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 …
on march 9, 2007, a fire in a scrap godown in an unauthorised colony in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh (up), killed a young boy and left many injured. The cause of fire is still unknown. The godown is situated within a residential colony, Vikram Enclave, Extension 1, at the Delhi- up …
The drive to the Chittagong shipbreaking yards betrays the character of the destination. The road is dotted with shops selling remnants of once-floating behemoths. Timber, torn out of ships, and wood in all shapes and sizes being sold are the most common sight. This is scrap wood and will be …
with the Indian economy growing at a breathtaking pace, the urban Indian consumer has never had it so good. There are more cars, more ipods, more mobile phones than what anybody could have imagined 15 years ago. Fuelled by rising advertising revenues, the media is focused only on phenomenal growth …
researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, us, examined data on chemical toxicity and have identified 202 industrial chemicals that they say are responsible for neural disorders like autism, attention deficit disorder and mental retardation in children worldwide. The study was published …
• The World Wildlife Fund for Nature has called on the International Marine Organization and the international shipping community to outlaw tributylin, a paint used to stop shellfish and other marine life from sticking to ship hulls. Tributylin pollutes the marine food chain and contains endocrine-disrupting properties. • The European …
another attempt to bring chrysotile, the most common form of asbestos, under the prior informed consent list (pic) of the Rotterdam Convention has failed. Parties to this international treaty governing trade in toxic substances met in Geneva between October 10 and 13, 2006. But they couldn't agree on adding chrysotile …
the past month has been bad for activists and groups fighting big industry and trying to jam the levers they control. In Geneva, the Canadian government put its weight behind the chrysotile (white) asbestos lobby to derail a multilateral process. They successfully managed to keep white asbestos out of the …
The Blue Lady touched Indian shores in the first week of July. The 38,000-tonne ocean-liner's year-long search for a breaking yard has been dogged with controversies, with groups such as the Ban Asbestos Network of India claiming that "it contains 1,200 tonnes of asbestos and unknown quantities of other toxins'. …
green flag to blue lady: The Supreme Court, on June 5, 2006, gave the green light to the French cruise liner S S Norway, a k a Blue Lady, to enter Indian territorial waters and permitted it to anchor near the Alang coast in Gujarat. The ship allegedly contains 1,200 …
one child died and another had his leg amputated after exposure to toxic industrial waste dumped on a plot in Karachi, Pakistan. Two other children also sustained serious burn injuries in the incident that occurred in March. The plot is located in Abidabad in Sindh Industrial Trading Estate (site). Following …
following the French warship Le Clemenceau, an Iranian tanker, M V Rashleigh, is bound for Gujarat's Alang port for dismantling, that has created a controversy. The ship arrived at Alang on April 9, 2006, but was left stranded in mid-sea as the Gujarat Maritime Board (gmb) denied it beaching permission …
what a waste: For the past two months, 11-year-old Tsheten Dorji is being treated for third-degree burns he received from chemical waste dumped by factories in Balujhora in Bhutan's Pasakha town. The town residents complain that factories dumped waste very near residential areas. "Children are always playing about the site. …
the Union finance minister's (fm's) announcement to restore a five per cent custom duty on the import of steel scrap for melting has given some hope to shipbreakers. The announcement has come at a time when the ailing shipbreaking industry in Alang was striving to get over the setback of …
The Czech government has stepped up border checks and vowed to increase monitoring of remote farmland areas after officials discovered over a dozen sites that German companies were illegally using to dump their waste. The Czech environment ministry is now ascertaining the extent of the illicit waste disposal trade between …
helpful germs: Scientists have found a bacteria that could help transform disposable cups and plates into a biodegradable plastic, according to a recent study. The useful microbes are a special strain of the soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida, according to Kevin O'Connor of University College Dublin, Ireland, the study's corresponding author. …
I still remember the sharp chill that went down my spine when I first set my gaze upon Alang shipyard on a spring afternoon in 1996. As far as I could see from my elevation at the north end of the yard, there were nearly a hundred vessels, or what …
For the third time, Le Clemenceau has been forced to turn back and return to France. The French government summoned the decommissioned ship back even though France's defence minister argued that there were no suitable scrapyards in Europe. Clemenceau had been waiting outside Indian territorial waters for permission to dock …
The decommisssioned French warship Le Clemenceau may be on its way back, but all is not well at Alang. Another French ship China Sea Discovery caught fire at the shipyard on February 17, 2006, killing five labourers. The 19,000 tonne passenger vessel, now owned by Kishor Bansal, went up in …
