The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
Environment will become a compulsory subject in government schools in Delhi from the next academic season. According to the state education minister Sahi Singh Verma, "The elder citizens of the Union Territory have hitherto displayed a callous disregard for air, land and water. Our only hope is action from the …
A MAJOR, Irangate-style controversy is building up over a L1 billion framework accord on military sales that is ostensibly linked to British aid in 1988 for the Pergau dam project in Malaysia. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has taken a dim view of Britain's aid policy and …
FOR once, environmental activists and members of the International Olympic Committee are not at loggerheads. Norwegian conservation groups that were worried about the prospect of the 1994 Winter Olympics being held at Lillehammer have been promised that environment will carry equal priority with sports and culture at the Games. Said …
THE dismal state of aboriginal health has prompted both doctors and the government to make health care of the native Australians their top priority. Brendan Nelson, federal president of the Australian Medical Association (AMA), has said aboriginal health is the "number one public health problem in Australia". According to AMA, …
The presidents of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, along with the Russian deputy prime minister have agreed to set up a joint fund to save what was once the world's fourth-largest freshwater lake. The use of water for irrigating rice and cotton has greatly depleted the Aral Sea, which …
NORMAL life came to a grinding halt in Canada when a geomagnetic disturbance hit two of its communications satellites -- Anik E1 and Anik E2. Television and radio transmissions were disrupted across the nation. Canadian Press, the country's biggest news service that feeds information to more than 100 newspapers and …
THE ISLAND state of Tasmania, with its relative abundance of natural resources and wild countryside, is the home of the world's first Green party, the United Tasmania Group (UTG), which elbowed its way into Parliament with an 18 per cent vote in 1989. It was a victory that came after …
IN NOT too distant a future, much of the pep and zing may disappear from environmental campaigns. Business may well reduce a concern for the environment into advertisement copy to burnish its own image among the public and in stockmarkets. Business today has its own vision of an approach to …
JOHN BERGER, American art historian and sociologist, in an essay entitled Why look at animals?, points out that in the 19th century, animal toys such as rocking horses became popular during a societal move away from nature and towards urbanisation, and animals ceased to form a part of the immediate …
RETREATING forests may lead to more than just soil erosion, say scientists. They could also cause diseases, AIDS included. Epidemiologists have come up with evidence linking the destruction of rainforests with the spread of deadly microbes and viruses. So far, however, these intriguing theories have remained circumstantial. A new project, …
THE ENVIRONMENTALIST group Loire Vivante is creating waves in France. Following its five-year-long protest movement, the French government has decided to shelve a controversial dam project on the Loire, the country's longest river. For more than a century, government planners have endeavoured to harness the Loire. The scheme for the …
HUSKIES will soon stop hauling sledges in the freezing reaches of Antarctica. In accordance with the Antarctic Treaty Environmental Protocol, sled dogs will be banned from the South Pole from April 1, 1994. They are being retired because they are spreading canine infection to seals, say environmentalists. The animals were …
THE US government is planning to discourage overseas governments from requiring airliners to be sprayed with insecticides after arriving at airports. "It needlessly exposes millions of Americans to harmful chemicals and our top priority is the safety of our passengers," declares Federico F Pena, the US transportation secretary. US environmentalists …
IN A CLASSIC tussle between conservation and tourist revenue, anthropologist Richard Leakey was compelled to resign as chairperson of the Kenyan Wildlife Service, following a campaign unleashed against him by William Ole Ntimama, the powerful Kenyan minister of local government. Ntimama said the local population in or near Kenya's national …
FOR THE inhabitants of New South Wales, Australia, the nightmare is finally over. "The bushfire, undoubtedly the fiercest one ever witnessed in the modern history of the continent, has been contained at last," declared an exhausted but visibly relieved Bush Fire Services Commissioner, Phil Koperburg, in Sydney in mid-January. His …
WITHIN the international community, few people have cared to study the environmental behaviour of Papua New Guinea. Its traditions provide a very instructive experience: they show the world how to deal with the globalisation process of the 21st century, which is slowly eroding the economic sovereignty of Third World nations …
WHILE the international media remain preoccupied with the run-up to South Africa's multiracial elections in April this year, a fledgling and insufficiently reported movement is being egged on by several ecological groups. The tasks ahead for this movement are extremely difficult, and it all stems from the legacy of apartheid. …
A LITTLE girl gazes wide eyed at the elephant while her bored mother pulls her away: "You've seen an elephant on TV haven't you". "But ma," replies the little girl, "I didn't know it was so big." Jeremy Chervais science writer and author of Zoo 2000 recounted this story recently …
IBM is researching high-temperature superconductivity in Switzerland. GLAXO coordinated the development of a new drug with joint research at its different sites in the US and some European laboratories. FUJITSU develops computer hardware and applications software from its R&D; facility in the UK to serve the European market. TOYOTA has …
AIRLINES: The airline industry's computer reservation system (CRS) links branch offices and thousands of travel agencies around the world, handling seat reservations, sales, delivery of travel documents, schedule and fare changes and information on hotels, car hire and cultural events. The costs of setting up these networks worldwide are phenomenal …
