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Food Crisis: World at ?alarming juncture? as leaders gather for FAO summit
2008-06-02 20:21:00 “If not handled properly, this issue could trigger a cascade of other crises — affecting economic growth, social progress, and even political security around the world.” Participants at the High-Level Conference on World Food Security will discuss short-term solutions as well as new strategies to deal with the effects of global warming, growing demand for biofuels ...
By: 1913 Intel
Who?s The Greenest of Them All? Greendex Survey Finds Developing World Tops
2008-05-12 15:01:00 Though being green is all the rage in the US, one needs to look beyond our borders?well beyond, to find countries in which consumers act truly green. Not surprisingly, those consumers in the...
By: Green Options
Why Oil Wealth Fuels Conflict
2008-05-10 04:09:00 The number of oil-producer-based conflicts is likely to grow in the future as stratospheric prices of crude oil push more countries in the developing world to produce oil and gas. In 2001, the Bush administration’s energy task force hailed the emergence of new producers as a chance for the United States to diversify the sources ...
By: 1913 Intel
Solar Powered LED Lanterns For The Developing World
2007-12-18 23:33:00 “Breakthroughs in solid-state lighting technology offer rural, off-grid poor the first economically sensible alternative to oil lamps, which are still the main light source for over a billion people worldwide”…. <More>
By: Bannaga
eBay Opens Developing World Microfinance Site
2007-11-29 17:55:00 [From: Read/Write Web] In May 2006, eBay quietly acquired a microfinance company called MicroPlace, which it said was part of an “ongoing initiative … focused on maximizing our corporate resources to continue to drive social good through a variety of innovative programs.” A year and a half later, MicroPlace has finally officially opened its doors to ...
By: News for Greens
Vaclav Klaus: Environmentalism is an ideology like Soviet Communism
2007-11-08 23:20:00 Last night I attended a talk at Chatham House where His Excellency Vaclav Klaus, the President of the Czech Republic, faced-off with Professor Robert Watson of the UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I, like everyone in the room, walked in with a pretty fixed set of ideas, none of which ...
By: Carson's Post
Microfinance for the people by the people
2007-10-25 15:11:00 The internet continues to develop clever little experiments. eBay has just started up a site called MicroPlace.com where US citizens can go online and fund their own microfinance project. What? Think of it as an aid foster child programme, but instead of a child you get a business, and instead of a photo and crayon scribbled ...
By: Carson's Post
India?s Call-Center Jobs Go Begging
2007-10-17 17:19:00 It didn’t take long for the bloom to leave this rose. Remember when those out-sourced call centre jobs were the passport to the Middle Class in India? Ya, well, perhaps predictably, they have become a ticket to ill health and a social stigma. “As recently as four years back, the choice was pretty clear. Either you got ...
By: Carson's Post
Is Global Warming Drowning Africa?
2007-09-26 10:49:00 The immediate consequences of climate change in Africa? Countries will experience either torrential floods or severe drought during a season. Africa has always been predicted to be the continent that will be worst hit by global warming and climate change. Could those predictions be coming true? Extreme rains and floods have made for a very wet summer ...
By: Carson's Post
A Solar Refrigerator for Developing World
2007-09-18 03:11:00 From Crave: The gadget blog: The Solar Turbine Group is trying to bring refrigeration to emerging nations by harnessing the powe...
Dispelling common myths about the so-called developing world
2007-09-07 07:39:00 Hans Rosling, professor of global health at Sweden's Karolinska University made a rather dramatic presentation at TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) in February 2006. I always appreciate good speakers (and writers), and his ability to make these kinds of statistics both entertaining and relevant is truly amazing. This video is a little long (20 minutes) but worth every minute. He quickly shows you why everything you thought you knew about the third world, health and poverty are wrong. There are a few things I could possibly take issue with, but think about the following while you watch and I think you will see why I enjoyed this presentation beyond his wonderful humor.While he is talking about global health, it becomes increasingly clear that the problems are local. There may well be a number of things that "we" in the Western World can do to help, but global initiatives which look at the Third World as a whole likely will not be useful. Even regional data is not detaile...
World facing 'arsenic timebomb'
2007-08-30 17:07:00 The problem is in the solution. Rather than drinking surface water which can be rife with pollution, people in the developing world have been encouraged to dig wells. Makes sense. Except that in many places, an estimated 70 countries affecting 140 million people, arsenic, a metal natural to soils, is waiting to leech into the otherwise potable water. The BBC reports in World facing 'arsenic timebomb': Arsenic consumption leads to higher rates of some cancers, including tumours of the lung, bladder and skin, and other lung conditions. Some of these effects show up decades after the first exposure. "In the long term, one in every 10 people with high concentrations of arsenic in their water will die from it," observed Allan Smith from the University of California at Berkeley. "This is the highest known increase in mortality from any environmental exposure." In fact, not a lot is known about this problem, but it does have relatively simple solution, once detected: dig deeper w...
