Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Multi-Fuel Motor Invented

A motor made from scrap metal, cans, old pipes and computer discs, and which runs on any source of heat, is destined for use by small farmers, its inventor, Aldemir Chaim, of the government's agricultural research agency EMBRAPA, told Tierramérica.

Ecobreves – MEXICO: Resistance to Obligatory School Transport

The decision by the Mexico City government to make school mass transportation obligatory beginning in September, to cut down on pollution and traffic jams, has met with opposition from parents and experts.

MAO ZEDONG IS ALIVE AND KICKING IN NEPAL

Mao Zedong is dead in China, but the Great Helmsman is alive and kicking in Nepal. What's more, the Himalayan Maoists have come to power not with the barrel of the gun but has been voted to government, writes Kunda Dixit, editor of the Nepali Times newspaper in Kathmandu. When they form the government, possibly with the participation of other parties, the Maoists face immediately the challenge of delivering on their promise of raising living standards. More immediately, they will have to deal with the soaring cost of food. Petroleum prices need to be increased, but the government can't afford subsidies and will not want to antagonise voters right away. The Maoists will want to push through some showcase legislation to prove to the electorate that they are serious about reform. They will want to get started on the controversial process of integrating their army with the national army. The two fought a bruising war, and there is a lot of resistance within the Nepal Army to combining the two forces. The Maoist leadership will have to balance pressure from their former guerrillas with the reluctance to not open up too many fronts right away.

OLYMPICS MEAN TIGHTER SECURITY AT TIBET-INDIA BORDER

With the Beijing Olympics fast approaching, there will likely be a decrease in the flow of refugees entering India from Tibet because of tightened restrictions at the border. Beijing is intent on projecting the image of a united China and has no desire to have Tibetan dissidents leaving the country to tell the world about their countrymen\'s plight in China, writes Dorjee, the director of the Dharamsala\'s Office of the Reception Centres which is in charge of Tibetan refugee arrivals in India. In this article, the author writes that there are a number of reasons Tibetans make this arduous journey to come to Dharamsala. The first is to see and receive the blessings of the Dalai Lama. In addition, they can receive a proper Tibetan education, and monks and nuns are free to practice their faith freely. Tibetans still have to brave the long journey to Dharamsala. They usually plan their escape during wintertime when the borders are not as closely watched because of extreme weather conditions. Some take a bus up to Lhasa, and from there begins the dangerous walk across the Himalayan mountains. The trip lasts anywhere from 15 to 25 days. It takes a while before the refugees are given a permit to stay in Dharamsala because they are also questioned about their backgrounds in order to ascertain that they really are Tibetans and not spies that the Chinese government sent over the border.

THE MISSILE SHIELD AND COLD WAR II

Cold War II started when US President Clinton expanded NATO eastward, up to the border of the old Soviet Union and extended the US-Japan mutual security treaty westward to include Taiwan and South Korea, a clear breach of the Japanese constitution\'s ban on waging war, writes Johan Galtung, Professor of Peace Studies and founder of TRANSCEND, a global peace and development network. In this article, Galtung writes that the US has 700 bases in 130 countries. The result is the encirclement of the half of humanity, which in response organised the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which has six members (China, Russia, and four Central Asian Muslim republics) and three observers (India, Pakistan and Iran). It looks ominous and ominous it is. Enter a third force: Islam, which was also confronted by the US using 9/11 as rationale. There are no Muslim countries in NATO-AMPO but six in SCO, of which the USA has a problem with Iran. Why? The 1953 CIA-MI6 coup that ousted a legally-elected prime minister and ushered in 25 years of dictatorship. There is a simple way out: apologise for 1953. The cost: the admission that we - USA-UK - can make mistakes. The benefit: an end of Iran-USA problem. Instead, the US made NATO members accept a \"defence\" against \"only\" nuclear-tipped Iranian missiles, to be stationed in the Czech Republic and Poland. Wouldn\'t solving the conflict be better?

Latin America's Bid to Reconcile Oil and Environment

The Latin American petroleum industry is on its way, with varying levels of success, towards practices that attempt to be less harmful to the environment.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Rubber Tappers Manufacture Condoms

The first government-run condom factory in the Brazilian Amazon was inaugurated Apr. 7 in Xapuri, a small town in the northwestern state of Acre, where a quarter of the 15,000 inhabitants are "seringueiros", or rubber tappers, who harvest natural latex from the forest.

Ecobreves – CHILE: New Life for Former Garbage Dumps

The Environmental Commission of the Chilean Metropolitan Region, the regional government, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and several municipalities are looking to refurbish two former garbage dumps in the capital: Cerros de Renca and Lo Errázuriz.

Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: Glass Containers Banned in Parks

Venezuela has prohibited glass containers in its 43 national parks and 17 natural monuments, which cover a combined total of 13 million hectares, or 15 percent of the country.

Ecobreves – CUBA: Saving a Native Bird

Researchers from the National Flora and Fauna Protection Agency in Villa Clara, 268 km from Havana, are promoting the recovery and conservation of the blue-headed quail-dove (Starnoenas cyanocephala), endemic in Cuba and in danger of extinction.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Difficulty Enacting Forestry Law

The recently approved Forestry Law in Honduras could turn into dead letter if the next director of the Forestry Conservation Institute (ICF) comes from the logging sector, which for decades has led deforestation in this Central American country, warn ecologists.

