VIVEK CHHETRI

Svacha in Darjeeling on Monday. (Suman Tamang)
Darjeeling, July 28: A scientist for whose release his peers across the world had launched a campaign is now afraid that he might lose his job once he goes back to his country.

Leading figures from the United Nations met in Switzerland on Monday to chart a solution to dramatic food price increases that have caused hunger, riots and hoarding in poor countries around the world. Vietnam acted to quell panic over rice supplies on Monday, banning speculation in the market after a "chaotic" buying binge in the Southeast Asian nation highlighted growing global fears about food security.

Arctic ice may be melting faster than most climate change science has concluded, the conservation group WWF said in a report published on Thursday. It found that ice in Greenland and across the Arctic region was retreating "at rates significantly faster than predicted in previous expert assessments". The Greenland Ice Sheet -- with an ice volume of about 2.9 million cubic kilometres -- is shrinking at a fast pace and "could contribute much more than previously estimated to global sea-level rise during the 21st century," the WWF said.

Climate change is aggravating the global food crisis and many poor countries could be facing the start of major hunger disasters, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Tuesday. Agricultural production worldwide must be revamped over time but poor farmers in Africa and elsewhere need help now to meet the spiralling costs of fertiliser, which has prevented them from planting more crops, he said.

The US economic crisis takes the centre-stage at WEF

What killed the dinosaurs

ARCHI RASTOGI it is said that locusts thrive in warm weather. Folk wisdom has it that the outbreaks of the oriental migratory locust (Locusta migratoria manilensis) follow either droughts or