By: Carson's Post
South Africa and crime
2007-08-24 16:26:00 The crime wave that has washed through South Africa since the fall of apartheid, 13 years ago, continues unchecked. Annually, 20,000 people are estimated to be killed and property loss through theft is incalculable. Worse still, South Africa has just passed India as home to the largest tally of AIDS in the world. And those shanty towns that rim the big cities are still there, few have been replaced. Unemployment is 25%. South Africa?s rising wave of crime, an article in The Christian Science Monitor, paints a distressing picture of a country few would be encouraged to visit. Thus the big cities such as Johannesburg have become seedbeds for robbery and violent hijacking, making crime South Africa?s biggest problem. Sometimes it is the work of individuals; sometimes the work of organized gangs. One black editor, while in no way supporting the old apartheid regime, remarks wryly: ?There was no city crime or unemployment in the old days. If you were a black without a [residence]...
By: Carson's Post
Zimbabwe: sugar deflating?
2007-08-08 23:01:00 Tom Freeman, blogging at Freemania, has a look at Zimbabwe’s desperate inflation in his post “Mugabeconomics”. Last Wednesday, Zimbabwe issued a new $200,000 note. You could buy a kilo of sugar with it. According to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, monthly inflation was 37.8% in February, 50.5% in March and 100.7% in April ? an annual equivalent ...
By: Carson's Post
Moving from surburbia to urburbia
2007-08-06 18:33:00 “We need to start changing our approach from a suburban model to an urban model.” — Southern California planner The LA Times has a fascinating piece on population growth in southern California. The move away from single family dwellings (where the median price of a home is around $750,000) to apartments and condos is expected to ...
By: Carson's Post
8 US docs graduate from Havana U
2007-07-27 06:46:00 Eight American students have graduated from a Cuban medical school after six years of free tuition, giving a fresh boost to the reputation of the communist government’s health care system. The first class of US graduates from the Latin American School of Medicine, a Fidel Castro brainchild on Havana’s outskirts, plan to return home and take ...
By: Carson's Post
Harper and the lone smile
2007-07-20 21:06:00 This is a really cheap shot but when a Prime Minister visits an horrific slum in the darkest of third world countries where, obviously, children are having children under unimaginable circumstances, it is not a good idea to be seen smiling about it. No one else is. From the Globe and Mail PM arrives in ...
By: Carson's Post
Afghanistan: Taleban recruitment and the forgotten demographic.
2007-07-19 09:20:00 Gunnar Heinsohn posts on OpenDemocracy.net a look at the limitless reservoir of radicalized insurgents in Afghanistan. Though most media see Pakistan as the recruitment area, Heinsohn looks at Afghanistan’s “Baby Boom” as a key in where these militants are coming from, and finds that it isn’t going to get much easier. The key statistic here ...
By: Carson's Post
Fred Halliday looks at the world through it?s history
2007-07-18 10:38:00 Whenever I see something written by Fred Halliday, Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics, I read it. I am never disappointed, and always much smarter for it. There is an inevitable gap that exists between the academic and the journalist. Between Noam Chomski and Robert Fisk, or Samuel Huntington and ...
By: Carson's Post
A long walk for Global Warming
2007-07-14 11:24:00 Christian Aid is behind the longest ever protest march in UK history. It is starting in Belfast today and will be heading throughout the country, stopping at over 70 towns in order to raise awareness of the impact of Global Warming. The march will take 11 weeks and travel 1000 miles before ...
By: Carson's Post
Mumbai?s housing is the priciest in the developing world
2007-07-04 03:43:00 According to report on Global Property Guide, housing in the financial hub of India - Mumbai, is costlier than anywhere else in the developing world. 'Apartments in South Mumbai cost around US$9,000 to US$10,200 per square metre. ?Such stellar prices can only be found in the world?s leading cities,? says Yasmin Rahman, yields and valuation analyst at the Global Property Guide.' While property prices in other cities in India is much cheaper. Bangalore, for example, costs US$950 to US$2,000 per sq. m. These prices are exceptionally high for a country with a GDP per person of only US$770 in 2006 the page adds. For Mumbaikars, this is not a very surprising news!! It's no coincidence that around 60% of Mumbaikars live in slums. (news flash for those who think that people live in slums by choice)A major cause of the shortage of cheap housing is that India?s rental market is still hindered by socialist laws protecting tenants. Although these laws are slowly being replaced by mo...
the economist wants to activiate its community to help the developing world
2007-06-30 22:48:00 News magazines are having a difficult time trying to imagine a future beyond the printed page. The Economist, is one news magazine,that despite bucking the trend with increases in circulation and ad pages, is still preparing itself for the future. To do this, it created Project Red Stripe; basically a group of The Economist’s youngest and smartest minds from around the globe. They got together in a London office provided for them by their ad agency and for a few months considered hundreds of ideas for the future. At the end of their journey, they settled on one. LughenjoIt’s big, powerful and imaginative. Their idea is to link their intelligent, highly influential reader base to projects in the developing world. As the team writes:“Imagine a CEO examining a business plan for a developing world social enterprise. Or when one of the 450 000 finance and accounting professionals of CFO and Economist.com can look over the books of an NGO in Nairobi. The possibilities ar...
