Pranasynthesis

"I feel no need for food and water" states Prahladbhai Jani, a seventy-six year old Indian ascetic who lives in a cave near the Ambaji temple in the state of Gujarat. Mr. Jani claims that he has not had food or fluids to drink for the last sixty-five years.

How Europe's discarded computers are poisoning Africa's kids

From The Children of Sodom and Gomorrah by Clemens Höges, Spiegel Online

People in the West throw away millions of old computers every year. Hundreds of thousands of them end up in Africa, where children try to eke out a living by selling the scrap. But the toxic elements in the waste are slowly poisoning them.

According to the Bible, God rained down fire and brimstone to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. "Sodom and Gomorrah" is also what officials in Accra, Ghana, have come to call a part of their city plagued by toxins of a sort the residents of the Biblical cities couldn't even have imagined. No one sets foot in this place unless they absolutely have to.

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The Refuse of the Internet Age

This area next to Sodom and Gomorrah is the final destination for old computers and other discarded electronics from around the world. There are many places like this, not just in Ghana, but also in countries like Nigeria, Vietnam, India, China and the Philippines. Bismarck is just one of perhaps a hundred children here, and one of thousands around the world.

These children live amid the refuse of the Internet age, and many of them may die of it. They pull apart the computers, breaking the screens with rocks, then throw the internal electronics onto the fires. Computers contain large amounts of heavy metals, and as the plastic burns, the children also breathe in highly carcinogenic fumes. The computers of the rich are poisoning the children of the poor.

The United Nations estimates that up to 50 million tons of electronic waste are thrown away globally each year. It costs about €3.50 ($5.30) to properly dispose of an old CRT monitor in Germany. But it costs only €1.50 to stick it on a container ship to Ghana.

An international treaty, the Basel Convention, came into effect in 1989. The treaty is sound in its concept, forbidding developed countries from carrying out unauthorized dumping of computer waste in less developed countries. A total of 172 countries have signed the convention, but three of them never ratified it: Haiti, Afghanistan, and the United States. According to estimates by the US Environmental Protection Agency, around 40 million computers are discarded each year in the US alone.

European Union directives with acronyms like WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) and RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) followed the Basel Convention, and individual countries have signed them into law. Germany's waste disposal laws are among the world's strictest, and shipping computer waste to Ghana can lead to a prison sentence. In theory.

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10 Things science says will make you happy

From: YES! Magazine

In the last few years, psychologists and researchers have been digging up hard data on a question previously left to philosophers: What makes us happy? Researchers like the father-son team Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener, Stanford psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky, and ethicist Stephen Post have studied people all over the world to find out how things like money, attitude, culture, memory, health, altruism, and our day-to-day habits affect our well-being. The emerging field of positive psychology is bursting with new findings that suggest your actions can have a significant effect on your happiness and satisfaction with life. Here are 10 scientifically proven strategies for getting happy.


1. Savor Everyday Moments

Pause now and then to smell a rose or watch children at play. Study participants who took time to “savor” ordinary events that they normally hurried through, or to think back on pleasant moments from their day, “showed significant increases in happiness and reductions in depression,” says psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky.

2. Avoid Comparisons

While keeping up with the Joneses is part of American culture, comparing ourselves with others can be damaging to happiness and self-esteem. Instead of comparing ourselves to others, focusing on our own personal achievement leads to greater satisfaction, according to Lyubomirsky.

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Enhancing cooperation between the health and climate sectors

By Clive Mutunga, Karen Hardee, and Kathleen Mogelgaard


Article Highlights

* Despite the recognition that health and climate change are intimately tied, insufficient cooperation exists between the global health and global climate change communities.
* To help bridge this gap, WHO has made significant efforts to involve itself in the planning and negotiation tied to this month's climate change meetings in Copenhagen.
* However, if health is truly to be given its due in the international arena, it's necessary for health professionals to be represented within climate change bodies (e.g., the UNFCCC) and national negotiating teams.

According to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, climate change may already be causing more than 150,000 deaths per year, a number that is expected to grow in the future. The most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) cites overwhelming evidence that human actions are contributing to climate change, with a wide range of implications for human health. Some of the impacts are direct, including mortality and morbidity resulting from more intense weather events, heat waves, and floods. Potentially larger impacts, though, may arise indirectly from mechanisms such as climate's effects on agricultural production and water resources--linked to major killers such as malnutrition and diarrhea--and common vector-borne diseases that are highly sensitive to changing temperatures and precipitation. Furthermore, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) estimates that climate adaptation costs for the health sector will be in the range of $4 billion to $12 billion per year by 2030.

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[ Source: Solutions for Copenhagen ]

Clashes in Athens

Reuters report:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2Vy0zV2htQ

Woman seriously injured by motorcycle police in Athens


Clashes in Thessaloniki