In The News

Virus in China Highlights an Old Problem

Nicholas Zamiska May 6, 2008
Hand, foot and mouth disease is a common and highly contagious childhood ailment that can be prevented by washing hands often and thoroughly. But people must know about the disease to practice vigilance. Thousands of children in China have contracted the disease, and international health officials raised questions before China’s closed media system reported a government announcement. “Communist...

Deadly Greed: The Role of Speculators in the Global Food Crisis

Beat Balzli April 25, 2008
Investors, sensing opportunity in climbing food prices, made record profits in the commodities markets, including wheat, corn, rice and palm oil. “Commodity speculation spread long ago from standard products like oil and gold to anything edible and available for trade on the Chicago Futures Exchange,” write Beat Balzli and Frank Hornig for Spiegel Online. The futures market allowed farmers to...

Global Approach Required to Tackle Food Prices

Dominique Strauss-Khan April 21, 2008
Warnings about climate change, biofuels, use of agricultural land for other purposes and the herd mentality of the financial markets have been ample over the past year. Still, food shortages, rising prices and the resulting humanitarian crisis have come as a surprise for some governments. The managing director of the International Monetary Fund calls for immediate global planning. “Unless we act...

“Telemedicine” Links Africans to Indian Expertise

Barry Malone April 16, 2008
Using its information-technology expertise, India has launched a telemedicine project that allows doctors in Ethiopia to consult on images or lab results online with physicians, based in India, 2000 miles away. “Ethiopia's health problems are mirrored across Africa where doctors and nurses are often overworked and underpaid, villagers have to walk miles to the nearest clinic and drugs and...

The Health Insurance Mafia

Jonathan Kellerman April 14, 2008
Advocates of health-care reform in the US look to universal insurance coverage as means to improve the health care system. However, Jonathan Keller, professor of pediatrics and psychology at University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine argues that the real problem is the nature of the insurance industry’s business model. Insurers bet against the ill health of their consumers,...

Food Prices Stir Poverty Concern

April 11, 2008
Development and trade have lifted many from poverty, but have also widened inequality around the globe. Diverting grain crops from food products to biofuels depleted global food stocks causing spikes in prices. Climate change and a declining dollar also add to prices. Reports of food riots and families stretching meals by adding dirt as an ingredient reveal growing desperation in the world’s...

A Small Stove With Big Ambitions

Margot Cohen April 7, 2008
The invention of a tiny stove in India demonstrates the link between reduced carbon emissions and improved health – and how technology can contribute to slowing climate change. Global energy giant BP is producing and marketing Oorja, which means energy in Hindi, a small pellet stove that produces substantially fewer emissions than the traditional wood-burning stoves so common throughout India. In...