NEW DELHI, India — After an intense debate on whether to begin a formal independence movement, the majority of delegates attending a conference of Tibetan exiles in northern India recommended Saturday that the Tibetan government in exile continue to adopt the Dalai Lama’s conciliatory approach to China, a Tibetan spokesman said. But in a sign of mounting frustration with fruitless negotiations with China, most delegates also advised the Tibetan government to end the dialogue until China shows real willingness to negotiate, the spokesman, Thubten Samphel, said in a telephone interview from Dharamsala, India. The delegates made their recommendations at the end of a six-day conference called by the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetans worldwide, who has pursued a ‘middle way approach in which he has called for China to grant autonomy to its six million Tibetans. The Dalai Lama has not called for Tibetan independence and prefers to deal with China without confrontation. ‘The majority view is that the middle way approach is the best approach for now, Mr. Samphel said of the results of the conference. But the intractability of the Tibetan problem, highlighted by an uprising of Tibetans last spring and a […]
Montana wheat farmer Dan Works felt so strongly about the impact that health insurance costs have on his business operation and family that he spoke out at a rural health forum held by Montana Sen. Max Baucus several weeks ago. While many producers keep mum about their business details, Works, 47, who farms midway between Loma and Big Sandy, didn’t mind sharing his specific expenses to help the public and lawmakers understand the problems rural folks face. Works, who has been farming for 27 years, pays $9,000 a year for a catastrophic health insurance plan with a steep, $5,000 deductible and 50 percent co-pays after the deductible has been reached. ‘Those payments are a lot of money in anybody’s realm,’ he said, ‘and represent more than 10 percent of my income.’ Works is certainly not alone. America’s farm and ranch families are paying top dollar for health insurance that inadequately covers their needs and causes them significant financial risk, according to a report released earlier this fall by The Access Project. The study was the first to closely examine the specific challenges and financial burdens that health care costs place on farmers and ranchers. […]
Ask any woman who has given birth and she’ll be happy to wax lyrical about the bad fit between the modern human pelvis and a baby’s big head. Ask any anthropologist and he or she will also be happy to explain, in similar gory detail, that painful labor is the product of an evolutionary compromise to accommodate upright walking in a species that also has an oversized brain. That compromise came, anthropologists used to believe, about 2.4 million years ago when our already bipedal ancestor Homo habilis experienced a huge leap forward in brain size. But a recent announcement in the journal Science of a 1.2 million-year-old Homo erectus pelvis uncovered by University of Indiana paleoanthropologist Sileshi Semaw in the Afar region of Ethiopia in 2001 suggests that painful labor is a relatively modern affliction. The birth canal of that female Homo erectus is, in fact, 30 percent larger than that of the typical modern woman. As a result, Homo erectus birth might have been a relative walk in the park (or on the savanna) compared with today. Those […]
On a gloomy day pregnant with rain and the weight of past expectations, tuna fisherman Minoru Nakamura is welcomed back to port by his family in Ishiki like a conquering hero. Three generations wait onshore, including Mr Nakamura’s father Toshiaki and newborn child Misaki, smiles wide and cameras primed, as his boat sails into harbour. On this remote island off southern Japan, where rusting boats wait for fishermen who increasingly stay at home, few sights excite more than Mr Nakamura’s precious cargo: a 172kg (380lb) bluefin tuna, splayed across the deck of his small trawler. Mr Nakamura has been dubbed Japan’s King of Fish. At peak prices his single catch will fetch over 1.5m yen, (£10,600) at the world’s biggest fish market in Tsukiji, Tokyo. By the time it is carved up and sold as thousands of sushi, sashimi and steak cuts to restaurants across the capital, it will be worth at least three times that much – the price of a luxury family car. But among many of Ishiki’s 32,000 population, one-in-eight of whom depend on the sea to survive, the talk is of now one thing: the extinction of their livelihood. ‘In […]
The second major drought of the last decade is a wake-up call for the Southeast United States, showing the region’s vulnerability due to its reliance on scarce supplies of fresh water. The region has been operating under the best-case water availability for the last 50 years, during which drought conditions were relatively rare. But, the region has historically experienced regular droughts. Global warming is the future wildcard, potentially causing both more extremely dry periods and more heavy rainfall events. At the same time, warming-induced sea-level rise will increase the risk of saltwater intrusion into important groundwater aquifers. A new report from National Wildlife Federation offers the latest scientific research on global warming and water supplies, competition for resources, demographic factors, and how to better prepare for managing the region’s water availability challenges. ‘Since 1960, the region’s population doubled and water use for municipalities, irrigation, and thermoelectric power more than tripled. The Southeast is one of the fastest growing parts of the country, said Amanda Staudt, Climate Scientist for National Wildlife Federation. In fact, 58 of the 100 fastest growing counties in the nation are in the nine states of the Southeast. The report includes […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
