links for 2009-08-17

• Making Money from Blogs In The First 6 Months — Just Make Money Online
  (tags: howto business blog blogs marketing entrepreneurship freelance)
• College students are flocking to sustainability degrees, careers – USATODAY.com
  (tags: university SchoolSearch environment green sustainability)
• New HIV Strain Discovered In Woman From Cameroon
  (tags: health africa HIV/AIDS)
• Can volunteers shut down Chile's slums? | GlobalPost
  (tags: chile slums development)
• Intel Uses Facebook App to Solve World's Problems with Your Idle Computer : TreeHugger
  (tags: IT socialmedia research)
• International Crisis Group – Hussein Agha and Robert Malley in The New York Tim
  (tags: palestine israel politics)
• Conservation doesn't save energy
  (tags: energy united-states)
• Isabella Kenfield: Monsanto's Man in the Obama Administration
  "American Academy of Environmental Medicine called for a moratorium on GM foods: “several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food consumption including infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell signaling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system.”
  [..]
  Union of Concerned Scientists this year, GM seeds do not produce higher yields than conventional seeds. Yet they pose serious ecological risks, especially from genetic contamination from pollen.
  [..]
  Ben Burkett, president of the National Family Farm Coalition, cautioned, “As an African American farmer who has visited farmers in Africa many times, I am deeply concerned that much of the Obama Administration’s pledge to spend $1 billion on agriculture research will be wasted on biotech research that benefits Monsanto more than it does small-scale farmers.”
  (tags: geneticallymodified agriculture corruption united-states policy development africa)
• Are trade unions back in fashion? | Money | The Guardian
  (tags: labor union unemployment economic-crisis uk)
• A New Test for Business and Biofuel – NYTimes.com
  Native AMerican tribe with a savvy long-term (generational) investment strategy is investing in technology to grow algae for biodiesel using CO2 waste stream from natural gas plant.
  (tags: united-states renewable alternative energy sustainable business biofuels)
• Somali pirates find 7 bodies, blame Egyptians | World | Reuters
  (tags: somalia pirates egypt)
• Rice: Middle East is the global import, export hub | 15 August 2009 | www.commodityonline.com
  some interesting stats, incl:

  "Production is geographically concentrated in Western and Easter Asia with more than 90 percent of world output. China and India, which account for more than one-third of global population (52,3% over the 1999-2003 period), supply over half of the world's rice.
  [..]
  The Middle East is the leading import and export region, accounting for 35 percent of the world's rice imports and about 75 percent of total exports.
  "

  (tags: food MiddleEast trade food-security food-crisis international)
• What happened to Arab science fiction? | Nesrine Malik | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
  (tags: books literature arab arabic ScienceFiction Fantasy)
• Egyptians wonder how long aging leader can go on – The Boston Globe
  (tags: egypt mubarak politics OmarSuleiman gamalmubarak MiddleEast obama united-states)
• Clinton Foundation signs MOU for India’s biggest solar park
  (tags: india energy electricity alternative renewable sustainable solar)
• Asian Development Bank backs up renewable energy in the Pacific
  (tags: energy alternative sustainable renewable development asia)