South Asia’s export based apparel industry is reeling under the impact of
\nthe global recession as demand for clothing from Western countries slows
\ndown. The industry is one of the biggest employers in this region.<\/p>\n
Burmese people beg for food in the rain as aid begins to arrive following
\ncyclone Nargis. International aid for cyclone victims in Burma was
\ndeliberately blocked by the military regime.<\/p>\n
One in every 31 adults, or 7.3 million Americans, is in prison, on parole
\nor probation, at a cost to the states of $47 billion in 2008.<\/p>\n
Police found the body of a strangled woman in a suitcase dumped at
\nBangladesh\u2019s Zia International Airport. Security officials alerted customs
\nand police after the suitcase was found on a trolley outside the airport\u2019s
\ndeparture door late yesterday.<\/p>\n
It began with British betrayal after the Second World War and has
\nstubbornly outlived every other conflict. But now, as it marks it diamond
\njubilee, the world\u2019s longest-running war is nearing its endgame. The
\nguerrilla army of the Karen ethnic group, which has been fighting since
\n1949 for independence from Burma, is facing the greatest crisis in its
\nhistory. If Karen resistance collapses, as some believe is likely, it will
\nbe a triumph for the Burmese junta as it consolidates its hold on power.<\/p>\n
A British man is allegedly killed by thieves in a raid on his yacht during
\na boating holiday off the southern coast. Malcolm Robertson and his wife
\nLinda were sailing their boat off the coast of southern Thailand when he
\nwas allegedly beaten with a hammer and thrown overboard by a group of men
\ntrying to steal a dinghy.<\/p>\n
The Seychelles, the idyllic archipelago in the Indian Ocean off the coast
\nof Africa, is best known as an island paradise playground for celebrities,
\nroyalty and the ultra-wealthy. These days, it’s better known for something
\nelse: bankruptcy.<\/p>\n
The junta’s wilful disregard for the welfare of the 3.4 million survivors
\nof cyclone Nargis \u2013 which struck the Irrawaddy delta last May, killing
\n140,000 people \u2013 and a host of other abuses amount to crimes against
\nhumanity under international law. The storm surge coupled with intense
\nwinds swept away homes, fields, livestock and rice stores, leaving little
\nor nothing for survivors. But the military regime, which was at the time
\npreparing for a national referendum on its plans to hold elections in 2010,
\ninsisted it could cope with the disaster despite its scale and shunned most
\ninternational relief for weeks.<\/p>\n
Criminal correction spending is outpacing budget growth in education,
\ntransportation and public assistance, based on state and federal data. Only
\nMedicaid spending grew faster than state corrections spending, which
\nquadrupled in the past two decades. The increases in the number of people
\nin some form of correctional control occurred as crime rates declined by
\nabout 25 percent in the past two decades.<\/p>\n
Customs officials scanned the luggage and found the body of a 35-year-old
\nwoman dumped inside. She was strangled by a rope. She is a married woman
\nwith two children and her husband lives in Malaysia.<\/p>\n
After a three-year offensive by the junta, the Karen National Liberation
\nArmy (KNLA) has been forced into increasingly small pockets of resistance.
\nDeprived of funds and equipment, it is able to do little more than slow the
\nadvance of the Burmese Army as it lays waste to hundreds of villages,
\ndriving thousands of terrified civilians before it.<\/p>\n
Executions around the world increased by more than 90 per cent last year.
\n2,390 people were executed last year. China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the
\nUnited States were responsible for 93 per cent of the executions. China had
\nthe highest figures, carrying out 72 per cent of all executions. Fifty-nine
\ncountries retain the death penalty worldwide but only 25 of them carried
\nout executions in 2008. In Europe only Belarus carried out the death
\nsentence. Africa, Botswana and Sudan were the only countries to have
\ncarried out executions. The fact that fewer countries carried out
\nexecutions shows we may slowly be moving toward a world that is free of the
\ndeath penalty.<\/p>\n
The tiny country’s debt burden may be tiny compared to Iceland, which
\nneeded a $2.1 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund last
\nfall, but the Seychelles’ problems illustrate the degree to which the
\nglobal economic crisis has leveled some economies altogether. And because
\nof its small size, with just 87,000 people, the Seychelles now has the
\nunenviable stature of being perhaps the most indebted country in the world.
