In The News

Poverty Breeds Insecurity

January 19, 2005
At the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000, world leaders placed development at the heart of the global agenda by adopting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which set clear targets for reducing poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and discrimination against women by 2015. To devise a plan for implementation and recommend strategies for developing...

Invisible Export – A Hidden Cost of China's Growth: Mercury Migration

Matt Pottinger December 20, 2004
When an American hockey player suffered symptoms from mercury contamination, he never expected that he might have power plants half way across the world in China to blame. With its growing appetite for energy, China is finding its many coal-burning power plants hard at work generating the much needed electricity power – as well as huge amounts of air pollutants like sulfur dioxide and mercury....

On AIDS, Avoid Acting Too Late

Solomon Sacco December 1, 2004
This World AIDS Day brings with it greatly advanced knowledge about combating the deadly illness, but also concerns for regions where the risk is silently increasing. Many observers fear that, much like sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s, Middle East and North African nations will not confront the threat of AIDS until it is too late. Although infection rates in the Middle East are much lower than in...

India's Pharma Ache

Yogi Aggarwal November 4, 2004
By mastering the process of reverse engineering, the Indian pharmaceutical industry has successfully produced generic drugs at low prices – crucial for providing affordable treatment to those in need. The government's impending adoption of Trips (Trade Related Intellectual Property in Services), a WTO measure, may significantly hamper the industry's success. If the Indian parliament...

Surgeries, Side Trips for "Medical Tourists"

John Lancaster October 21, 2004
As health care costs skyrocket, patients in the developed world are looking overseas for medical treatment. India is capitalizing on its low costs and highly trained doctors to appeal to these "medical tourists." Even with airfare, the cost of going to India for surgery can be markedly cheaper, and the quality of services is often better than that found in the United States and UK....

Scientists Herald Malaria Breakthrough

Sarah Boseley October 15, 2004
Each year, according to estimates from the World Health Organization, 300 to 500 million cases of malaria occur, and more than one million people die of the disease. Recent clinical trials in Mozambique indicate that a vaccine for malaria may be on the horizon. Human trials have shown that the vaccine protected some infants from the disease altogether and reduced the severity of malaria in...

Coping with World Population Boom and Bust – Part I

Joseph Chamie August 19, 2004
The world’s population - currently at 6.4 billion - has quadrupled over the past century. In the first of a two-part series, UN demographer Joseph Chamie says that the global population boom has been accompanied by revolutionary changes in life expectancy, fertility, population aging, and large-scale migration – issues that will fundamentally shape the politics of the next century. Even with...