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To: Mohan Marette who wrote (10206)	12/22/1999 8:33:00 AM
From: Mohan Marette	Respond to of 12475

Greenpeace declares Eloor (Kerala) as global toxic hotspot India Today Kochi, December 22: The highly polluted Eloor industrial belt in Kochi, where public sector industries like Hindustan Insecticides Ltd (HIL), Indian Rare Earths Ltd (IRE) and Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore (FACT) are located, was on Wednesday declared as a global toxic hotspot by Greenpeace International. Greenpeace, which is here as part of its ?Toxics Free Asia Tour? also declared HIL at nearby Udyogamandal as a toxic hotspot for releasing persistent organic pollutants (POP) into the environment, including DDT. Greenpeace scientist Dr Kevin Bridgen released to reporters a scientific survey documenting the discharge of contaminants into the environment resulting from the production of DDT and the scientific analysis of the water, sediments and soil samples collected from the polluted areas in the region near the HIL plant. He said sediments collected 10 metres downstream from the Kuzhikundum creek, into which HIL discharged its effluent, contained more than 100 organic compounds, 39 of which were organochlorines, including DDT and its metabolites. DDT and its metabolites were also found in the wetlands surrounding the Udyogamandal estate, he said adding the DDT could have adverse health effects, including disruption to the endocrine and reproductive systems. While almost all the countries have banned DDT use, India continues to manufacture it, claiming to use it as part of its National Malaria Eradication Programme. Bridgen said malaria now causes clinical symptoms in between 300 million and 500 million people each year. About 1.5 million to 2.7 million die annually mostly children under five years of age. World-wide, the direct and indirect economic costs of malaria were estimated at two billion dollars each year. Nityanand Jayaraman, Greenpeace's Asia toxics campaigner in India, said DDT must be phased out and alternative measurers must be found to combat the disease. The Greenpeace demanded that all governments must phase out manufacture and use of DDT as part of a global agreement on POPs while ensuring that malarial risk management was maintained and improved using alternatives means of vector control. Under the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), 120 countries are currently negotiating an international treaty to eliminate POPs. Twelve POPs, including DDT, nicknamed as the -dirty dozen-, have been short-listed by the UNEP for global elimination of its production and use as part of a treaty which is likely to be finalised in the next two years.

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (10206)	12/22/1999 11:39:00 AM
From: Sam Citron	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12475

It's not just Word: Microsoft to introduce Hindi in Windows 2000 NEW DELHI, Dec 22 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp's (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) Windows 2000 software platform, due to be launched in February, will be able to carry programming applications in Hindi and eventually in other Indian languages, company officials said. They told a news conference late on Tuesday that the operating systems software, representing the next version of the company's NT series of network computing platforms, would be ``completely Hindi and Tamil enabled.' Though the platform will not immediately match all the features offered in the Japanese and Chinese versions of Windows, the software will offer APIs, or application programming interfaces, which serve as hooks or roadmaps for developers making end-use software. So far, Hindi fonts have been superimposed on the English script operating systems but Windows 2000 will have the language script, called Devanagari, as part of the basic operating system. ``Windows 2000 can think Hindi, talk Hindi,' said N.B. Sundar, marketing manager at Microsoft's Indian unit. Microsoft will also introduce a Hindi version of its popular MS Word word-processing application as part of the Windows 2000 package, which can check for syntax, spelling and grammar, he said. Sundar said Microsoft planned to introduce software enabled for regional languages such as Punjabi, Gujarati, Oriya, Telegu, Kannada and Bengali in future. Microsoft officials said the Hindi version conformed to the standards set by Unicode, an independent body on languages in software programming. ``Each of Windows 2000's APIs support Unicode,' Microsoft consultant Harish Vaidyanathan said. biz.yahoo.com