\nPublic and private debt totals $800 million – roughly the size of the
\ncountry’s entire economy.<\/p>\n
For the last three years, 40-year-old Phekan sewed buttons on cotton shirts
\nin a small factory in Gurgaon, on the outskirts of New Delhi earning about
\n$100 a month. But she lost her job earlier this month after the European
\nretailer buying the shirts slashed orders. Phekan is worried how she will
\ncontinue to live in the city while searching for another job. Phekan says
\nher landlord will demand rent on the first of the month, and she does not
\nknow how she will pay the money.<\/p>\n
The Burmese army obstructed private cyclone relief efforts even among its
\nown concerned citizens, setting up checkpoints and arresting some of those
\ntrying to provide help. Supplies of overseas relief materials that were
\neventually allowed into Burma were confiscated by the military and sold in
\nmarkets, the packaging easily identifiable.<\/p>\n
As US states face huge budget shortfalls, prisons, which hold 1.5 million
\nadults, are driving the spending increases. States have shown a preference
\nfor prison spending even though it is cheaper to monitor convicts in
\ncommunity programs, including probation and parole, which require offenders
\nto report to law enforcement officers. A survey of 34 states found that
\nstates spent an average of $29,000 a year on prisoners, compared with
\n$1,250 on probationers and $2,750 on parolees. The study found that despite
\nmore spending on prisons, recidivism rates remained largely unchanged. As
\nstates trim services like education and health care, prison budgets are
\ngrowing. Those priorities are misguided.<\/p>\n
Three new case studies and a video have been released on the impacts of
\nmonoculture tree plantations on women in Nigeria, Papua New Guinea and
\nBrazil. These tree plantations provide rubber for car and bus tires, palm
\noil for processed foods and pulp for toilet paper – all items being used in
\nthe west. They are also destroying local communities.<\/p>\n
Most serious of all, the Karen leadership is losing the support of
\nneighbouring Thailand, where it was formerly able to organise, arm and \u2013
\nwhen necessary \u2013 retreat. Trapped between the Burmese Army to the west and
\nan increasingly unfriendly Thailand to the east, with hundreds of thousands
\nof their people in wretched refugee camps, the Karen are experiencing a
\nhumanitarian and military catastrophe.<\/p>\n
Conservationists searching through the undergrowth of a remote mountain
\nregion have identified up to 50 new species of jumping spiders. Medical
\nscience could benefit from the discoveries through the study of the
\nchemicals contained in their venoms. Insights into how to develop vision
\nfor robots and how to miniaturise could also be made by the study of the
\njumping spider eyes.<\/p>\n
Last year, as tourism and fishing revenue began slowing, the Seychelles
\ndefaulted on a $230 million, euro-denominated bond that had been arranged
\nby Lehman Brothers before its own bankruptcy. The IMF came in in November
\nwith a two-year, $26 million rescue package, and the country has since
\ntaken a series of emergency steps: It laid off 12.5% of government workers
\n(1,800 people), floated its currency (the Seychelles rupee, which has
\nfallen from eight to the U.S. dollar to 16, effectively doubling the prices
\nof imports), lifted foreign exchange controls and agreed to sell state
\nassets.<\/p>\n
Bigger manufacturers are able to absorb the impact of the slowdown, but The researchers were repeatedly told that surviving men, women and even States are looking to make cuts that will have long-term harmful effects. In the case of Nigeria, in 2007, the French tire maker Michelin came in to The military situation is as bad as it\u2019s been at any time in the past 60 Along with spiders, which can leap 30 times their own body length, The IMF has given a thumbs-up to the initial progress, but it warned that The industry is impacted slightly less in India, where strong domestic The Burmese regime’s response to the disaster violated humanitarian relief Over all, two-thirds of offenders, or about 5.1 million people in 2008, In Papua New Guinea, monoculture oil palm plantations provide palm oil It\u2019s a cat-and-mouse kind of struggle. The Burmese burn down villages and Jumping spiders with their remarkably miniaturized yet acute eyes could The industry was hoping to exceed last year’s exports which totaled over Georgia had 1 in 13 adults