The new obesity

Patronising dirty technology

Soft Target

safe inside the warm womb of the mother, a child kicks and turns. This is the third time that Sarah Connell is pregnant, but she has never reached her second trimester of pregnancy. She aborted twice earlier. This time she has moved houses, cleaned up her home, and taken every precaution to ensure that this baby survives. So far all is well.

Molecules of death

These are victims of an ill-fated war fought 30 years back. The war is over but its toxic backlash lingers. One weapon of the war is still wreaking havoc -- Agent Orange, a herbicide containing tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (tcdd). From 1962 to 1971, the us military aerially sprayed 42 million litres of Agent Orange to deny the communist fighters forest cover.

Untapped Potential

Global agribusiness Organic products are beginning to make a dent in world food market

Memories of Agent Orange

There are parallels in case of the Vietnamese victims of the deadly herbicide and the Bhopal gas tragedy. Both demand restitution

News 360°- Briefs

ENERGY BP FINDS ITS WAY TO ARCTIC

Dioxins toned down

In the first week of February, the European Commission (ec) adopted a new law setting maximum levels of the sum of dioxins and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls ( pcbs) in food and animal feed. Starting November 2006, any food or feed having higher levels of these chemicals than would not be marketed in the European Union (eu).

Dioxin scare

a scare of dioxin contamination in animal feed has gripped the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France and Spain. The Dutch farm ministry sealed off nearly 200 livestock farms recently after carcinogenic dioxin was detected in a potato feed product used in the country. About 96 of these farms were re-opened later after tests confirmed absence of contamination.

Biomonitoring breastmilk

in april this year, California became the first us state to introduce a bill to biomonitor breast milk. Activists and researchers hope that once this legislation is passed, it will help people realise that mothers pass on toxic material to their offspring. Breast milk monitoring would also help create awareness about the harmful effect of pesticides.