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The restrictions do not set out an enforcement mechanism or penalties, but require member countries to prevent ships with more than 500 passengers from landing in Antarctica and to allow a maximum of 100 passengers on shore at any given time.

Another resolution adopted at the meeting places a mandatory safety code on vessels operating in the region, while a third enhances environmental protection for the entire Antarctic ecosystem.

16 Apr 09

'Green Revolution' Trapping India's Farmers In Debt : NPR

Article about the use of water associated with the Green Revolution

www.npr.org/...story.php - Preview

agriculture food salinisation

The new miracle seeds could produce far bigger yields than farmers had ever seen, but they came with a catch: The thirsty crops needed much more water than natural rainfall could provide, so farmers had to dig wells and irrigate with groundwater.
Another side effect of the groundwater crisis is evident at the edge of the fields — thin straggly rows of wheat and a whitish powder scattered across the soil.
The white substance is salt residue. Drilling deep wells to find fresh water often taps brackish underground pools, and the salty water poisons the crops.
"The salt causes root injuries," Palwinder says. "The root cannot take the nutrients from the soil."
1 more annotations...
- India has to launch a brand new Green Revolution. But he says this one has to be sustainable.

15 Apr 09

BBC NEWS | Africa | Growing sophistication of pirates

news.bbc.co.uk/...7995170.stm - Preview

There seems to be no end to the attacks on foreign ships by Somali pirates.
Last year, more than 40 ships were captured, and with ransoms ranging from $500,000 (£341,120) to $2m, they have made a fortune.
2 more annotations...
- One reason why the pirates can now operate hundreds of kilometres out to sea is that they can afford faster, more robust boats and satellite tracking systems.
- Despite the existence of a United Nations arms embargo against Somalia, the pirates have had no trouble in getting their hands on large quantities of military equipment.

10 Apr 09

BBC NEWS | Americas | Country profiles | Water cut off in Mexican capital

More evidence of water stress in a large city.

news.bbc.co.uk/...7993279.stm - Preview

Unusually low rainfall last year and major leakage are blamed for leaving reservoirs less than half full.
More than 50% of the water carried by the pipeline leaks out before it reaches its destination
1 more annotations...
- Mexico City was once a floating city, built on a spectacular chain of volcanic lakes, and flooding used to be its main environmental threat.
  
  But since the lakes were finally drained in the 1960s, the city has been struggling with its water supply, our correspondent says.

Johann Hari: The Dark Side Of Dubai

This is a very interesting article about Dubai - it covers issues of economic migrants, urbanisation, water scarcity and deserts.

www.huffingtonpost.com/...rk-side-of-dubai_b_183851.html - Preview

labour_flows globalization

Nobody told her there is no concept of bankruptcy. If you get into debt and you can't pay, you go to prison.
As soon as you quit your job in Dubai, your employer has to inform your bank. If you have any outstanding debts that aren't covered by your savings, then all your accounts are frozen, and you are forbidden to leave the country.
13 more annotations...
- Sahinal Monir, a slim 24 year-old from the deltas of Bangladesh.
- As soon as he arrived at Dubai airport, his passport was taken from him by his construction company. He has not seen it since. He was told brusquely that from now on he would be working fourteen hour days in the desert-heat - where Western tourists are advised not to stay outside for even five minutes in summer, when it hits 55 degrees - for 500 durhams a month (£90), less than a quarter of the wage he was promised. If you don't like it, the company told him, go home. "But how can I go home? You have my passport, and I have no money for the ticket," he said. "Well, then you'd better get to work," they replied.
- The work is "the worst in the world," he says. "You have to carry 50kg bricks and blocks of cement in the worst heat imaginable ... This heat - it is like nothing else.
- Since the credit crunch, they say, the electricity has been cut off in dozens of the camps, and the men have not been paid for months. Their companies have disappeared with their passports and their pay. "We have been robbed of everything. Even if somehow we get back to Bangladesh, the loan sharks will demand we repay our loans immediately, and when we can't, we'll be sent to prison."
- "This is the best place in the world to be young! The government pays for your education up to PhD level. You get given a free house when you get married. You get free healthcare, and if it's not good enough here, they pay for you to go abroad. You don't even have to pay for your phone calls. Almost everyone has a maid, a nanny, and a driver. And we never pay any taxes. Don't you wish you were Emirati?"
- For Emiratis, this is a Santa Claus state, handing out goodies while it makes its money elsewhere: through renting out land to foreigners, soft taxes on them like business and airport charges, and the remaining dribble of oil.
- The Middle East will be far more dangerous if Dubai fails. Our export isn't oil, it's hope. Poor Egyptians or Libyans or Iranians grow up saying - I want to go to Dubai. We're very important to the region. We are showing how to be a modern Muslim country. We don't have any fundamentalists here. Europeans shouldn't gloat at our demise. You should be very worried.... Do you know what will happen if this model fails? Dubai will go down the Iranian path, the Islamist path."
- All the guidebooks call Dubai a "melting pot", but as I trawled across the city, I found that every group here huddles together in its own little ethnic enclave
- All over Dubai, crazy projects that were Under Construction are now Under Collapse. They were building an air-conditioned beach here, with cooling pipes running below the sand, so the super-rich didn't singe their toes on their way from towel to sea.
- This is the most water-stressed place on earth, according to the UN - yet it is littered with sprinklers, giant artificial ski-slopes frozen to create real snow, and tanks filled with dolphins.
- Environmental Director of the Gulf Research Centre, sits in his Dubai office and warns: "This is a desert area, and we are trying to defy its environment. It is very unwise. If you take on the desert, you will lose."
- There is no surface water, very little aquifer, and some of the lowest rainfall in the world. So Dubai drinks the sea. The Emirates' water is stripped of salt in vast desalination plants around the Gulf - making it the most expensive water on earth.
- Dubai had expanded so fast its sewage treatment facilities couldn't keep up. The sewage disposal trucks had to queue for three or four days at the treatment plants - so instead, they were simply drilling open the manholes and dumping the untreated sewage down them, so it flowed straight to the sea.

