In The News

Ecologists Fear Disaster as Oil Rush Takes Grip in Quake Zone

Nick Paton Walsh August 25, 2003
The Russian island of Sakhalin will soon be home to the largest energy project in the world, and there is fear, possibly the largest disaster. The oil rich island borders Japan and lies directly on top of an active seismic fault line, a fact that has environmentalists up in arms. They fear that the underground pipelines will not be able to withstand the island's frequent earthquakes and...

Ecologists Fear Disaster as Oil Rush Takes Grip in Quake Zone

Nick Paton Walsh August 25, 2003
The Russian island of Sakhalin will soon be home to the largest energy project in the world, and there is fear, possibly the largest disaster. The oil rich island borders Japan and lies directly on top of an active seismic fault line, a fact that has environmentalists up in arms. They fear that the underground pipelines will not be able to withstand the island's frequent earthquakes and...

Ecologists Fear Disaster as Oil Rush Takes Grip in Quake Zone

Nick Paton Walsh August 25, 2003
The Russian island of Sakhalin will soon be home to the largest energy project in the world, and there is fear, possibly the largest disaster. The oil rich island borders Japan and lies directly on top of an active seismic fault line, a fact that has environmentalists up in arms. They fear that the underground pipelines will not be able to withstand the island's frequent earthquakes and...

Cutting Support Can Help Farmers to Prosper

Stefan Tangermann August 22, 2003
Farm subsidies remain an extremely contentious issue as the widely anticipated WTO meeting in Cancun draws closer. While farmers in developing countries plead with wealthy nations to eliminate trade distorting tariffs and subsidies, farmers in the developed world fear that doing so will destroy their farms and way of life. However, Stefan Tangermann, director for food, agriculture and fisheries...

Ending the Middle East's Cycle of Terror Requires Some Serious Soul-Searching

August 21, 2003
The international community vocally condemned the bombing of the UN headquarters in Iraq and reaffirmed its commitment to the pursuit of peace. However, though this reaction was thoroughly appropriate, it was also insufficient, the editorial in a Lebanese daily maintains. "The imperative before us all today is not only to reaffirm our iron-clad abhorrence of terror and our principled...

Birds Trying to Fly South Face Many Roadblocks

Michael Richardson August 15, 2003
One of the oldest examples of globalization does not involve airplanes, the internet, trade agreements, or even human beings, says veteran Asia watcher Michael Richardson. Every year, shorebirds of the Asia-Pacific traverse the eastern hemisphere in a 25,000 mile odyssey that lands them in regions as far flung as Australia and Siberia. They take flight when winter arrives in their northern...

Farm Deal Puts WTO Talks at Risk

Charlotte Denny August 14, 2003
The US and the EU spoke optimistically about their new agreement on farm subsidies last night, but many developing countries doubt whether tangible change will result. Agricultural reform has been an extremely contentious issue in the WTO, often dividing the developed and the developing worlds. Europe, the United States, and Japan spend billions of dollars a year on agricultural subsidies, a...