07/11/2012
“China has already done a lot to adapt labour markets and social protection systems to an ageing society. But it will have to do more to balance its economic and social needs.”
**Photo credit: © timquijano | Source: ILO
By Aidi Hu, senior ILO* social security expert — In 2013, there will be more than 200 million people aged 60 or over in China. This is more than the total population of countries like Indonesia, Japan, Brazil or Russia, which are some of the world’s most populous nations.
By 2050, the number of elderly people in China is expected to reach 487 million or about one third of the entire population. The challenge does not only come from the sheer size of the elderly population, but also from the increasing pace of ageing in Chinese society.
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The latter is the result of two combined factors: the baby boom between the 1950s and 1970s, and the abrupt introduction of the one-child policy in the late 1970s.
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07/11/2012
While citing the rapid development and growth of the Internet, a top UN official urged greater efforts ‘to bridge the ongoing digital divide” and ensure that everyone around the world can harness its benefits.
*Routing paths through a portion of the Internet as visualized by the Opte Project | The Opte Project
There were 2.3 billion Internet users worldwide at the end of 2011, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Wu Hongbo, said on 6 November 2012 in his address to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), which opened in Baku, Azerbaijan.
In addition, mobile broadband reached more than 1 billion subscriptions, while the use of fixed broadband was estimated at 590 million subscriptions.
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07/11/2012
By Travis Nichols, Greenpeace* — This week, Shell finally put its 2012 Arctic drilling season out of its misery. After a summer of snafus and false starts, the window for drilling closed on the global oil giant–until next year when it plans to try once again to exploit Arctic ice melt for profit.
Fires burn in Lavallette in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy on the New Jersey coast | Greenpeace
The company has been up there rolling the dice with our global future, betting against the odds that it won’t fail as miserably at Arctic execution as it has at Arctic preparation–that it won’t, for example, accidentally break the equipment it plans to use in case of a spill during a trial run.
While this may seem like a remote, snowy problem for polar bears, native Alaskans, and environmental hand-wringers, Hurricane Sandy has shown us this week that what happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic.
While corporate interests invested in burning fossil fuels have tried to keep Arctic destruction out of sight and out of mind for years in the lower 48, extreme weather like this week’s frankenstorm shows us in a visceral and immediate way that Arctic consequences are coming for us.
And it isn’t going to be pretty.
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06/11/2012
By Transparency International*, 6 November 2012 — Amid news of another round of financial scandals, word that the former president of a G8 country has been convicted of tax evasion and growing frustration across the Middle East that new leadership has not meant renewed efforts to stop corruption, it is more and more evident that the battle has to reach its next level.
**Image: A campaign to prevent bribes in Zambia | Photo: Lars Plougmann from London, United Kingdom | Wikimedia Commons
In Bangkok the 14th International Anti-Corruption Conference pointed the way forward for the anti-corruption movement by empowering and supporting all those who are willing to change the rules of the game. This requires the restoring of trust through frank exchanges, concerted action and results.
In Brasilia the 15th IACC aims to take the struggle to its next level, beginning with the premise of mobilising people against corruption and impunity.
Why this is so important is obvious: The ever-rising cost of corruption shows that deep, long-lasting change is essential, and more importantly, corruption does not deserve a second chance. Our message to the corrupt is clear: impunity will not be tolerated.
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05/11/2012
By John Scales Avery*, TRANSCEND — Because the world spends roughly 1.7 trillion dollars each year on armaments, it follows that very many people make their living from war. This is the reason why it is correct to speak of war as a social, political and economic institution, and also one of the main reasons why war persists, although everyone realizes that it is the cause of much of the suffering of humanity.
**Author: US Army, Office of War Information (OWI) | Source: Department of Defense visual information (DVIC) [1] | Wikimedia Commons
We know that war is madness, but it persists. We know that it threatens the survival of our species, but it persists, entrenched in the attitudes of historians, newspaper editors and television producers, entrenched in the methods by which politicians finance their campaigns, and entrenched in the financial power of arms manufacturers, entrenched also in the ponderous and costly hardware of war, the fleets of warships, bombers, tanks, nuclear missiles and so on.
In his farewell address, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned his nation against the excessive power that had been acquired during World War II by the military-industrial complex:
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05/11/2012
Washington, 5 November 2102 (By Maria Young for RIA Novosti*) – If the 2012 US presidential election is close enough in the right states, the winner could be determined in part by a group of voters barely acknowledged on the national political scene: Russian Americans, who number more than three million in the US and overwhelmingly vote Republican.