05 Apr 09

PowerPoint: Citations

www.ils.unc.edu/...introduction.html - Preview

Yes I am always interested in discussing powerpoint and working out ways to make presentations better as well as ways to guide students. Jocelyn - jpopinchalk on 2009-04-05

14 Mar 09

Eco-tourism: Egypt - Travel Africa Magazine

www.travelafricamag.com/...56 - Preview

Belatedly, legislation has been enforced by the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency to prevent new development from destroying the coastline, coral reefs or tidal flats.
he has ended up creating an entire environmentally-friendly town over a period of ten years. Situated 21km north of Hurghada, El Gouna (or Lagoon) has grown to become one of Egypt's premier tourist resorts. The town's infrastructure is independent: Orascom built electricity plants, a sewage treatment plant, roads, lagoons, and has installed satellite phones, a transportation network, two marinas, a Nubian-style village, an airport, a hospital and an international school. Most important of all, in a desert land, says Samih, "we have a water treatment plant that enables us to reuse every drop of water in an efficient way."

09 Mar 09

Teens and Technology » International Schools

wiki designed to test ways of integrating technology into the classroom. Some great links including a list of 50 Web 2.0 tools.

teensandtechnology.wikispaces.com/International+Schools - Preview

teens technology Web2.0

Teens and Technology » home

wiki designed to help integrate technology at secondary and college level. Lots of resources including a list of 50 Web 2.0 tools and links to them.

teensandtechnology.wikispaces.com - Preview

teens technology Web2.0

14 Feb 09

Laid-off foreigners flee as Dubai declines - International Herald Tribune

Dubai changes due to economic downturn

www.iht.com/...12dubai.php - Preview

urbanisation+settlement

Now, like many of the foreign workers who make up 90 percent of the population here, she has been laid off and faces the prospect of being forced to leave this Gulf city — or worse.
That in turn reduces spending, creates housing vacancies and lowers real estate prices, in a downward spiral that has left parts of Dubai — once hailed as the economic superpower of the Middle East — looking like a ghost town.

12 Feb 09

Gross National Happiness | Environment | AlterNet

www.alternet.org/...21083 - Preview

Today, the concept of GNH resonates with a wide range of initiatives, across the world, to define prosperity in more holistic terms and to measure actual wellbeing rather than consumption. By contrast the conventional concept of Gross National Product (GNP) measures only the sum total of material production and exchange in any country.

11 Feb 09

BBC NEWS | Business | Bank says UK 'in deep recession'

news.bbc.co.uk/...7883255.stm - Preview

David Kern, chief economist at the British Chambers of Commerce said that the Bank's forecast for a recovery by 2010 "seems unduly optimistic" and hoped "it would not deter them from from easing monetary policy aggressively so as to alleviate the threats facing the economy".
But he said in the future, the Bank could buy government bonds - or gilts - directly in order to help increase the amount of money in the economy.
In the US, the Federal Reserve has also hinted at taking such action, but appears to have recently pulled back from the direct purchase of US government debt.

Answers.com Dictionary Quicksearch

Type "dict <word>" in the location bar to perform a dictionary look-up

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'Green Revolution' Trapping India's Farmers In Debt : NPR

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