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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (44567)	9/10/2003 2:49:11 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

The CNE report concludes that Africa in particular suffers from the developed countries' agricultural subsidies. Just how desperate the situation is in sub-Saharan Africa is made clear by British demographer Angus Maddison's calculation that the average annual gross domestic product in the region is just $450 per person. Maddison points out that that was the average income of a citizen of the Roman Empire. In other words, sub-Saharan Africa has made essentially no economic progress in the past 2000 years. Delong answers...I have an enormous amount of respect for the extremely knowledgeable and incredibly hard-working Angus Maddison, but his claim cannot be right: Africans today are much taller and--even with the AIDS epidemic--have much greater life expectancies than the subjects of the Roman Empire. Things in Africa are very, very bad compared to things in the world economy's post-industrial core, but they are not quite as bad as Maddison implies. However, the fact is that... "Protectionism and subsidies by industrialized nations cost developing countries about $24 billion annually in lost agricultural and agro-industrial income." To put this figure in perspective, WTO figures show that the world's 40 or so least developed countries exported a total of only $38 billion worth of all goods in 2002. This is a drop in the bucket; in 2002, total world merchandise exports were $6,240 billion (or $6.24 trillion in American English). A good debate on ..... j-bradford-delong.net

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (44567)	9/10/2003 6:47:53 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

Chip Maker ST Eyes Fuel Cell to Power Mobile Phone Wed September 10, 2003 07:54 AM ET AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Franco-Italian chip maker STMicroelectronics said on Wednesday it had created technology for a tiny fuel cell to power mobile phones and increase the time between battery charges to 20 days. The fuel cell could be commercial in a few years' time, depending on demand from cell phone manufacturers, ST said. Fuel cells, which generate energy through an electrochemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, could replace current batteries, which are heavier and not as efficient. ST says the new batteries would be as small as current mobile phone batteries, which, containing toxic metals, are also environmentally unfriendly when disposed of. The fuel cell would be filled with an alcohol such ethanol and contain no toxic heavy metals, an ST spokesman said. "This is a very promising technology. One cell will give a phone 20 days of standby time and there will be no toxic metals which are one of the major environmental concerns with today's batteries," he said. ST made its announcement based on work by its own researchers and those at the University of Naples, Pirelli Labs and CNR institutes. The company broke through in battery technology a decade ago when it started supplying its largest customer Nokia, the world's biggest mobile phone maker, with chips that made its handsets last for days on a single battery charge. ST's new technology involves creating channels on flat pieces of silicon. These thousands of microchannels would maximize the contact area for hydrogen and oxygen to react and generate heat, water and electrical energy. The company could not forecast how expensive the fuel cells would be, but said they would use standard semiconductor production technology which should keep prices low.