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 …
The government's decision to change the way of distributing urea aimed at achieving self-sufficiency in rice production, has boomeranged. There is wide-spread food shortage and some rural areas are facing the threat of malnutrition. Indonesia's rice farms. ravaged by wrong -policies It all began with the government deciding to promote …
Ultimately, it could be a victory for the much abused environment. With US industries and environmentalists at loggerheads for the past one year over the now familiar tug-of-war between environment and development, it seemed unlikely that a joint consensus could ever be achieved. But a presidential panel consisting of adversaries …
Cutting down a tree in the Punjab state of Pakistan could :result in a life-long sojourn at the prison, promises the Punjab chief minister, Arif Nakai. The ominous threat was delivered at the spring tree plantation campaign inauguration ceremony at Lahore Park, Lahore, on February 11 this year. Now onwards, …
Tuberculosis (TB), is claiming nearly 45 lives each day in Nepal. The alarming figures were disclosed by the National Tuberculosis Centre (NTC) recently in Kathmandu. While 60 per cent of the adult population have been iufected by TB, 50,000 new cases occur every year. The government's natioual TB policy includes …
The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that the drug used to fight breast cancer all over the world can actually be a carcinogenic agent by increasing the risk of contracting endometrial cancer. The disturbing news about Tamoxifen, the medicine given to women after breast cancer operations, was the result …
IT HAS come a full circle. Humans, who were responsible for the debacle in the first place, are now being asked to act as saviours too. The world's depleting fish stocks could get a boost if a new initiative of the World Wide Fund for Nature (wwF) and Unilever Plc, …
The latest progress reported in the quest for a toxic waste-free environment comes from researchers at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, US (Alternatives Journal. Vo122. No 1). Chemist Michael Hoffman and his colleagues have used high frequency ultrasound waves to break down samples of several toxic chemicals. Tiny …
HECTIC work is going on in order tominimi5e the consequences of anotherMajor oil spill in Russia. An accident atthe Tiiimazy-Omsk-Novosibirsk oilpipelinenear Ufa in Bashkortostan onDecember 26has contaminated theBelaya river which also runs through theneighbouring republic of Tatarstan.Bashkortostan environment ministerRustern Khamitov initially said thatonly 100 toifnes of oil had been discharged …
On his role as an economist serving the UN set-up which helped developing economies in Asia: I joined the UN in 1963 as an international civil servant with the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE, which later became ESCAp}. I was first attached to the cen- tral …
THE World Bank's (wB) staff have recently prepared a report -Mainstreaming the environment -docu- menting the progress made by the Bank in its effort to emerge as an active partner in implementing the Rio commitments for devel- opment which is environ- mentally sustainable. It is primarily an annual exercise which …
Sri Lankan environmental pioneer C Suriyakumaran has been selected by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), to share the 1995 Sasakawa International Environment Prize, worth US $200,000 with two others. He is the first Sri Lankan to have received such a major international award. The prize. announced late 1995, is …
IN WHAT could be Latin America's biggest gold mine Brazil, the world's sixth largest goii:1 producer, has 'reported a major 150--tonne gold find worth nearly. us $2 billion. But this time, the discovery, announced early last month, has raised fears of another possible invasion of garimpeiros or individual prospectors into …
The country's development is definitely taking a toll on its environment. The massive landslip on January 6, 1996, along the North-South highway between Tapah and -Gopeng, before Ipoh, the statq capital of Perak, was one among many others that point to a lack of environmental concern. As many as 29 …
At least 10 people died recently after a suspected outbreak of Ebola fever in the northeastern region of the country, according to officials of World Health Organization (wm). Ten out of 19 patients admitted to the hospital had shown symptoms of EboW which causes massive haemorrhaging, often leading to death. …
With the AIDS scourge assuming gigantic proportions in the South Asian countries, senior officials of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation ~et at a four-day workshop recently In Kathmandu, Nepal, to devise meaDs to tackle the rampantly spreading disease. The statemenf released at the end of the conference spoke …
Under a novel development strategy aimed at improving the farmers' cause, a seven-year project mainly funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, is to be launched in April jfl Sri Lanka. The scheme will involve the total participation of villagers alongwith NGOs. Currently, necessary tanks and villages are being …
To combat world hunger and malnutrition, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced on February 15 that it would be hosting the World Food Summit between November 13 to 17. at FAO's headquarters in Rome. The Summit will be attended by heads of state and will be the first gathering …
FOR certain US investors, it makes more sense to create money rather than thinking green. Why else would they hit upon the horrifying idea of felling trees in Siberia, which contains a fifth of the world's forests, to procure lumber to run idle sawmills in Oregon and Washington? Russian trees …
THE consumer rights crusades of Ralph Nader during the '60s and the '70s had the us government running around in circles. No wonder alarm bells have been ringing ever since Nader announced plans to take on the us President Bill Clinton from the left as a Green Party candidate, in …
STUNG by criticism that it -is environmentally insensitive, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a major funding institution, has decided to make public its environmental impact assessments before it signs the financial agreements for projects. Under, the new guidelines approved by the IFC board recently, the environmental impact assessments of different …