under some form of punishment; Idaho, 1 in 18; In Brazil, Eucalyptus plantations provide pulp for paper that is used for In the early decades of the war, the KNU dominated the Irrawaddy Delta, The 30 to 50 new species of jumping spiders were spotted and caught during Seychelles officials have another idea though: to promote the country’s The textile and garment factories in the region provide jobs to tens of States started spending more on prisons in the 1980s during the last big The impacts of these monoculture plantations are not gender neutral. As Last year the KNU suffered another blow when its respected and charismatic Instead of building webs or responding to the motion of prey they have And hopes for expanding tourism remain high. In addition to the usual The border is a valuable conduit not only for the Karen but for Burmese South Asia’s export based apparel industry is reeling under the impact of the global recession as demand for clothing from Western countries slows down. The industry is one of the biggest employers in this region. Burmese people beg for food in the rain as aid begins to arrive following cyclone Nargis. International aid for cyclone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","spay_email":""},"categories":[50,52,53,56,6,7,8,12,14,16,17,23,30,33,34,37,38,42,46,47],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1364"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nmany smaller units are badly hit. “The bigger people, because economies of
\nscale and cost pressures are important, are still going to grow, but it is
\nsmall companies which don’t have economies of scale, they might go out of
\nbusiness.”<\/em><\/p>\n
\nchildren were used as forced labour on reconstruction projects for the
\nmilitary. “[The army] did not help us, they threatened us,” said one
\nsurvivor from the town of Labutta. “Everyone in the village was required to
\nwork for five days, morning and evening without compensation. Children were
\nrequired to work too. A boy got injured on his leg and got a fever. After
\ntwo or three days he was taken to [Rangoon], but after a few days he died.”<\/p>\n
\nCorrections is one area they can cut and still have good or better outcomes
\nthan what they are doing now. Focusing on probation and parole could reduce
\nrecidivism and keep crime rates low in the long run. But tougher penalties
\nfor crimes had driven the crime rate down in the first place. One of the
\nreasons crime rates may be so low is because we changed our federal and
\nstate systems in the past two decades to make sure that people who commit
\ncrimes, especially violent crimes, actually have to serve significant
\nsentences.<\/p>\n
\nthe Igu\u00f3bazuwa Forest Reserve, a biologically diverse region supplying food
\nfor around 20,000 people. Michelin bulldozed the forest and local farm
\nlands to convert them into rubber plantations. Women living there lost
\ntheir subsistence farms and the local forest which provided medicinal herbs
\nand plants.<\/p>\n
\nyears. The Karen have less territory, fewer soldiers and fewer resources to
\nsustain resistance. The Burmese have them more and more surrounded, and
\ntheir backs are up against the wall. A Karen leader on the Thai border said
\nthat the KNLA and Burmese Army were fighting near the town of Kawkareik,
\nclose to the Thai border. All year there have been reports of Karen
\nvillagers being driven into the jungle by marauding soldiers.<\/p>\n
\nresearchers discovered three previously unknown frogs, two plants and a
\nstripy gecko. The great age of discovery isn\u2019t over by far. Spider venom
\nhas evolved for millions of years to affect the neurological systems of the
\nspider\u2019s insect prey and each species of spider gives us another
\nopportunity to find medically-useful chemicals.<\/p>\n
\nthe economy would contract 9.5% this year. The government of Australia is
\nsending tax experts to help overhaul the revenue collection system and
\naudit local companies. Now the Seychelles is negotiating with the
\ngovernments of Britain, France and other Western countries including the
\nU.S. – the so-called Paris Club – to reschedule $250 million in debt it
\nowes them. It is asking for 50% of it to be forgiven – a rate it hopes its
\ncommercial creditors will then apply to its remaining $550 million
\noutstanding.<\/p>\n
\nconsumption is providing a market for manufacturers. But the export
\ndependant industries in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have been impacted more
