Tanakpur treaty to come up for ratification

THE NEPAL Supreme Court has ruled that the government's so-called understanding with India on the Tanakpur Barrage was a treaty that has to be ratified by Parliament. Under the treaty, signed in December 1991, Nepal agreed to provide 2.9 ha of land to India for tying the 577-metre left bund of the barrage to the high ground on the Nepali side.

Delegates stall action on greenhouse gases

AFTER the hype and pomp of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, diplomats met again in Geneva in December to start work on implementation of the emasculated climate convention that world leaders were so eager to sign as proof of their green credentials. Despite warnings from Bert Bolin, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, will

CFC phaseout timing sparks North-South row

PRODDED by fears that the ozone layer is being depleted at a much faster rate than reported initially, representatives of 56 countries met in Geneva recently and largely agreed on a proposal to bring forward the date for phasing out use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) from 2000 to the end of 1995. The delegates reviewed a scientific assessment report, prepared by more than 100 scientists from 28 countries.

Tears, no funds, for the poor

WHILE NGOs and journalists were taking tours to see what poverty looks like in favelas (Brazilian slums), world leaders were negotiating the chapter on "combating poverty" only a few kilometres away, in Riocentro. They, of course, could not see much poverty on "the road to Rio" as the Brazilian government had taken the precaution of removing the shelterless and the hungry from Rio.

Speaking for the people

HERALDED in with drums, the fortnight-long Global Forum, held parallel to UNCED, was probably the largest ever gathering of NGOs in the world. It forced the world to sit up and recognise that governments don't always speak for all the people.

Wars of the green kind

WILL HE go? Will he sign? Will he give money? All these and many more questions on the behaviour of the US President George Bush are threatening to overtake the Earth Summit at Rio. Bush's cat and mouse strategy is an effort to push the Europeans, Asians and Africans to accept the US position. But will it work or not will be answered this fortnight in Rio. The latest salvo is against the biodiversity convention.

More questions than answers

THE BIODIVERSITY treaty which was finalised last fortnight has been hailed as a major victory for the South. As the US and France have both pulled out of the treaty, calling it fundamentally flawed, this belief has grown further. But is the treaty really so desirable?