United States Of America (US)

Don’t pee in pool

By:  Vibha Varshney

It reacts with disinfectants, can cause diseases including cancer

Do chemicals used to disinfect water harm our health? Evidence suggests drinking water purified with common disinfectants like chlorine and bromine causes urinary bladder cancer. But it was not clear whether the chemicals can affect health when used to keep swimming pools or bathing water clean, until now.

Deal won, stakes lost

Last fortnight we discussed the clandestine endgame afoot at Cancun to change the framework of the climate change negotiations to suit big and powerful polluters. Since then Cancun has concluded and a deal, in the form of a spate of agreements, has been gavelled into existence by the chair. Commentators and climate activists in the Western world are ecstatic. Even the critics say pragmatism has worked and the world has taken a small step ahead in its battle to fight emissions that determine its growth.

The endgame at Cancun

As I write this, some 24 hours are left to finalise the agreement at the 16th Conference of Parties to the climate change convention being held in Cancun. At this moment it seems the predictable deadlock in talks will continue. Like all other global climate meetings, the world remains deeply divided on the matter of how to cut emissions of greenhouse gases that even today determine economic growth. Not much is expected to happen at the beach city of Cancun.

India signs nuclear convention

By: Savvy Soumya Misra

Intended as gift to Obama

India signed the international convention on compensating nuclear accident victims on October 27. The convention, to a large extent, shields suppliers of nuclear energy technology from paying damages.

Cloud view clears up

By: Smriti Sharma

Origin of aerosols dictates cloud shape

How cloudy is it outside? The answers may depend on the level of atmospheric pollution in one’s region. Cloud-forming microscopic particles, called aerosols, absorb and reflect solar radiation. These particles have the ability to modify cloud formation and encourage or suppress precipitation. They can be released from manmade sources like vehicles, industry, agriculture, and natural sources like sea salt, volcanic dust, sulphates from biogenic gases.

Brown oil and silvery sheen

By:  Dahr Jamail

Erika, who is a photographer, and myself, headed out in a boat from Fourchon, US state Louisi ana’s southernmost port. We had four co-travellers: Jonathan Henderson, Randy, Craig and guide. It was August 16, the day several of Louisiana’s fisheries were reopened for catching shrimp.

ABCDE of Obama’s sales pitch

There is no doubt US President Barack Obama was in India on a business trip. His recent electoral losses weighed heavily with him when he stitched up deals, reportedly worth US $10 billion, that would create about 50,000 jobs back home.

Control your food. It is your business

Our control over our food and our health requires inventive institutional reordering and new ideas about the way food regulations work.

The Bhopal legacy: reworking corporate liability

Days after President Barack Obama lashed out at British Petroleum (BP) saying he would not let them ‘nickel and dime’ his people in the oil spill case, a sessions court in Bhopal did precisely that with the victims of the world’s worst industrial disaster. After 25 long years the court of the chief judicial magistrate pronounced its verdict on the criminal case against Union Carbide and its Indian subsidiary on the matter of negligence and liability.