Today is World Water Day. The WWF has warned of an escalation in the global water crisis, saying that more than 50 violent conflicts have erupted around the world over water usage just since the turn of the century. WWF said demand for energy and food threatens to exacerbate the already simmering water crisis and would lead to more disputes.
Leaders and environmental experts recently gathered in Marseilles for a week-long World Water Forum to discuss access to clean water, water rights, and the use of modern water-related technologies. Demand for water from agriculture, which already accounts for around 70 percent of the freshwater used globally, is expected to rise by at least 19 percent by 2050. A separate study published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) forecast that water demand would rise by 55 percent by 2050, with 40 percent of people likely to live in areas of potential water stress. Not only is there a growing crisis because of the lack of potable water, more than one million people die each year from consuming contaminated water.
March 22, 2012
March 19, 2012
European researchers announced that they had again measured the speed of a subatomic particle that a September experiment suggested traveled faster than the speed of light. If it had, that would violate Einstein’s special theory of relativity, which underlies much of modern physics. Einstein’s theory of relativity says that nothing in the universe can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, approximately 186,282 miles per second. 
That speed factors into all kinds of calculations, from estimates about the size and age of the universe to the radius of black holes. The research team that tried to verify the earlier result found that the particles, neutrinos, do not in fact travel faster than light. The team, called Icarus, measured the speed of neutrinos fired from CERN to a detector 453 miles away in Italy. Opera was the team that reported in September that its tests appeared to show neutrinos speeding faster than light. Doubts about the Opera results were heightened last month when researchers said they had found a flaw in the technical setup that could have distorted the experiment’s figures. The Icarus team’s results came from a trial run for a longer experiment planned to take place in April or May. The Opera team, too, will repeat its experiment, this time with the technical glitches ironed out. So, Einstein is still right, at least for now.
March 17, 2012
As the Chinese government moves ahead on a multibillion-dollar effort to blanket the country with surveillance cameras, one American company stands to profit: Bain Capital, the private equity firm founded by Mitt Romney. Chinese cities are installing surveillance systems with hundreds of thousands of cameras. In December, a Bain-run fund in which a Romney family blind trust has holdings purchased the video surveillance division of a Chinese company that claims to be the largest supplier to the government’s Safe Cities program, 
Bain’s decision to enter China’s fast-growing surveillance industry raises questions about the direct role that American corporations play in outfitting authoritarian governments with technology that can be used to repress their own citizens. All the while, Romney has frequently called for a hard line against the Chinese government’s suppression of religious freedom and political dissent. And, as with previous deals involving American companies, Bain’s acquisition of Uniview violates the spirit, if not necessarily the letter, of American sanctions imposed on Beijing after the deadly crackdown on protests in Tiananmen Square. Those rules bar American corporations from exporting to China “crime-control” products like those that process fingerprints, make photo identification cards, or use night vision technology. While privately profiting from these semi-illegal exports, Mr. Romney publicly has accused the Obama administration of placing economic concerns above human rights in managing relations with China, and he has called on the White House to offer more vigorous support of those who criticize the Chinese Communist Party. Mitt, once again, hypocrisy is thy name.
March 16, 2012
After 244 years, the Encyclopedia Britannica is going out of print. The move is an acknowledgment of the realities of the digital age - and of competition from Wikipedia. Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., a company based in Chicago, will focus now on its online encyclopedias and curriculum for schools. 
March 8, 2012
The Republican-controlled Judiciary Committee in the House celebrated International Women’s Day by holding a hearing to promote a mean-spirited and constitutionally suspect bill called the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act. It is both an attack on women’s rights and on the basic principles of federalism. Currently, thirty-two states have laws requiring teenagers to consult their parents or get their permission, or else seek a judge’s permission, before obtaining an abortion. The new bill would expand the reach of those restrictions by imposing a mandatory parental notification requirement and 24-hour waiting period on women under 18 who travel outside their home state to get the procedure. 
Anyone who helps the minor in the absence of judicial authorization without first informing her parent or legal guardian — and that includes grandparents, older siblings, and clergy — would be subject to criminal and civil penalties that include up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine. Under threat of criminal and civil penalties, doctors also would be forced to comply with a burdensome legal regimen involving the interaction of varying state laws and those of the provider’s home state. A similar measure is pending in the Senate. The bill not only isolates desperate young women, it increases the chances they will resort to unsafe alternatives for termination of their pregnancies or delay the procedure, making it more dangerous. In their zeal to force teenagers to bear children against their will, the measure’s sponsors included no exception to protect a teenager’s health. That is a clear violation of Supreme Court precedent, not to metion fundamental decency. It is also in keeping with the rest of the right-wing agenda on contraception and abortion. While claiming to want to get government off our backs, Republicans are trying to get it firmly jammed between women’s legs.
March 1, 2012
Nearly half of the world's children are growing up in slums, and the numbers are only expected to increase as the world's cities continue growing, according to UNICEF’s State of the World's Children 2012 report. The agency projects the urban population of 7 billion to balloon to include two-thirds of the more than 9 billion people expected to live on earth by 2050. But the quality of life in towns and cities, 
particularly in those of the developing and emerging countries, tends to be poor. Ever more families are moving into the world's cities, so already one in three children is growing up in a slum. In many of the world's slums up to 50 percent of children are malnourished and excluded from medical care and education, despite the fact that cities generally offer more schools, playgrounds, and hospitals than rural areas. The number of malnourished and undernourished children also is increasing. In India, 54 percent of the poorest children in slums are physically or mentally disabled because of inadequate nourishment. Unhygienic and cramped living conditions lead to more epidemics, tuberculosis, diarrhea, and pneumonia.
