Standing U.N. force could help fragile democracies

Source: Reuters | by Mark Trevelyan

The international community would get better value for money from peacekeeping operations if it created a standing military force to come to the rescue of democracies threatened by coup or civil war, a new study argues.

The Arctic Survey: measuring the size of the problem… 2 million times

Source: WWF International Arctic Programme

Photo Copyright © Martin Hartley

The Arctic Survey is a ground-breaking venture, which aims to measure the thickness of the Arctic sea ice cap along a complete traverse from Point Barrow, Alaska to the North Pole. It is the first detailed mapping of the sea ice with state-of-the-art impulse radar technology. Satellites and submarines currently provide the scientific community with such data, but this is respectively imprecise and patchy, and critically, neither method can distinguish between the snow layer and the sea ice beneath.