MAKING HIGH COMMODITY PRICES HELP THE POOREST NATIONS

Since 2001, the prices of many commodities and other natural resources have soared, providing commodity-dependent developing countries with an opportunity to use the increased revenues to combat poverty and make real economic and social gains, writes Ambassador Ali Mchumo, Managing Director of the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC). However, the author writes in this article, for this to happen adequate policy measures need to be implemented and the international community needs to take swift action to address the challenges that commodity-dependent countries face in the intensely protectionist global environment. Also, adequate financing for small stakeholder farmers remains one of the major development obstacles. When rural financing is available, it tends to be provided to large borrowers, excluding the majority of small producers from the formal credit system. The micro-finance revolution should be expanded to reach rural communities where the need is greatest. If the international community is to meet the agreed international development commitments, including those contained in the Millennium Development Goals, it needs to reverse the current trend in Official Development Assistance (ODA) and allocate more resources to agriculture investments and commodity development.

IMF: WHEN NOTHING IS BETTER THAN SOMETHING (BAD)

On Sunday, the International Monetary Fund called for governments to rise together to face the challenges posed by the ongoing financial turmoil. Unfortunately, most developing countries do not feel the IMF belongs to them, which may adversely affect their willingness to accept Fund leadership, writes Jomo Kwame Sundaram, United Nations Assistant-Secretary-General for Economic Development. The 31 March proposal goes for approval to the Board of Governors at the annual Spring meetings this weekend. A reform of voting shares is long overdue, as the changed global economic landscape has accentuated the gross under-representation of developing countries. At the IMF's inception in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944, all countries got basic votes in order to ensure voice and representation even for the smallest economies, while quota votes were allocated roughly in proportion to each country's economic clout. Basic votes made up almost 12 per cent of the total at the outset, rose to 16 per cent at its apex, but have decreased to a meagre 2.2 per cent since, as quota votes have increased in relative weight. Meanwhile, the Fund's membership has more than quadrupled from 44 to 184. If the weight of each country's basic vote had been preserved from the outset, and not been diluted by more than 95 per cent, the total basic votes today would come to about half. Instead, the proposal will treble the basic votes' share of total votes from 2.1 per cent to 5.5 per cent.

ONLY GLOBAL SOLUTIONS CAN TACKLE GLOBAL PROBLEMS

The world, and the West in particular, are passing through a period of transition and profound insecurity which is manifesting itself in every sphere and makes the near future impossible to predict, writes Mario Soares, ex-president and ex-prime minister of Portugal. In this article, Soares writes that the major problems facing the world are still not receiving a global response, which could come only in the form of a major restructuring of the UN and the Security Council. The G8 club of rich nations lacks legitimacy to serve as a pilot for the world. There is, thus, a major vacuum in the world order. The world order is once again multilateral. The American empire as such is on the way to disappearing. Solutions to the problems that the world faces do not depend only on the West (Europe and the US), as was thought at the beginning of this century, but on others as well: the so-called emerging powers -Russia, China, India, and Brazil- as well as Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, and Turkey. The West must understand that it has to negotiate with these countries and participate in the reform of the UN.

KOSOVO REQUIRES A UNITED EUROPE… AND SO DOES EUROPE

In November 2005, the UN Secretary-General, acting on the basis of the conclusions of the Security Council that the situation in Kosovo is no longer sustainable, asked me to lead the political process to determine Kosovo\'s future status, writes Martti Ahtisaari, ex-President of Finland and UN Secretary-General Special Envoy to Kosovo. In this article, the author writes that almost a year after he initially submitted his proposal, it became clear that the Security Council would not pass a new resolution. Therefore, since everybody, even the Russian Federation, agreed that the status quo in Kosovo was not sustainable, a solution outside of the Security Council needed to be found. The result we all know: many important countries, including the US and the majority of the EU, have recognized or committed themselves to recognize Kosovo\'s independence. Kosovo is primarily a European issue and the EU cannot afford to let Kosovo become just another \'frozen conflict\'. Doing nothing was not an option and my Settlement proposal provides an organized methodology for a UN exit and EU takeover. This requires a strong, consistent, and united European position in the coming months if we want Europe and Balkans to be stable.

NEPAL NEARS VOTE ON SHIFT FROM MONARCHY TO DEMOCRACY

On April 10, Nepalis will vote in elections that will mark the end of their country\'s 240-year-old monarchy and formally bring Maoist guerrillas into mainstream democratic politics, writes Kunda Dixit, editor of the Nepali Times newspaper in Kathmandu. In this article, Dixit writes that the elections represent the last stage of the peace process. The people will vote directly for candidates as well as parties so that the assembly will have members of ethnic and other marginalised groups never represented before in proportion to their population. With voting just around the corner, those who have the most to lose seem to be getting frantic. Absolute monarchists have been carrying out terrorist attacks in an attempt to disrupt polls by provoking communal violence, while radical Maoists, afraid they will do badly in the elections, want to intimidate voters to minimise turnout and so call into question the legitimacy of the result.

Ecobreves – MEXICO: Highway Halted Through Forest

The Mexican government has postponed approval of a new highway near the capital that would affect 120,000 hectares of forest that are home to a vast biodiversity, following heavy pressure from local farmers and environmentalists.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: First Trimester Sees 150 Forest Fires

Honduran officials reported 150 forest fires so far in 2008, most of them in the central department of Francisco Morazán, where the national capital is located.

Biodiversity for Sale on the Streets

Mexico has meager resources to fight trafficking in fauna and flora across its vast territory, while the crime continues just down the street.

Climate Change a Challenge to Human Species

More people need to begin sustainable lifestyle practices in order to confront climate change, says Mirta Roses, director of the Pan-American Health Organization, in an exclusive Tierramérica interview.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Larvicide to Fight Dengue Mosquitoes

A natural pesticide that eliminates mosquito larva may help control the dengue epidemic in Brazil. The disease has killed at least 44 people in Rio de Janeiro.