As at least two days of talks on the future of Iran’s nuclear program got underway in Baghdad on Wednesday, neo-conservatives and other hawks escalated their campaign against any compromise agreement, particularly one that would permit Tehran to continue enriching uranium on its territory.
Our focus in this presentation is on modern biotechnology in crops and animal species. Traditional biotechnology is as old as agriculture and quite harmless. We are not also looking at hybridisation of crops or animals. We will also not advance into any detail on the area of nanotechnology, or the newer and probably more worrisome, synthetic biology.
Mexico’s federal election campaign officially kicked off March 30, but the contest arguably began in earnest days earlier when Pope Benedict XVI visited the right-wing stronghold of Guanajuato state. In a story worthy of Mexican surrealism, the daily La Jornada chronicled how all the presidential candidates joined with hundreds of thousands of people in the town of Silao to welcome the leader of an institution that is officially prohibited from participating in politics.
A new and perhaps surprising country took center stage recently in the ongoing row over Iran’s nuclear program – Azerbaijan. Citing anonymous “high-level sources” from U.S. diplomatic and intelligence circles, a controversial article in Foreign Policy at the end of March suggested the possibility that Israel might have been proffered the use of Azerbaijani airstrips for any strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Thousands of barrels of Agent Orange were unloaded on Okinawa Island and stored at the port of Naha, and at the U.S. military’s Kadena and Camp Schwab bases between 1965 and 1966, an American veteran who served in Okinawa claims.
It was symbolic of the crisis facing the United Nations’ World Health Organisation that billionaire Bill Gates, the Chairman of Microsoft, was the special guest speaker addressing last year’s World Health Assembly (WHA) of WHO member states.
As I survey my life, which is coming near its end, I want to set down a few thoughts that might be useful to those coming after. It will soon be time for me to give back to Gaia the nutrients that I have used during a long, busy, and happy life. I am not bitter or resentful at the approaching end; I have been one of the extraordinarily lucky ones. So it behooves me here to gather together some thoughts and attitudes that may prove useful in the dark times we are facing: a century or more of exceedingly difficult times.
As we inch closer to the crucial nuclear talks between Iran and the world powers, the so-called P5+1, the big question is whether this time will be different. Is Tehran willing to make the necessary compromises – from greater nuclear transparency to more stringent restrictions on its enrichment activities – to reverse the economic siege that’s pushing the country to the brink? And is it going to use the talks as a delaying tactic, or will it finally strike a mutually acceptable deal with the West?
Hanging from City Hall in the center of downtown Bogota is an enormous banner that reads: “To arm or to love?” [Armar or amar], advertising an initiative being carried out by the new administration of democratic leftist mayor Gustavo Petro Urrego. The initiative bans legal firearms from public places in an effort to reduce the number of homicides. The measure is also intended to strengthen the ability of the police to dismantle criminal bands and decommission illegal firearms and other weapons.
Take off your hat. Taps is playing. Almost four decades late, the Vietnam War and its post-war spawn, the Vietnam Syndrome, are finally heading for their American grave. It may qualify as the longest attempted burial in history. Last words — both eulogies and curses — have been offered too many times to mention, and yet no American administration found the silver bullet that would put that war away for keeps.