RECUEIL DES TEXTES DE L’ÉPREUVE ORALE DE LANGUE VIVANTE
ANGLAIS SESSION 2016
SUMMARY 1
A BREAK FROM FACEBOOK?
The Guardian (2015)
2
AFTER A CENTURY OF DECLINE, FRANCE'S VILLAGES HAVE STARTED GROWING AGAIN
The Economist (2015)
3
AID WORKERS AT CALAIS REFUGEE CAMP APPEAL FOR RIGHT KIND OF DONATIONS
theguardian.com (2015)
4
ALPHABET AND FACEBOOK DEVELOP RIVAL SECRET DRONE PLANS
The Guardian (2015)
5
ANONYMISING JOB APPLICATIONS TO ELIMINATE DISCRIMINATION IS NOT EASY The Economist (2015)
6
AT WHAT POINT DOES A FUNDRAISING AD GO TOO FAR?
NPR (2015)
7
AUTOMAKERS BATTLE FOR DOMINANCE ON THE ROAD TO SELF-DRIVING CAR
Reuters (2015)
8
BANNING CHILD LABOUR IMPOSES NAIVE WESTERN IDEALS ON COMPLEX PROBLEMS
The Guardian (2015)
9
BRITAIN BENEFITS FROM WELCOMING EU MIGRANTS, SAY IN CAMPAIGNERS
The Daily Telegraph (2015)
10
BRITISH PARLIAMENTARIANS REJECT AN ASSISTED DYING LAW
The Economist (2015)
11
CAN THE WORLD GET RICHER FOR EVER?
BBC News (2015)
12
CHARGE FOR PLASTIC BAGS IN BRITAIN DRAWS APPLAUSE, ANGER AND HUMOR The New York Times (2015)
13
CHINA ABANDONS ONE-CHILD POLICY AFTER 35 YEARS
14
CHINA’S RULING PARTY TARGETS GLUTTONY, SEXUAL IMPROPRIETY - AND GOLF www.theguardian.com (2015)
15
COKE TRIES TO SUGARCOAT THE TRUTH ON CALORIES
16 17
The Guardian Weekly (2015)
The New York Times (2015)
COMPUTER GLITCHES ARE BASICALLY INEVITABLE. BUT FOR BIG COMPANIES, THEY CAN BE The Washington Post (2015) BIG PROBLEMS DESIGNER BABIES AND GENETICALLY EDITED HUMANS WILL BE POSSIBLE SOON, SCIENTISTS Business Insider (2015) AGREE
18
DESPITE VOLKWAGEN SCANDAL, EUROPES’S DIESEL HABIT COULD BE HARD TO KICK
The New York Times
19
DIGITAL ADDICTION: THE SOCIAL COST OF CONSTANT MOBILE CONNECTION
The Irish Times (2015)
20
DISORDER ON THE BORDER?
The Guardian (2015)
21
DON'T BEAT YOURSELVES UP ABOUT HOW MUCH TV YOUR KIDS WATCH
The Guardian.com (2015)
22
DRIVEN FROM DISTRACTION
The Economist (2015)
23
DROUGHT SHAMERS DO BATTLE WITH WATER WASTERS IN CALIFORNIA
the Daily Mail (2015)
24
E-BOOK SALES SLIP, AND PRINT IS FOR FROM DEAD
New York Times (2015)
25
EVERYONE HERE WANTS ENGLAND
CNN (2015)
26
FATAL ADDICTIONS
The Observer (2015)
27
FIVE REASONS MEN ARE CLOSING THE LIFE EXPECTANCY GAP
The Daily Telegraph (2015)
28
FLOWING WATER ON MARS?
The Guardian (2015)
29
FLU RATE WOULD DECLINE SIGNIFICANTLY IF THE U.S. MANDATED PAID SICK LEAVE
huffingtonpost.com (2015)
30
FOOD WASTE: NATIONAL CAMPAIGN AIMS TO STOP THE ROT BY 2020
The Guardian (2014)
31
FOR CLIMATE'S SAKE, LET'S CUT FOOD WASTE!