**Images: Notable Russian Americans: Igor Stravinsky • Maria Sharapova • Vladimir Zworykin • Igor Sikorsky * Mikhail Baryshnikov • Ivan Turchaninov • Yul Brynner · Milla Jovovich * Natalie Wood • Nastia Liukin · Alexander P. de Seversky · Leonardo DiCaprio | Wikimedia Commons
“States where the vote can make a difference are Florida, Ohio and potentially Pennsylvania,” said Dr. Igor Branovan, a New York City-area physician and president of the American Forum of Russian Jewry, an umbrella organization that encompasses several dozen Russian American groups and tracks voting trends.
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05/11/2012
By EurActiv*, 5 November 2012 – If Europeans could vote tomorrow (6 November) in the US election, they would back President Barack Obama over challenger Mitt Romney, numerous polls have shown.
Source: EurActiv
In a survey released last week by British pollster YouGov, 90% of Europeans have said that they would vote for Obama if they could cast ballots. The reason behind it is that they don’t know much about Romney, the 65-year-old former equity investor, and find his ideas leaning too far on the right.
Meanwhile, latest polls in the United States show that the race for the White House remains effectively tied with 47% voting for Obama and 46% backing Romney, according to a Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll released Saturday.
“Europeans across the political spectrum see President Obama as broadly on the same wavelength,” said British MEP Baroness Sarah Ludford, vice-chair of the European Parliament delegation on relations with the United States.
Criticised at home for being too European, Obama collects support on this side of the Atlantic for his policies of expanding healthcare insurance, concern for the less well-off, social liberalism on gender and sexual orientation, and climate change.
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05/11/2012
By Ernest Corea*, IDN-InDepthNews, Washington DC — Voters keeping a sharp lookout for an “October Surprise” – an unexpected event that could affect the November 6 presidential election – could not have been disappointed. They experienced several.
Photo: The Obama-Biden Transition Project
Some past October surprises have been both dramatic and significant.
To name a few: the British-French-Israeli conspiracy and invasion to wrest control of the Suez Cana from Egypt (1956), Henry Kissinger’s announcement about the Vietnam war that “peace is at hand” (1972), and the news leak, subsequently confirmed, that some years earlier George W. Bush was arrested for drunken driving in Texas (2000).
The most dramatic October Surprise of 2012 was, of course, “Frankenstorm” Sandy. It might be argued that the hurricane embedded in a massive storm was not exactly a “surprise” because meteorologists predicted its arrival with awesome accuracy.
What constituted the surprise especially for non-experts living in the areas hit by the storm were its ferocity and the extent of human suffering it wrought.
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04/11/2012
By RT*, 4 November 2012 — Regions of the East Coast, left powerless by Hurricane Sandy, could face lagging voter turnout that may affect the results of the US presidential election. As states scramble to gather voting resources, the election could be delayed by nearly three weeks.
**Image: Storm path. Author: Cyclonebiskit | Wikimedia Commons
Hurricane Sandy, which left millions without power and more than 100 dead, has cost the US billions of dollars in damage. But its effects have been further reaching. Aptly named Frankenstorm, is creeping its way into the presidential election, affecting voting stations and voter turnout throughout the East Coast.
In New York, voter turnout is typically 60 percent – but widespread destruction by the East Coast Frankenstorm is expected to deter those living in severely affected areas from showing up at polling booths this Tuesday.
With power outages leaving polling stations dysfunctional and susceptible to error, absentee ballots arriving well past Election Day due to postal delays and early voting cancellations making it harder for some to cast their ballots, the lagging voter turnout in blue-state regions could have a drastic impact on the election.
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04/11/2012
Up to 1.3bn tonnes of food lost or wasted … yearly. Recent studies commissioned by UN Food Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated yearly global quantitative food losses and waste at roughly 30% for cereals; 40–50% for root crops, fruits and vegetables; 20% for oilseeds, meat and dairy; and 30% for fish.
Source: FAO
Food losses refer to the decrease in edible food mass available for human consumption throughout the different segments of the supply chain, according to FAO report.
“In addition to quantitative losses, food products can also face a deterioration of quality, leading to a loss of economic and nutritional value. Food waste refers to food losses resulting from decisions to discard food that still has value,” it adds.
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 