In the last two decades, the number of persons affected by disasters increased at the rate of six per cent per year, which corresponds to three times the annual population growth. There were nearly

There are still many countries, mainly in Africa, where more than 30 per cent of women give birth to their first child before the age of 18. The maternal death rate is three times higher for teenage

The Indian Ocean is the only place where fish availability has not reduced, unlike all other oceans, which have seen a massive depletion of stocks due to vacuum fishing practices involving factory

It was a year of surprises. Nineteen-ninety-five was the hottest year and showed an anomaly of 0.4

Although considerable progress has been made towards the complete eradication of polio by the year 2000, the fact remains that polio cannot be eliminated anywhere unless it is eliminated everywhere.

Transport is an essential human activity and has a critical role in social development. But the environmental costs of this energy-intensive sector are also critical. It generates 20 per cent of

The urban population is rapidly growing the world over. Cities draw migrants with the promise of

The re-emergence of infectious diseases has become a matter of global concern; about 17 million of the 52 million deaths last year were classified as owing to infectious diseases. Changes in

Industrial advancement has no doubt improved the standard of living of human beings, but in the process the crucial environmental balance established by nature over a millenium has been inadvertantly

The origin of greenhouse gas emissions is an important issue in relation to the need for devising policy options to minimise potential global climate change and its impacts. The best known of the