designer food -- created by altering the genetic structure of fruits and vegetables. The first to hit the market is likely to be a sweeter tomato -- altered by Calgene of California so that it no longer produces the rotting enzyme, polygalacturonase. This means it lasts …
WILL HE go? Will he sign? Will he give money? All these and many more questions on the behaviour of the US President George Bush are threatening to overtake the Earth Summit at Rio. Bush's cat and mouse strategy is an effort to push the Europeans, Asians and Africans to …
THE BIODIVERSITY treaty which was finalised last fortnight has been hailed as a major victory for the South. As the US and France have both pulled out of the treaty, calling it fundamentally flawed, this belief has grown further. But is the treaty really so desirable? The treaty, which deals …
TAIWAN is getting ready to counter the spread of hamburgers and pizza with its very own home-grown rice. The council of agriculture has recently launched a US $2 million campaign to promote traditional Chinese meals based on rice as it needs to meet the challenge of US and European fast …
