The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
South Africa is all set to foray into the field of high-tech telescope. The Astronomical Observatory in Johannesburg is brimming with confidence after its spectacular success in capturing the images of Comet Shoemaker Levy crashing into Jupiter earlier this year and it is now trying its best to woo partners …
Mexico is fighting hard to correct its ozone levels on ground. According to the Metropolitan Commission for the Prevention and control of Mexico City Pollution, lead levels have decreased by almost 90 percent a and CO levels are "with in norms equivalent to those of the US environment protection agency". …
CARS have become the most prominent roadsign on the Indian economy's journey up the rocky road of economic liberalisation. The protagonists of these policies routinely iterate, along with other supposedly supportive figures, the increase in the number and varieties of privately owned 4-wheelers in the country as hard-driving proof of …
The European Court of Justice has rejected Germany's complaint about the European Community's (ec) banana import rules. Germany, the largest importer of bananas, favours the Latin American variety and its grouse is that the ec regime prefers producers in Europe and its former colonies over Latin America. Until recently, Germany …
Fisherfolk in the Maldives are worried that a recent govetnment decision to allow foreign vessels to operate 120-68 km from the countrys shoreline will rob them of tliew livelihood, as hi-jech ships capable of sinking thousands of fishing lines into the ocean at one time will eat up the fish …
Trees in the cities of the UK are feeling the cutting edge of the latest communications boom. Tree roots are being severed as cable companies dig trenches along an estimated 80 km of streets a day to feed the insatiable public appetite for new television channels. Environmental groups like the …
OPPONENTS of market economies have written many elegies to the erosion by the greed of capitalism of nature's primeval beauty. Their laments are akin to the loss of the Old World that the landed gentry felt at the coming of commercial farming. None of that romanticism left a lasting impression, …
The Thai government has come up with an ingenious plan to reduce traffic congestion. The idea is to create 2 dozen special car parks on the outskirts of the city, where commuters can leave their cars before taking a bus into the heart of the town. Sceptics are convinced that …
With no major breakthroughs in the fight against aids, the just-concluded 10th Annual International Conference on the disease, held at Yokohama, Japan, turned out to be a routine affair. The only new approach was using the tools of genetic engineering to alter the immune systems of newborns to enable them …
Money lenders continue to exercise an iron grip on the fragile economy of rural Bangladesh. A recent survey conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics reveals that rural borrowers prefer to take loans from village money lenders rather than commercial banks. The rural credit survey on around 15 million households,shows …
COMPUTERS:Computer-chip manufacturing technology is about to undergo a revolutionary change. The 4 US-based bigwigs - IBM, AT&T;, Motorola and Loral - have put their heads together to develop semiconductors through X-rays instead of ultraviolet tight. These, they claim, would be vastly more powerful than those in use today. "We see …
The erratic rationale that has often led unrequited love to pen down its sighs has defied "scientific" comprehension. But recently, Fredric Jones of the University of Cardiff in the UK claims to have cut this emotional Gordian knot with a mathematical sword (New Scientist, Vol 143, No 1935). He used …
CHINA's explosive economic growth rate has wreaked havoc on its environment. The signs are everywhere: from the algae-clotted Chao Lake in Tangxi, Hefei's putrid tap water, to the acid rain-ravaged Great Wall and smog-covered Benxi in Manchuria. Vaclav Smil, a professor at the University of Manitoba in Canada, believes that …
The US dairy industry is having second thoughts about the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Jim Bar, the head of the National Milk Producers' Federation, has complained that GATT, as currently structured, is a net loss to North American dairy producers, in a letter to US diminutive but …
Rapid Strides (37 mins, directed by Shahid Jamal) is a success story in which, surprisingly, the state does not play the role of a villain. Arunachal Pradesh's Department of Power, apparently, knows all about eco-friendly power generation, and is willing to put its money where its mouth is. So the …
Night life in Singapore can now mean observing tropical animals. A new wildlife park, the Night Safari Park, has been set up on 40 hectares next to the Singapore Zoological Gardens. Across extra-wide moats or through camouflaged fences, visitors can see 1,200 creatures from more than 90 species, nearly half …
A RECENT UN accord on acid rain committed its 26 signatory nations to drastic cuts in sulphur dioxide emissions -- largely responsible for the phenomenon that wreaks havoc with humans, crops, lakes and forests. The cuts, scheduled for up to 2005 AD, range from 30 per cent for Canada to …
Are we alone in this vast universe? Perhaps. Perhaps not. However, those who believe in the plurality of life have so far had little luck in their search for extraterrestrial intelligence. But recently, astronomers at the University of Illinois in Urbana, USA, detected one of life's building materials, the amino …
US SPACECRAFT Galileo has recently sent pictures of a tiny moon orbiting 243 Ida -- a 56 km-long asteroid in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. This is the first confirmed evidence of a natural satellite kowtowing to an asteroid (Nature, Vol 368, No 6470). The miniature moon, astronomers …
ECO-TOURISM has not won many supporters in Russia. Prominent Russian scientists have severely criticised government plans to encourage commercialisation of state-owned nature reserves, says a report in Nature. Among the proposed measures are admission charges for visitors and permission for hunting for a fee. Vadim Tihomirov, chairperson of the reserves …