The Ecologist (2014)
32
FOR FIRST TIME, CANADA'S INDIGENOUS FLEX THEIR ELECTORAL MUSCLES IN A BIG WAY
The Christian Science Monitor (2015)
33
FOR TEENS, E-CIGARETTE USE MAY LEAD TO CIGARETTE SMOKING
The Guardian (2014)
34
FORGET 'DEVELOPING' POOR COUNTRIES, IT'S TIME TO 'DE-DEVELOP' RICH COUNTRIES
The Guardian (2015)
35
FRENCH BASHING REMAINS A TRADITION AMONG U.S. REPUBLICANS
The New York Times (2015)
36
FRENCH POLICE INVESTIGATE MYSTERY DRONE FLIGHTS OVER CENTRAL PARIS
The Guardian (2015)
37
FROM SOMALILAND TO HARVARD
International New York Times (2015)
38
GOOGLE'S DRIVERLESS CARS RUN INTO PROBLEMS: CARS WITH DRIVERS
The New York Times (2015)
39
HALF OF EUROPE OPTS OUT OF NEW GM CROP SCHEME
The Guardian (2015)
40
HELL'S GRANNIES
The Economist (2015)
41
HILLARY CLINTON: DEATH PENALTY USED 'TOO FREQUENTLY' IN THE US
The Guardian (2015)
42
HISTORIANS’ FEARS AS ISIL DESTROYS PALMYRA TEMPLE
Daily Telegraph (2015)
43
HOT DOGS, BACON AND OTHER PROCESSED MEATS CAUSE CANCER
The Washington Post (2015)
44
HOW GREEN ARE YOUR BANANAS?
The Ecologist (2015)
45
HOW THE INTERNET HAS CHANGED BULLYING
The New Yorker (2015)
46
IF WE BEND TO PRESSURE, WHERE WOULD WE PUT A QUOTA OF MIGRANTS?
Daily Telegraph (2015)
47
IF YOU'RE UNHAPPY IN DUBAI, THE POLICE MAY CALL YOU
The Independent (2015)
48
IN THE FIGHT TO STOP CLIMATE CHANGE, FORESTS ARE A VITAL WEAPON
theguardian.com (2015)
49
INSTITUTIONS WORTH $2.6 TRILLION HAVE NOW PULLED INVESTMENTS OUT OF FOSSIL FUELS
The Guardian (2015)
50
IS IT OK TO EAT FARMED SALMON NOW?
The Guardian (2015)
51
IS THE FEMINIZATION OF PART TIME WORK ABOUT TO END?
The Telegraph (2015)
52
JOBS AND THE ROBOT REVOLUTION
The Independent (2015)
53
KEEP MOBILE PHONES OUT OF THE CLASSROOM
The Guardian (2015)
54
KIDS' DRUG-RESISTANT BACTERIA BLAMED ON FARM ANTIBIOTIC USE
LiveScience.com (2015)
55
LEARN A SECOND LANGUAGE TO SLOW AGEING BRAIN’S DECLINE
New Scientist (2015)
56
LEFT THE COFFEE POT ON? NO WORRIES. THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT
The Washington Post (2015)
57
LIQUID LUNCH
The Economist (2015)
58
MEN DO MORE AT HOME, BUT NOT AS MUCH AS THEY THINK
The New York Times (2015)
59
METHANE RELEASE MAY TRIGGER DANGEROUS GLOBAL WARMING
The Guardian (2015)
60
MILLIONS OF PEOPLE SPEND TWO OR MORE HOURS COMMUTING A DAY
The Guardian (2015)
61
MOTHER OF ALL HIGHS
The Economist (2015)
62
NASA ANNOUNCEMENT: WATER FOUND FLOWING ON RED PLANET COULD SUSTAIN LIFE
The Telegraph (2015)
63
NEWEST IMMIGRANTS ASSIMILATING AS FAST AS PREVIOUS ONES, REPORT SAYS The New York Times (2015)
64 65
ORTHOREXIA: AN OBSESSION WITH HEALTHY EATING NOT YET RECOGNISED BY www.independent.co.uk (2015) PSYCHIATRY PARENTS CAN TRACK WHETHER THEIR COLLEGE-AGED KIDS ARE GOING TO CLASSES. THEY The Washington Post (2015) SHOULDN'T
66
PLASTIC BAG CHARGE BACKED BY ENGLISH PUBLIC
The Guardian (2015)
67
POLITICIANS MUST GET TOUGH ON SUGAR TO CURB OBESITY CRISIS
New Scientist (2015)
68
PUBLISH, OR BE DAMNED
New Scientist (2015)
69
PUPILS 'HELD BACK' BY OVEREMPHASIS ON ARTS
The Daily Telegraph (2015)
70
RATHER THAN DESECRATE THE ARCTIC SHOULD BUSINESS MINE THE MOON?
