The global cost of disasters is growing: The economic burden of disasters is intensifying. While the direct costs of disasters averaged $70–80 billion a year between 1970 and 2000, between 2001 and 2020 these annual costs grew significantly to $180–200 billion. But the real cost is far higher. Disaster costs …
IS THE world's environment really in crisisor is thecrisis simply in the imagination of environmental groupsresearchers andthe media? In The Skeptical EnvironmentalistBj
contrary to the statistics published by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (fao), which indicate that the global fish catches are stable, fisheries scientists at the University of British Columbia (ubc), Vancouver, Canada, have documented evidence that catches have been declining for over a decade. This new evidence means …
Given the lack of ability and desire around the world to get to the root of the global conflicts, it was clear to many of us a decade ago that bioterrorism and biological warfare would soon be upon us. Therefore, when Saddam Hussain said during the Iraq-Kuwait conflict in 1991 …
This report presents compelling evidence of the considerable threats the pesticide endosulfan poses to human health and environmental integrity. In light of the evidence presented, it make a number of key recommendations to the World Health Organisation, national governments, and the agrochemical industry. Implementation of these recommendations will represent a …
globally, there are now 40 million adults and children suffering from aids, according to a new report by the World Health Organisation (who) and the Joint United Nations Programme on hiv/aids called unaids. The epidemic shows no signs of abating
the choice of venue was clever and the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center added to the security paranoia. The result was that it combined to give trade negotiators somewhat of a breather when they met in Doha, Qatar, for the fourth ministerial conference of the World Trade …
However, the Doha declaration does not take a decision on whether countries with insufficient or no manufacturing capacities in the pharmaceutical sector will be allowed to import generic drugs to deal with a health crisis. Instead, it calls upon the trips council to
agriculture remains the biggest source of inequity in the world trading system. Unlike telecom, financial, and legal services, farming practices in the North have stoutly resisted the logic of market forces. Farming in the North thrives on prodigious subsidies and price support systems combined with coddling protection through high tariffs …
Developing countries also fear the huge costs associated with greener technologies, which will be unbearable by their domestic industries. It could make their goods uncompetitive in western markets. This unequivocal opposition to greening of trade is what brings the motley crew of poor countries together. “If there’s one thing that …
...the West eats into the world's resources, leaving the developing nations and its poorest struggling against ecological degradation wreaked by the huge consumption rates. The wide gap in consumption between the rich and poor takes its toll on local and global resources. Today some 800 million people remain chronically malnourished
a tiny mosquito is getting genetically altered in response to global warming, reveals a study. According to researchers at the University of Oregon in Eugene, usa , global warming has delayed breeding and development timings of Wyeomyia smithii , a tiny fragile mosquito that lives in the pitcher plant. The …
communicable diseases cause 20-25 per cent of deaths annually worldwide. And poor environmental conditions are the perfect breeding ground for these contagions. This indissoluble link, showing how ecological imbalances can be hazardous to health, has been brought forth in the
the mystery shrouding the sudden collapse of Middle East civilisations more than 4,000 years ago might just have been solved. A two-mile-wide circular depression which looks like an impact crater has been found through studies of satellite images of southern Iraq. Scientists say that the depression raises the possibility of …
imagine a whale running to catch a prey, instead of swimming in the ocean to gulp one? The picture may be unimaginable today, but it was a reality about 50 million years ago. Scientists have found that the primitive hoofed mammals were actually predecessors to the whale family. The evidence …
the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York, usa, have not only changed the skyline of world's business capital, but also the world's perception of terrorism. Even as shocked Americans came to terms with the attacks, the us government issued warnings of a possible attack by terrorists using …
tens of millions of children could face starvation in 20 years time if the governments across the world do not focus on irrigation, education and agricultural research for poor countries, according to a new analysis. The analysis was performed by the world's most complex computer model of the global food …
it is one of the unwritten assumptions of physics that the laws of nature are the same not only in all parts of the Universe but also at all times. This assumption is what allows us to say meaningful things about very distant realms of our Universe and also about …
