UNESCO Courier articles from July 1998

UNESCO Courier archives from July 1998

Land-hungry in Brazil.(includes related article on Sebastiao Salgado's photography)
July 1, 1998... The occupation of vast under-used estates by Brazil's Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST) might seem like a struggle from another age. In fact the movement is offering new responses to the greatest scourge of modern Brazil - social...

A fresh outlook.(UNESCO Courier's role in presenting vital issues to decision-makers around the world)(Editorial)
July 1, 1998... UNESCO's connexion with the men and women around the world whose role it is to discover, to think and to communicate, to work with knowledge and ideas, is at the heart of its activities. This is an enormous - and awesome - privilege, and...

Fanning the flames of greed.(forests fires)
July 1, 1998... Drought was partly to blame for the huge fires that recently swept through tropical forests in Asia and Latin America - but the main culprit was human avarice. For almost a year now, vast forested tracts of the globe have been burning down...

Poison of the earth.(includes related article on the disposal of obsolete pesticides)(pesticide poisoning)
July 1, 1998... They are harmful to people and the environment, but nothing stops dangerous pesticides from crossing borders. At least for now. Some people who want to die know that paraquat is a cheap, effective poison. Just one teaspoonful is all it...

Ending apartheid in education.(South Africa)
July 1, 1998... South Africa is responding to one of the people's main demands by opening up the education and training system to all citizens. Four years after the fall of apartheid, South Africa is finally rebuilding its educational system. "The basic...

A second chance for success.(educating school dropouts)
July 1, 1998... In the French city of Rheims, a group of teachers is carrying out a promising experiment to give school dropouts a second chance. Nadia, a fifteen-year-old Algerian girl, came to Rheims in the middle of the 1997/98 school year. It was...

The sea and its treasures.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(includes glossary on marine ecology terms)
July 1, 1998... It is time humankind stopped abusing the generosity of the ocean, wellspring of Earth's life-support system. 'How can the ocean be in trouble? It's so huge!" The speaker, an avid fisherman, had just read an article about pollution creating...

Research: the state of the art.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(includes related article on the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission)(oceanographic research)
July 1, 1998... Oceanographic research is unlocking the sea's mysteries. But only the wealthy can afford it. All I know is that I know nothing". As they take stock of current knowledge of our "small blue planet", many modern oceanographers could well echo...

Climate's hidden engine.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(oceans)
July 1, 1998... We are on the threshold of understanding the oceans' role as the lungs of the planet and a driving force behind climate. For most people their greatest involvement with the sea is when they stand on a beach and look out to the horizon only...

The world beneath the waves.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(includes related article on coral reefs)(deep-sea ecology)
July 1, 1998... A multitude of strange creatures inhabit parts of the sea floor where, some scientists believe, life itself may have originated. 'The deepest parts of the ocean are unknown to us. What goes on in these remote abysses? What creatures live...

Anyone for algae?(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(seaweed as food)
July 1, 1998... It's great for your health and easy to farm. Whether you like it or not, there may be seaweed on your plate. Seaweed-or algae-is everywhere in our food nowadays. Chunks of it float around in Korean soups, paper-thin sheets of it are wrapped...

From Chile a $50-million crop.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(seaweed exports)
July 1, 1998... They walk on the water, beating the waves with a "corvo", a 10-metre-long pole. They scrape the rocks with iron knives, then stop to pick up brownish, slippery, floppy things which they pile in heaps, before returning to the water, scraping and...

Harnessing ocean energy.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(tidal power)
July 1, 1998... The world's oceans could provide a limitless source of energy, according to Indian chemist Madanjeet Singh, an international authority on the subject. But exploiting ocean energy is no simple matter, if only because the possibilities of doing...

Offshore mineral resources.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)
July 1, 1998... Raw minerals are found in deposits which have accumulated and concentrated over tens or hundreds of million of years. Mineral extraction on land has not always been sufficient to satisfy world demand, and so researchers and industrialists have...

From fish scales....(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(paleoecology)
July 1, 1998... The secrets of the planet's past lie hidden in the ocean depths. Palaeoecologists like Tim Baumgartner sift through kilos of mud to uncover the clues. * What is palaeoecology? Palaeoecology looks to the past - using the remains of...

...to sunken treasures.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(discovery of a 2,300-year-old statue in Alexandria, Egypt)
July 1, 1998... In May 1998 the 25-tonne, 11-metre-tall colossus of Alexandria made its first voyage when it was shipped to Paris to be displayed in the square facing the Petit Palais. In Antiquity, the statue stood before the Alexandria lighthouse, one of the...

Sea fever.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(the appeal of solo yacht races)
July 1, 1998... Landlubbers all over the world thrill to the exploits of intrepid solo yacht racers. 'I've never sailed this far South. Yachtsmen seldom come here, it's magical. It's an honour to stick my nose down here. This is Adventure with a capital...

Threats and conflicts.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(competition for marine resources)
July 1, 1998... In the rivalry for marine resources, environmental concern should not be seen as just another competing use of the oceans. We tend to view the marine world as an infinite food supply, a bottomless pit for waste and a "common space" where we...

Peace for the high seas.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(regional agreements)
July 1, 1998... Military imperatives must stop jeopardizing sustainable ocean management. Regional co-operation shows a new era of security is within reach. Everything flows in the ocean. It is simply impossible to manage ocean uses in isolation, without...

