Julio Godoy
PARIS, Jan 31 2006 (IPS) – The asbestos-contaminated French military aircraft carrier Clemenceau being towed to the Indian scrap-yard Alang for dismantling is among thousands of obsolete ships containing hazardous materials that need to be disposed of.
These ships, which have to be decommissioned following new regulations, represent an enormous health and environmental challenge for both the industrialised and the developing world, experts say.
Among these ships is the SS Norway, formerly a cruise liner known as the SS France built in a French yard in 1962. According to the environmental organisation Greenpeace, the SS Norway, now anchored in a harbour in Malaysia, contains about 1,000 tonnes of asbestos..
Unofficial sources say the Norway, until r…
Ángel Páez
LIMA, Mar 7 2006 (IPS) – A fifth rupture of the Camisea pipeline that transports natural gas from Peru s Amazon jungle region to the Pacific coast has once again exposed the weakness of the state in forcing companies to comply with national laws and international standards.
Between the first pipeline leak on Dec. 22, 2003 and the fourth, which occurred on Nov. 24, 2005, the Transportadora de Gas del Perú (TGP) consortium has been fined three times.
A spill that occurred on Saturday was the fifth in 18 months.
But a source with Peru s energy regulator, OSINERG, told IPS that TGP has appealed all of the penalties, because it considers them unjustified.
The consortium is made up of the Argentine firms Techint and PlusPetrol, Hunt Oil from T…
Bert Wilkinson
GEORGETOWN, Apr 7 2006 (IPS) – Sitting on a wooden restaurant stool while police and soldiers rummaged through a nearby building looking for guns, cocaine and other illegal items late last month, Roy Nelson breathed a sigh of relief that law enforcement agencies had finally mustered the gumption to tackle Guyana s growing drug trade.
I was planning to leave Guyana and go to Trinidad and work in construction rather than get killed by a stray bullet here, said Nelson, 28, as police and the military began country-wide raids against private and commercial installations owned or controlled by suspected drug lords.
We will see how this will play out in the end, Nelson said with a touch of scepticism. I may probably still stick around.
In recent yea…
Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Jun 7 2006 (IPS) – Fed up with poor water quality, rate hikes and a lack of investment in expanding infrastructure, residents, union members and environmentalists in the Argentine province of Córdoba have forced a multinational corporation to withdraw from the business, and are now demanding that the state play a part in a new public water company.
Feelings were running high in January this year, when water bills with up to 500 percent tariff increases started arriving. That, in the context of the current review of the wave of privatisations that took place in the 1990s, was the origin of this movement, Luis Bazán, leader of the People s Commission for the Recovery of Water in Córdoba, explained to IPS.
The association, made up of tra…
Stephen Leahy*
BROOKLIN, Canada, Jul 21 2006 (IPS) – Money, energy and water are the three key ingredients that have made it possible to ship a million barrels of oil a day from northern Alberta s oil sands to the United States and other markets. Incredible quantities of those three ingredients have been used so far, and much more will be needed for production to triple in the next 15 years.
Canada is a land of fresh-water lakes and rivers. The Athabasca River is born in the glaciers of Alberta s Jasper National Park and runs 1,538 kms through the oil sands region and eventually to Lake Athabasca in Wood Buffalo National Park. It is one of North America s longest undammed rivers, and one of its most beautiful.
To squeeze oil from millions of tonnes of tar-laden sand r…
Juliana Lara Resende and Alberto Cremonesi
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 29 2006 (IPS) – After five years of debate on a draft treaty to protect the rights of the disabled, which will directly affect 650 million people, or 10 percent of the global population, the United Nations has finalised its first ever legally binding treaty on the issue.
The new treaty, unveiled last Friday, would require countries to guarantee freedom from exploitation and abuse for the disabled, while protecting rights they already have, such as ensuring voting rights for blind people and providing wheelchair-accessible buildings. The convention calls for the progressive realisation of most of its provisions, in line with the resources of individual countries.
This convention will call the attention ins…
เกม Stellar Blade มีสกินตัวละครหลักอย่าง Eve ที่ค่อนข้างมีทรวดทรงองเอวที่สวยงามเห็นชัดเจน ยิ่งหลังจากที่ผู้เล่นหลายคนทราบว่าเกมนี้สามารถถอดชุดเกราะของ Eve ออกเหลือแต่ชุดแนบเนื้อที่เรียกว่า Skinsuit ยิ่งทำให้ผู้เล่นกรี๊ดแตกไปตาม ๆ กัน และหลายคนประกาศว่าจะใส่ Skinsuit ตะลุยเกมนี้ อย่างไรก็ตามล่าสุดผู…
Sword of Convallaria เป็นเกม Tactic RPG ที่มีส่วนผสมของเกมกาชา ทำให้เกมนี้เป็นอีกหนึ่งเกมที่จะมีระบบโค้ดแจกไอเทมมาให้ทุกคนได้นำไปใช้งานกันเพื่อรับไอเทมกันฟรี ๆ และในวันนี้เราก็ได้รวบรวมโค้ดดังกล่าวมาให้ทุกคนได้นำไปใช้งานกันแล้ว
รวมโค้ด Sword of Convallaria
Moyiga Nduru
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 29 2006 (IPS) – A few minutes before the deputy president of South Africa, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, stepped into the conference hall, a participant burst into song. Soon she was joined by her colleagues in welcoming the guest of honour.
Clapping hands, ululating, whistling, and swaying to and fro, more than 350 delegates from about 80 organisations across South Africa had gathered in Johannesburg to forge a united front against HIV/AIDS.
The two-day gathering, which ended Saturday, was organised by the South African Council of Churches, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the South African National NGO Coalition and the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) amongst others. (NGO stands for non-governmental organisation.)
Natasha Bolognesi
CAPE TOWN, Nov 29 2006 (IPS) – As the 11th annual conference of the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth drew to a close Wednesday in Cape Town, South Africa, the ability of Africa to adopt and sustain telemedicine to improve delivery of health care in under-serviced rural areas came under discussion.
eHealth enables rural health clinics with no in-house specialist care to obtain expert consultation and diagnosis through various information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as video-conferencing, or the e-mailing of digital images of patients to specialists in urban referral hospitals.
However, telemedicine projects already operational in sub-Saharan Africa show that the region presents several challenges concerning the demands…
Moyiga Nduru
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 29 2006 (IPS) – A few minutes before the deputy president of South Africa, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, stepped into the conference hall, a participant burst into song. Soon she was joined by her colleagues in welcoming the guest of honour.
Clapping hands, ululating, whistling, and swaying to and fro, more than 350 delegates from about 80 organisations across South Africa had gathered in Johannesburg to forge a united front against HIV/AIDS.
The two-day gathering, which ended Saturday, was organised by the South African Council of Churches, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the South African National NGO Coalition and the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) amongst others. (NGO stands for non-governmental organisation.)
Natasha Bolognesi
CAPE TOWN, Nov 29 2006 (IPS) – As the 11th annual conference of the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth drew to a close Wednesday in Cape Town, South Africa, the ability of Africa to adopt and sustain telemedicine to improve delivery of health care in under-serviced rural areas came under discussion.
eHealth enables rural health clinics with no in-house specialist care to obtain expert consultation and diagnosis through various information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as video-conferencing, or the e-mailing of digital images of patients to specialists in urban referral hospitals.
However, telemedicine projects already operational in sub-Saharan Africa show that the region presents several challenges concerning the demands…