Transport

China's high-speed rail network is the largest in the world, and is set to more than double by 2020. Credit: Mitch Moxley/IPS

CHINA: Massive Rail Network to Cross Continents

As recently as the mid-1980s, China relied on steam-powered relics to transport citizens and goods around its vast territory. Today, the country is home to 6,900 kilometres of high-speed passenger train routes in what is the largest rail network in the world – and growing.

Informal traders at Malanga market on the outskirts of Maputo, Mozambique. Most of the products on offer are purchased in Zimbabwe or South Africa. Credit: Nastasya Tay/IPS

AFRICA: Women Traders Confronting Sexual Harassment at Borders

Harassment and sexual exploitation by border officials seeking bribes constitute the biggest obstacles for female informal cross-border traders in Africa, according to a United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) research study.

SACU's smaller members states depend on import revenue transfers for their survival. Credit: Nastasya Tay/IPS

ECONOMY-SOUTHERN AFRICA: Threat of States Collapsing Looms Large

The mooted restructuring of the revenue-sharing agreement of the world’s oldest customs union could lead to at least two of its Southern African members collapsing into "failed states" status as well as macroeconomic crises in two of their neighbours in the sub-region.

East Europe Takes to Too Many Cars

Quality of life in Eastern European cities will continue to fall unless outdated systems of city life dominated by cars are abandoned, NGOs in the region say.

Liliane Mukangwa: "South Africans say to us that we have come here to take their husbands, their wives, their jobs." Credit: Kim Cloete/IPS

SOUTH AFRICA: “Xenophobia Simmering Just Below Boiling Point”

"Xenophobia is part of life. We do not live easy here. We only survive," says Somali shopkeeper, Abdinasir Shaikh Aden, looking tense.

MEXICO: Capital Badly in Need of Urban Regeneration

Is urban regeneration feasible in Mexico's capital city? This is a question asked by planning experts and by a large proportion of the city's population. Some projects currently underway indicate that the answer could be yes.

MEXICO: Road Construction Runs Counter to Climate Efforts

Every morning, Mexican biologist Luis Zambrano walks with his daughter to her school, less than a kilometre from his house, in the Magdalena Contreras district, located in the southwest of the Mexican capital.

INDIA: End to Fuel Subsidies Brings Damaging Diversions

While India's opposition parties are agitating against moves by the pro-reform government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to remove subsidies on petrol and other fuels, experts say the country has laboured too long under price distortions that have not benefited poorer people -- or the environment.

Transport Workers Fear Job Losses from Climate Change Action

Transport workers are concerned that measures to mitigate climate change, like greenhouse gas emissions reduction, may put their jobs at risk, while experts are urging a transformation of the predominant transport model worldwide.

UN’s Big Five Facilitate Arms Transfers to Rights Violators

The five permanent members of the Security Council - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - are accused of facilitating the transport of conventional weapons and cluster munitions to countries where they could be used to commit human rights violations and war crimes.

URUGUAY: Incubating Businesses and ICT Job Prospects

"Without this opportunity, I might never have been able to get a higher education," says Paolo Carabajal, one of the beneficiaries of a digital development plan in this city in northwestern Uruguay.

Cape Town's Green Point Stadium, one of the venues for the 2010 football championship. Credit: Public domain

Fouls and Goals for Climate Change at World Cup

South Africa, where the FIFA Football World Cup is to kick off Jun. 11, has introduced cleaner transportation, while Brazil is planning ecological stadiums for the championship it will host in 2014. But these and other initiatives clash with the countries' overall environmental performance.

Supachai Panitchpakdi: "LDCs may not be able to depend on commodities export only." Credit: UNCTAD

ECONOMY: “G20 Meeting Should Address Plight of Poorest States”

The Group of 20 should show its concern about those that the global economic crisis "is leaving behind" by putting the plight of least developed countries on the agenda at its meeting later this month.

BRAZIL: Bridge to Drive Urban Growth in Heart of Amazon

The 74 pillars that will hold up the bridge over the Negro river to join this major city in Brazil's Amazon jungle to nearby urban districts have mostly been laid, without environmental protests or major debates on the impact of a fast-growing metropolitan area in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.

Danube at the Romania-Bulgaria border. Credit: Claudia Ciobanu/IPS

BULGARIA: Blue Danube Meanders Into Road Building

The European Union Danube Strategy (DS), unfolding this year, is proving to be a litmus test for the viability of the concept of ‘green growth’ in Eastern Europe.

Argentina’s Roads Still a Death Trap

Two years after a law was enacted that held out the promise of better road safety in Argentina, the country's death toll from traffic accidents is still one of the highest in Latin America.

Ash cloud from Eyjafjallajökull volcano. Credit: Public domain

Volcanic Ash Clouds May Drive Changes in Air Traffic

Iceland's volcanoes contributed to conditions that may have hastened the French Revolution, and could now speed changes in air transport, which not only is vulnerable to natural disasters but is suffering from heavy congestion of its routes in Europe.

ENVIRONMENT: So That Vans May Pollute More

Three years after vehicle-makers succeeded in weakening new European Union (EU) pollution standards for cars, many of the same firms are hoping to frustrate efforts to make vans more fuel-efficient.

Boom in soy production is at the heart of Argentina's biodiesel business. Credit: Greenpeace Argentina

ENERGY-ARGENTINA: Agrofuels Rev Their Engines

In a measure that was delayed by supply problems, this year Argentina is beginning to require that gasoline be mixed with ethanol and diesel fuel with biodiesel, at a proportion of five percent, to possibly reach 20 percent by 2015.

Rift Valley Railway train: after several false starts, there is new impetus to rebuilding an East African railway network. Credit:  Frederick Onyango/Wikimedia

UGANDA: Railway Revival Planned

The collapse of the Uganda Railway Corporation 15 years ago opened up lucrative opportunities for privately-owned road transporters. But the high cost of maintaining the highways carrying heavy truck and bus traffic is leading government to take a fresh look at the rails.

TRANSPORT-INDIA: Trouble in the Air

If one were a night passenger on any airline flying out of New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in the past week, chances are one would have spent many a nail-biting moment waiting endlessly to board the aircraft.

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