Former U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan predicted during a campus visit that the civil war in Syria will become even more tragic before the international community takes action to help resolve the conflict, but said he is optimistic about the political and economic prospects for Africa in the years ahead. (more…)
Stop wrangling over global warming and instead reduce fossil-fuel use for the sake of the global economy.
That’s the message from two scientists, one from the University of Washington and one from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, who say in the current issue of the journal Nature (Jan. 26) that the economic pain of a flattening oil supply will trump the environment as a reason to curb the use of fossil fuels.
“Given our fossil-fuel dependent economies, this is more urgent and has a shorter time frame than global climate change,” says James W. Murray, UW professor of oceanography, who wrote the Nature commentary with David King, director of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. (more…)
In 2010, China mined the record amount of gold in the world. The production volume of nonferrous metals in China amounted to 340.88 tons, which is 8.57% higher than a year earlier, and continues to grow. In recent years, China has consistently increased the amount of its gold reserves. Nevertheless, experts believe that China has a long way to go to reach the level of the world leading economies.
According to the China Gold Association, in 2007 China ranked first in terms of gold mining. It outran South Africa and is holding this position to this day. Starting 2004, the volume of production of the precious metal in China has been steadily growing. In 2009 it amounted to 313.98 tons. The volume of the gold imported by China within ten months of 2010 amounted to 209.72 tons, which is six times more than the year before, Rosbalt reported. (more…)
In 2010, the Russian economy will grow by 4.25%, after falling 7.9% last year. This forecast was made yesterday by the International Monetary Fund. (more…)
