Energy boost: In an effort to promote renewable energy, California has passed a bill which requires electricity retailers to increase their use of such resources by at least one per cent per year. The bill mandates that by 2017, retailers must produce at least 20 per cent of their retail electricity sales from renewable sources such as solar, wind, geothermal and biomass energy.
Lead paint blues: US manufacturers are on the verge of yet another legal nightmare. After a spate of asbestos-related lawsuits which forced them into bankruptcy, it is now the turn of lead paint litigations. Corporate executives and state attorneys general are keeping tabs on a lawsuit in Rhode Island that will determine if public nuisance claims can hold companies liable for the huge cost of cleaning up old lead paint.
Tainted food, Heavy toll: One minute they were sitting there eating breakfast snacks, and the next they keeled over. Around 100 people were feared dead after they ate contaminated food from a shop in Tangshan near Nanjing city of China. Initial investigations by the Nanjing health officials about the incident reveal that the food was laced with a lethal form of rat poison.
Draft Guidelines: To protect people from being cheated by the unethical practitioners of assisted reproductive technologies (art), the Indian Council of Medical Research (icmr) and the National Academy of Medical Sciences (nams), India have come out with draft guidelines to regulate art clinics in India. art techniques include artificial insemination, intrauterine insemination, in vitro fertilisation and embryo transfer.
Power to the people: Indigenous communities and tropical forests in Latin America are both constantly under pressure from big logging companies. To tackle this menace, Bolivia has now resorted to community forest management. The indigenous communities will take sustainable and profitable control of local timber resources.
Scrutinising GMOs: After the much-talked- about dilemma of south African countries over accepting genetically modified (GM) food, their agriculture ministers have now decided to set up an advisory board to determine the effects of such food on people. The move to establish a committee comes in the wake of a severe food crisis in the region.
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