By Michael Santo, Tech Buzz Examiner22 January 2012 Reports such as SACOM’s from May of 2011 have shown us of the stresses, low wages, and unsafe conditions of plants such as those used for manufacturing iDevices and other electronics. Yet, on the surface, a New York Times report seems to point to more than just […]
After sliding considerably in the first half of 2010, the agricultural commodity price indices of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) rose sharply, reaching peaks around February 2011 (figure II.9). Despite subsequent falls, prices remain comparatively high. The food price index averaged 268 points from January to September 2011, up 21.8 per […]
By DAN MORRISON20 January 2012 DHAKA, Bangladesh – Earlier this month, Bangladesh’s foreign minister chided the world’s developed nations for failing to honor their pledge to help this low-lying, water-logged nation adapt to the effects of climate change. Of the $30 billion that poor countries were promised three years ago, just $2.5 billion have been […]
By MARTIN FACKLER21 January 2012 ONAMI, Japan – In the fall, as this valley’s rice paddies ripened into a carpet of gold, inspectors came to check for radioactive contamination. Onami sits just 35 miles northwest of the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which spewed radioactive cesium over much of this rural region last March. However, […]
By Nancy Shute20 January 2012 Food is getting elbowed out of the discussion on climate change, which could spell disaster for the 1 billion people who will be added to the world’s population in the next 15 years. That’s the word today from scientists wondering why food and sustainability get such short shrift when it […]
[Desdemona suspects this: Sequential Collapse of Marine Mammals in the North Pacific Ocean and southern Bering Sea.] By Remy Melina, LiveScience.com 19 January 2012 Killer whales and other ocean predators are targeting and killing the pups of a threatened northern sea lion species at an increasingly high rate, scientists warned this week. Without a reduction […]
Contact: Alan Buis, 818-354-0474, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov 18 January 2012 La Niña, “the diva of drought,” is peaking, increasing the odds that the Pacific Northwest will have more stormy weather this winter and spring, while the southwestern and southern United States will be dry. Sea surface height data from NASA’s Jason-1 and […]
RABAT, Morocco, January 19 (AP) – Five unemployed Moroccan men set themselves on fire in the capital Rabat as part of widespread demonstrations in the country over the lack of jobs, especially for university graduates, a rights activist said Thursday. Three were burned badly enough to be hospitalized. Self-immolation has become a tactic of protest […]
Text issued as NASA Headquarters release No. 12-020Steve Cole, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., 202-358-0918stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov Leslie McCarthy, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, N.Y., 212-678-5507leslie.m.mccarthy@nasa.gov 19 January 2012 The global average surface temperature in 2011 was the ninth warmest since 1880, according to NASA scientists. The finding continues a trend in which nine of […]
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com19 January 2012 Damming of the Xingu River has begun in Brazil to make way for the eventual construction of the hugely controversial, Belo Monte dam. The Norte Energia (NESA) consortium has begun building coffer dams across the Xingu, which will dry out parts of the river before permanent damming, reports the […]
