Let Them Eat Bullets

South Asia - The poorest, most illiterate region in the world is spending $14 billion a year on arms. A United Nations-funded report on human development in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and the Maldives notes that more children go hungry in South Asia than anywhere else on Earth. Meanwhile, India has the fourth-largest army in the world and Pakistan's is ranked eighth. Muhbub-ul-Haq, the report's author, says South Asia could finance primary education for 110 million children, safe drinking water for 600 million people and family planning services for an additional 55 million - if it only stopped arms-shopping.

Not Machete Ready

Haiti - St. Genevieve Resources, a Canadian gold mining company, wants to pull at least $100 million worth of gold out of impoverished Haiti in 10 short years. St. Genevieve has seven contracts to operate mines in the country, as part of the Haitian government's plan to privatize state holdings. But civil unrest could drive the company away. About 200 armed farmers stopped crews from working at one mine site in late June, reported Reuters. "They had automatic weapons and machetes.... We were scared," said St. Genevieve's president, Steve Lachapelle.

Deadbeat Divestor

Philippines - Over the last 22 years, Marcopper Mining Corp. (MMC) has dumped about 200 million tons of poisonous mine tailings into Calancan Bay. In March, Placer Dome, a Canadian multinational and MMC's major shareholder, abandoned its 39.9 percent interest in Marcopper. But Calancan Bay's villagers, whose survival depends on a healthy bay, aren't letting the company off the hook. They want Placer Dome to pay 26 million pesos [$3.9 million] for the bay's rehabilitation. Placer Dome CEO John Willson maintains that his company has "nothing to do with that particular issue."

Bear Paw Soup

South Korea - According to "Killed for Korea," a report by the London-based World Society for the Protection of Animals' (WSPA), some Asian diners gladly pay more than $1,000 for a bowl of bear paw soup. WSPA is lobbying the US to impose trade sanctions against South Korea to discourage trade in bear parts - "the bears' worst enemy after habitat loss." Of the seven species of bears in the world, three are endangered.

Contra Contamination

Honduras - Mountains of military tins, tubes, boxes, hangars, barrels, explosives and fuel tanks dumped by US and Central American armed forces are swamping the Swan Islands, reports La Prensa. Weapons left over from the secret and illegal US-backed war against the democratically elected Socialist government in Nicaragua still litter the two islands once promoted as "remote outposts of pristine paradise." The CIA operated a radar installation on La Mayor, where the bulk of the trash accumulated. Biology students at the National Autonomous University criticize both the Honduran government and local ecology groups for ignoring the Swan Islands and "the present and future impact of pollution on marine species and terrestrial vegetation."

The Car Poor

Australia - The more cars, the poorer the city, sums up a study commissioned by the World Bank. Researchers from the Institute for Science and Technology Policy at Murdoch University in Perth found that wealth in developed cities declines as more people drive cars more often. The study also showed that when cities curb cars and promote public transit, they experience economic growth. As the urban environment improves, jobs return to the city. The study found that large US cities, with 2.5 times more cars than the average European city, generated 20 percent less wealth per capita.

Gorleben Fallout

Germany - Deutsche Bahn, Germany's railroad system, is blaming anti-nuclear activists for causing a 7-percent decline in ticket sales in February. Protests along the route of trains hauling radioactive wastes to the Gorleben storage site in Lower Saxony apparently convinced many travelers to seek other modes of transportation. February's losses reached as high as DM 31.5 million ($18 million).

The Yen for Less Dioxin

Japan - Dioxin emissions at 105 incinerator plants nationwide are exceeding provincial environmental standards, says the Asahi Evening News. And according to stricter standards issued by the Central Environment Council, 48 percent of the 1,496 plants surveyed are exceeding the recommended maximum dioxin density of 1 to 10 nanograms per cubic meter. The incinerator in Suzu, Ishikawa Prefecture, for example, spews 580 nanograms per cubic meter.

The Means for Latrines

Pakistan - In Karachi, people lacking access to adequate toilets or latrines spend six times as much on medical bills as people living in better-equipped zones. The United Nations Children's Fund estimates that three billion people worldwide live without essential sanitation services. Diarrhea, linked to inadequate sewage management, kills approximately 2.2 million children annually. Pakistani sanitation expert Akhtar Hameed Khan told the International Press Service that Latin America, Asia and Africa could install safe water and sanitation facilities for $68 billion within 10 years. While the cost might sound high, Khan observed, "it is only 1 percent of what the world will spend on the military in this decade."

Kicking Out the Khwe

Botswana - Since 1986, the national government has tried threats, bribes and suspension of water supplies to force the Khwe and Bakgalagadi - the Kalahari Desert's original inhabitants - out of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). Botswana wants control of the 52,000-square-kilometer (20,000 square miles) reserve to make room for tourism and diamond mining. In 1996, Botswana bowed to international pressure and promised not to evict the CKGR's few thousand inhabitants. But now the government is ignoring its promises and stepping up efforts to push the "Bushmen" out of the reserve. Says one Khwe leader, "This is the last place that my people feel is theirs.... The lion and I are brothers, and I am confused that I should have to leave this place and the lion can stay."