A strategic sea.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(Black Sea)
July 1, 1998... On the borders of the former Soviet empire, with an outlet onto sensitive areas of the Mediterranean, the Black Sea is attracting envious eyes. In June 1992, heads of state from eleven countries - Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria,...

The cod collapse.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(includes related articles)(North Atlantic cod)
July 1, 1998... The once prolific north Atlantic cod have virtually disappeared from Canada's east coast, leaving behind a trail of unemployment and anger. The fish plant in the Newfoundland town of Trepassey sits mainly idle on Canada's northeastern...

Marine blues.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(ocean pollution)
July 1, 1998... The ocean is increasingly polluted because humankind goes on thinking of it as a garbage can. Children feel sorry for dolphins choked by plastic bags and sea birds tarred with petroleum. Swimmers complain about the proliferation of...

Trouble in paradise.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(the negative effects of tourism on the Caribbean ecosystem)
July 1, 1998... How much tourism can the Caribbean's white sand beaches and turquoise waters absorb? When the U.S. war correspondent Martha Gellhorn visited the British Virgin Islands in the 1940s, she came across a cove "where nothing had changed since...

The offshore islanders.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(life on a North Sea oil platform)
July 1, 1998... The sea is so much a part of daily life on a North Sea gas platform that you almost forget it's there. 'It's your first trip offshore, isn't it?" The question needs no formal response. Only a newcomer to Conoco's Viking B gas platform...

Laws for the ocean.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(includes a list of international maritime treaties)(United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea)
July 1, 1998... Over the last fifty years, international maritime law has developed very rapidly. This is hardly surprising given the unprecedented demands now put upon the oceans, their resources and the marine environment. The largest treaty ever...

The unpunished polluter.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(includes related articles)(liability for environmental damages)
July 1, 1998... When international environmental policy first became a widespread topic of discussion in the early 1970s, some people suggested holding industry and states liable for damage caused by marine pollution. Later, France's first Environment...

Agreeing to share.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(Guinea-Bissau and Senegal reach agreement on joint development of maritime resources)
July 1, 1998... The Dome Flore oilfield off the coast of Senegal and Guinea-Bissau, 70 kilometres southwest of the Casamance river, has caused the two countries plenty of headaches since it was discovered by France's Total company in 1960. The only known...

The Year of the Ocean.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(World Exposition held in Lisbon, Portugal)
July 1, 1998... 'The Oceans, a Heritage for the Future" is the theme of EXPO '98, the 20th century's last great international exposition. Coinciding with the 500th anniversary of Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama's exploratory journey to the Indies, the...

Co-operation in choppy waters.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(relations between Morocco and the European Union)
July 1, 1998... For the past ten years, the question of fishing rights has been a stumbling block in relations between Morocco and the European Union (EU). With a coastline of nearly 3,500 kilometres, Morocco offers major possibilities that have kindled a keen...

Galley slaves.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(rights of sailors who work on flag-of-convenience ships)
July 1, 1998... Recruited by unscrupulous shipowners to sail in rust buckets flying flags of convenience, many sailors leave their rights ashore. Don is from Sri Lanka. I met him in the Greek port of Piraeus. A victim of his country's civil war, his wife...

Where the spirits roam.(20,000 Worlds Under the Sea)(traditional Southeast Asian communities)
July 1, 1998... For centuries the waves have shaped the lives of the Orang Laut, Moken and Bajau. How much longer can the traditions of these small Southeast Asian communities withstand the pressures of 'modern' development? For outsiders, they are the...

When women are the spoils of war.(includes related article on the counseling of torture victims who have been raped)(rape as a war crime)
July 1, 1998... Long a taboo subject, sexual violence is only now coming to be recognized as a crime against humanity. Will the proposed new International Criminal Court be able to bring the guilty to book? Violence against women during armed conflict is...

AIDS: prevention or cure.
July 1, 1998... As Aids continues to spread in most countries of the South, should its victims be deprived of access to treatment? A moral case is increasingly being voiced against the cost-effective approach to medicine. No one would deny that prevention...

A publishing revolution.(Russian publishing)
July 1, 1998... Russian publishing is moving along the bumpy road to the free market. The situation started to change shortly before the break-up of the Soviet Union. The key event was the abolition of censorship in 1989 which sparked off a publishing...

Lalibela's fragile churches.(Ethiopia's medieval churches)
July 1, 1998... Modern tourism is a mixed blessing for an extraordinary complex of medieval churches hewn from the living rock of the Ethiopian highlands. 'A day's walk from Imbra-Christo(1), there are buildings that to my mind are unlike any to be seen...

Satellites for the South.(includes related article on businessman Noah Samara)
July 1, 1998... Beaming multimedia radio by satellite to the four billion people living in the South is even more challenging than it sounds. 'If you want to eat an elephant, you can't do it in one mouthful," says Noah Samara. "You have to eat it bit by...

Fiat Linux.(includes related article on Linux-related information)
July 1, 1998... A beacon in the world of free software, Linux is used by an estimated seven million people worldwide. Enthusiasts say this operating system is a refreshing alternative to commercial software. When Linus Torvalds created a "free" operating...

Youssou N'Dour: Africa's world musician.(includes related articles)(Interview)
July 1, 1998... A leading figure in World Music, Senegal's Youssou N'Dour wants to use his success to aid humanitarian causes and encourage the development of talented young African musicians. * You're a star of African music. But is there such a thing as...