\nseverely by shrinking retail sales in the West. An estimated 25 percent of
\norders have been cancelled by Western buyers.<\/p>\n
\nnorms and legal frameworks for relief efforts. The systematic abuses may
\namount to crimes against humanity under international law through the
\ncreation of conditions where basic survival needs of people are not met,
\nintentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to
\nmental or physical health.<\/p>\n
\nwere on probation or parole. The study found that states were not
\nincreasing their spending for community supervision in proportion to their
\ngrowing caseloads. About $9 out of $10 spent on corrections goes to prison
\nfinancing (that includes money spent to house 780,000 people in local
\njails). One in 11 African-Americans, or 9.2 percent, are under correctional
\ncontrol, compared with one in 27 Latinos (3.7 percent) and one in 45 whites
\n(2.2 percent). Only one out of 89 women is behind bars or monitored,
\ncompared with one out of 18 men.<\/p>\n
\nwhich is used to produce soap, cosmetics, processed foods and agrofuels for
\nthe European Union (EU) and other western countries. These plantations,
\nhowever, also destroy forests, biodiversity, and local community
\nlivelihoods. Small farmers were promised the opportunity to benefit
\nfinancially from the palm plantations and have been using much of their
\nland for palm oil production, depleting the soil, but earning less than was
\npromised. Women living near these plantations don\u2019t have enough arable land
\nto farm and are exposed to toxic pesticides. \u201cHealth is a very big concern
\nin our place right now we breathe in the chemicals\u2026 I\u2019m pretty sure we are
\ninhaling dangerous substances and definitely are dying every minute. Some
\nwomen had babies who developed asthma when they were just one or two months
\nold.\u201d said a woman from the community of Saga.<\/p>\n
\nrelocate the people close to their own camps. The Karen conflict has its
\norigins in the Second World War, when many Karen fought alongside the
\nBritish Army against the invading Japanese. The seven million Karen were
\npromised their own state by the British but when independence came in 1948
\nthe promise was forgotten. A year later, in January 1949, the Karen began
\nthe armed struggle that has continued ever since.<\/p>\n
\nhelp us understand how to push the limits of vision. In addition to filling
\nin the gaps in our planet\u2019s natural history, exploring spider biodiversity
\nand evolution could potentially inform fields as diverse as medicine and
\nrobotics. Jumping spiders have better vision than other types of spider and
\ntwo of their eight eyes are especially well developed for high resolution
\nvision. In effect, they have evolved a design that has deconstructed the
\neyeball and put it together, with modifications, section by section in
\nminiature. The retina of the spiders could be of particular interest
\nbecause instead of the three-dimensional hemisphere in the human eyeball it
\nhas developed like a flat scanner.
\n
\n“We borrowed more than we can repay. This was wholly irresponsible.”<\/em>
\nHeavily reliant on tourism, the Seychelles is desperately searching for
\nways to raise capital – at a time when tourism is forecast to drop
\nprecipitously this year. The country has already seen a drop of 15% in
\nvisitor arrivals from the start of 2009; tourism revenue for the year could
\ndrop by some 25% more as a result of the global recession.<\/p>\n
\n$10 billion, but is unlikely to meet the target. “The export goal initial
\nin this year was $13 billion, and we are little scared whether we will be
\nable to achieve that goal. Buyers are delaying the goods because of falling
\ndemand. We are struggling for survival in these bad days.”<\/em><\/p>\n
\nthe District of Columbia, 1 in 21; Texas, 1 in 22; Massachusetts, 1 in 24;
\nand Ohio, 1 in 25.<\/p>\n
\ntoilet and facial tissue, as well as other disposable paper products in the
\nwest. These Eucalyptus plantations, push out local agriculture, deplete the
\nsoil and are water-use intensive, devastating local flora and fauna. One
\nwoman, anonymously interviewed in Southern Brazil, explains that \u201cthe
\ncompanies only give work to men. The few jobs they give to women are the
\nones that pay the least.\u201d Even in the case of men, the companies tend to
\nhire workers from outside the region, and this influx of strangers
\ninvariably leads to a rise in sexual harassment cases.<\/p>\n