By: Influx Insights
the economist wants to activiate its community to help the developing world
2007-06-30 22:48:00 News magazines are having a difficult time trying to imagine a future beyond the printed page. The Economist, is one news magazine,that despite bucking the trend with increases in circulation and ad pages, is still preparing itself for the future. To do this, it created Project Red Stripe; basically a group of The Economist’s youngest and smartest minds from around the globe. They got together in a London office provided for them by their ad agency and for a few months considered hundreds of ideas for the future. At the end of their journey, they settled on one. LughenjoIt’s big, powerful and imaginative. Their idea is to link their intelligent, highly influential reader base to projects in the developing world. As the team writes:“Imagine a CEO examining a business plan for a developing world social enterprise. Or when one of the 450 000 finance and accounting professionals of CFO and Economist.com can look over the books of an NGO in Nairobi. The possibilities ar...
By: Influx Insights
Microsoft?s biggest, ever, mistake
2007-06-28 19:08:00 What was the biggest mistake that Microsoft ever made? The XBox that still doesn’t make money? The Zune that never will? Security… security… security… the bugs? The biggest ever mistake that is and will continue to hemorrhage Microsoft’s vast user base is the combination of their price and anti-piracy measures. If they actually get the anti-piracy part of ...
By: Carson's Post
Big Question: After Left v. Right, whats next?
2007-06-06 17:15:00 In it’s March 2007 issue, Prospect Magazine asked 100 influential thinkers: if left wing v. right defined the 20th century, what would be next? Their answers were very interesting if a little scary. Some examples: Cheryll Barron, writer What comes next is giving the intellectual heritage of non-western cultures a place above the salt. ...
By: Carson's Post
Driving to Jerusalem
2007-06-02 21:41:00 The Israeli and Palestinians have been going at it for so long it is easy to become indifferent about their antipathy, to tune out. If they are OK with beating up on each other, why should we lose any sleep? Here is a reason: those guys and the Iranians, the Syrians, the Lebanese are cheating us ...
By: Carson's Post
One Laptop Per Child: a demo video
2007-05-30 13:06:00 One of the more amazing projects coming to fruition this year is the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. We have commented on this project before here, and will continue to keep track of it. Here is a video of Opera CTO describing the XO laptop: The project is important for several reasons, the first and ...
By: Carson's Post
Amnesty Report Study, who covers it, and what does it say?
2007-05-24 18:32:00 Amnesty International’s secretary-general, Irene Khan wrote editorials yesterday for the Guardian and Huffington Post web sites. In these, she is promoting Amnesty International’s annual report (summary), which has highlighted the increased use of fear in the politics of the world today. Our world today is deeply polarized. Comparisons are increasingly being made with the Cold War ...
By: Carson's Post
Memo to Gordon Brown: Current Policy Helping Al Qaida
2007-05-23 19:42:00 OpenDemocracy.net has just posted policy recommendations to Gordon Brown’s transition team from the South Waziristan Institute of Strategic Hermeneutics (SWISH). This independent consultancy group’s previous clients include the White House, the Blair government and Al Qaida themselves. The report contains interesting details about the so called “War on Terror”, British military and policy, ...
By: Carson's Post
The Middle East Doesn?t Matter
2007-05-19 12:03:00 Or so claims the cover of Prospect Magazine, referring to an article by Edward Luttwak, senior advisor at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington, DC. What a juicy claim, I certainly bought a copy of the magazine, but one that is much too bold, too strong, too counter-intuitive to hold any ...
By: Carson's Post
Global Security and Global Warming
2007-04-20 10:23:00 UPDATE: There is a very large error in this post. The “Coming Anarchy” was written by Robert Kaplan, not Robert Kagan. Mr. Kagan did write Paradise and Power, but not the “Coming Anarchy”. I apologize for this mistake. A NY Times editorial backs a report written by eleven retired Admirals and Generals who see Global ...
By: Carson's Post
Camel Fighting and the Delicate Situation in Afghanistan
2007-04-19 07:36:00 The Institute for War and Peace Reporting is an organization that teaches journalistic skills to the local people of war-torn areas, and then publishes some of their work on their web site. The content can be quite interesting, its a little different from what you get in the New York Times. There are accounts of ...
By: Carson's Post
Developing world hopes to halve water, sanitation problems by 2015
2007-03-13 08:09:00 Washington, March 13: Local communities in the developing world and professional researchers are working to achieve the goal of reducing by half the number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015.
By: newkerala.com
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