Contenu du sommaire

Bulk carrier fleets in the Third World. — Five thousand one hundred fourteen bulk carriers, of deadweigh 224 400 000 tons, were counted in 1985. Of these, 2 718 of 110 900 000 tons belonged to nations in the process of development. The public companies of these nations and the national shipowners or those based in them possess nearly a quarter of the world's fleet. In some nations, the fleets are run by national or foreign companies. These own, in their entirety, several fleets, mainly those of Panama and Liberia. Pekin and Rio de Janeiro are the only large shipowning centers of the Third World, where Hong Kong, le Pirée and Tokyo possess a third of the tonnage.

Living Conditions of Mountaineer Peasants in the Bututsi Region of Burundi. — The highlands of Burundi, in particular the Bututsi region, subject the local peasants to serious living conditions, due, in certain respects, to an unfavourable ecological milieu. Nevertheless, these mountain people have managed in the course of a long historic period to establish an agrarian civilization that is remarkably unique and that is based on the dual venture of agriculture and livestock raising. The amount of crops cultivated and the different animals raised has supplied the living means, for a long time now, of a population that is constantly expanding. Since the end of the colonial period, an awareness by the public authorities of the various factors contributing to the malfunction of the rural economy has led them to undertake corrective measures. But the result of the repeated innovations remains disputed, at least as regards the present economic situation.

El Nino and Droughts in the High Central Andes : A Study of a Possible Correlation. — An intensity scale of the last ten «El Nino» phenomena since 1925 has been drawn up from the sea surface temperatures supplied by four stations along the Peruvian coastline. Concurrently, the principal pluviométrie episodes showing a deficit and which occured in six stations of Central High Andes and in two of the Amazonian lowlands are presented. The correlation study shows a 40 % to 74 % probability for a deficit to occur during a «Nino». The pluviometry of the two Amazonian stations also appears to be correlated, although in a different manner. Taking into consideration studies made on the relationship between Southern Oscillation and disturbances of atmospheric circulation in the Atlantic, the hypothesis for a reinforcement of the South Atlantic anticyclone and its northward shifting is advanced. Such a situation could also be at the origin of the recurrent droughts in the northeastern portion of Brazil. The cyclogenesis activity in the southern polar front can generate heavy rains on the eastern side of the Andes but mainly at the beginning and at the end of the rainy season. Also presented is the hypothesis of permanence of tropospheric positive pressure anomalies over the Altiplano during the summer and in «El Nino — Southern Oscillation» periods.