Editor, Writer, Researcher
In Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale, the intrepid Adam Minter sets off to find some answers, traveling from his home in Malaysia to interview cleaners, sellers, sorters, exporters, and importers in Japan, India, West Africa, and North America.
Since then Nepal's first billionaire has pledged $2.5 million through his Chaudhary Foundation to restore schools and homes destroyed or damaged by the quake. The foundation will bear all the costs of building 1,000 transitional bamboo-and-plaster homes and is working with other donors to construct another 9,000
Until two decades ago, most inhabitants of Bang Kra Jao were farmers. Around that time, some of the narrow canals were covered with elevated concrete pathways. Now the pathways total more than 20 kilometres, enabling people to commute to the urban jungle
Water markets perhaps will seem less a California fad and more a
commonsense solution as more developing countries adopt them. A World
Bank study issued last year, Markets in Tradeable Water Rights, described
systems in Chile, India, Jordan and Mexico. Peru is in the process of
reforming water laws to permit tradeability and Pakistan has markets despite
the lack of law. Chilean farmers' associations have been contracting to sell
water to urban users since 1976.
"Discovered" may not be the most accurate term. Frequently, local villagers have known that a cave existed, but they had never ventured very far within because they feared ghostly occupants or lacked proper lights and equipment. The recent teams of foreign cavers therefore have often found themselves to be the first people to enter an underground chamber with a 15-metre high roof or to see a thousand-year-old flowstone resembling a frozen waterfall.
Susan J Cunningham 