\nclose to the former Burmese capital Rangoon, as well as areas north of the
\ncity and all of Kayin State. But in the 1990s an increasingly well-armed
\nBurmese Army made steady gains and in 1995 the KNU was driven out of its
\ncapital, Manerplaw. At this time, Buddhists in the Christian-dominated KNU
\nbroke away to form the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), which now
\nfights alongside the Burmese Army. Formerly, the KNU had operated as a
\nquasi-government, providing schools and clinics and receiving income from
\ntax, as well as from a profitable trade through Thailand in timber, gold,
\nzinc and antimony. The loss of territory brought a loss of funds, which
\nmade it harder to arm and equip itself. The KNU claims to have 10,000
\nsoldiers, including village militia men, but the number of active fighters
\nis probably between 3,000 and 5,000.<\/p>\n
\na survey of a region of Papua New Guinea. Among the new spiders were types
\nthat came from particularly unusual evolutionary branches and zoologists
\nhope that these will offer new clues into how jumping spiders evolved, a
\nquestion that remains a puzzle. There are 5,000 species of jumping spider
\nyet to be discovered around the world. They evolved much more recently that
\nother spiders.<\/p>\n
\nlongstanding virtue of being an off-shore business haven, with no corporate
\ntax, no minimum capital requirements, only one shareholder or director
\nrequired, and an annual licensing fee of just $100. It also hopes to grow
\nrevenue from fishing licenses in its territorial waters, and soon it will
\npresent a proposal to the United Nations to expand its exclusive rights to
\nthe surrounding seabed, potentially increasing prospects of revenue from
\nunderwater minerals, oil and gas.<\/p>\n
\nmillions of people, especially women, and are the biggest employers in the
\nregion after agriculture.<\/p>\n
\ncrime wave. Basically, when we made these investments, public safety and
\ncrime was the No. 1 concern of voters, so politicians were passing all
\nkinds of laws to increase sentences. Now, crime is down, but we’re living
\nwith that legacy: the bricks and mortar and the politicians who feel like
\nthey have to talk tough every time they talk about crime.<\/p>\n
\nmuch attention should be placed on gender equality in the nations supplying
\nthe raw materials to support the western lifestyle as they do within their
\nown borders. They argue that consumers need to understand the impacts of
\ntheir consumption on both environmental and social justice, and consider
\nreducing consumption rates. At the same time, benefitting countries must
\npush for policies and protections for the environment and the people that
\nlive there. The current monoculture plantation system is not
\nenvironmentally or socially sustainable.<\/p>\n
\nleader, Pado Mahn Shar, was assassinated at his home in Thailand by
\nunidentified gunmen. Among many Karen there was a suspicion that the ease
\nwith which the killers escaped, and the failure to apprehend them,
\nreflected a cooling of the welcome afforded by Thailand. Last month Karen
\nmilitary commanders were ordered out of Thailand and back across the
\nborder. This probably reflects the Thai Government\u2019s increasing dependence
\non Burma for raw materials and energy \u2013 the two governments are jointly
\nplanning ambitious hydroelectric dams along the Salween River which forms
\npart of their border.<\/p>\n
\nlearnt to distinguish between different animals and their attack techniques
\ndepends on what they are tackling. Instead of sitting at the centre of a
\nweb, jumping spiders found a new way to make a living by wandering around
\ntheir habitat and pouncing \u2013 like cats \u2013 on their prey. Some of them are so
\ncute. There is a whole lot of beauty in these small spiders if we look
\nclosely enough.<\/p>\n
\nroster of luxury-seeking royals and high-spending celebs, the middle-tier
\ntraveler is now being heartily courted, too. The government in early March
\nannounced an “Affordable Seychelles” campaign – what would have until
\nrecently been an oxymoron – with the motto: “Once-in-a-lifetime vacation at
\na once-in-a-lifetime price,” based on lower prices caused by the halving in
\nvalue of the currency.<\/p>\n
\nstruggling to overthrow the military dictatorship. After the junta cracked
\ndown on large pro-democracy demonstrations of monks and activists in 2007,
\nmany of them escaped into Thailand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"