The Guardian (2014)
71
REFUGEE CRISIS: IS CLIMATE CHANGE AFFECTING MASS MIGRATION?
www.independent.co.uk (2015)
72
RETHINKING WORK
The New York Times (2015)
73
RISE OF THE ROBOTS: HOW LONG DO WE HAVE UNTIL THEY TAKE OUR JOBS?
The Guardian (2015)
74
ROBOT DOCTORS AND LAWYERS? IT’S A CHANGE WE SHOULD EMBRACE
The Guardian (2015)
75
ROBOT REVOLUTION
The Guardian (2015)
76
RUGBY GETTING AS POPULAR AS CLASSIC SPORTS AT GIRLS’ SCHOOLS
the Daily Telegraph (2015)
77
SILICON VALLEY TRIES TO ALTER YOUR PERCEPTION OF CANNABIS
The New York Times
78
SINGAPORE INTRODUCES ROBOCOACH TO KEEP OLDER CITIZENS IN SHAPE
The Guardian (2015)
79
SIX MYTHS ABOUT SLEEP
the Guardian (2015)
80
SMART’ DRUGS ARE GETTING A LOT SMARTER
The Atlantic September (2015)
81
SOCIAL MEDIA IS HARMING THE MENTAL HEALTH OF TEENAGERS
The Guardian (2015)
82
SOLAR POWER TO THE PEOPLE
the Guardian (2015)
83
STOP GOOGLING. LET'S TALK
The Economist (2015)
84
STRESSFUL WORKPLACES, SHOORTER LIVES
The New York Times (2015)
85
SURVEILLANCE BILL TO INCLUDE INTERNET RECORDS STORAGE
www.bbc.com (2015)
86
THE CARS THAT ATE PARIS
The Economist (2015)
87
THE DAY ICELAND'S WOMEN WENT ON STRIKE
BBC News (2015)
88
THE DECLINE OF 'BIG SODA'
The New York Times (2015)
89
THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF NAPPING
Medical Daily January (2015)
90
THE QUEEN'S RECORD-LONG REIGN HAS SEEN BRITAIN'S GREATEST TIME OF CHANGE
The Guardian (2015)
91
THE RISE OF 'SELFIE SURGERY': HOW YOUNG IS TOO YOUNG TO HAVE COSMETIC WORK? The Daily Telegraph (2015)
92
THE WAGES OF MOTHERHOOD
The Guardian (2015)
93
VANCOUVER STUDENTS WIN TOP PRIZES AT INTEL SCIENCE FAIR
CTV news, the Canadian Press (2015)
94
VOLKSWAGEN DIESEL SCANDAL THREATENS TO RUIN ITS CREDIBILITY AND VALUE
The Los Angeles Times (2015)
95
WE COULD END FAMINE IF WE CUT FOOD WASTE BY A QUARTER – SO WHY DON’T WE?
The Guardian (2015)
96
WE MUST NOT RESPOND TO THE REFUGEE CRISIS WITH FEAR AND IGNORANCE The Huffington Post (2015)
97
WHAT JOBS COULD A 100-YEAR-OLD DO?
'BBC News' Oct 2015
98
WHAT MASS INCARCERATION LOOKS LIKE FOR JUVENILES
The New York Times (2015)
99
WHAT'S THE MEANING OF LA MARSEILLAISE?
The BBC (2015)
100
WHY THE UNITED STATES LEAVES DEADLY CHEMICALS ON THE MARKET
In These Times (2015)
101
WILL MACHINES EVENTUALLY TAKE ON EVERY JOB?
bbc.com (2015)
102
WORLD’S ENERGY SYSTEMS AT RISK FROM GLOBAL WARMING
The Guardian (2015)
103
YALE'S HALLOWEEN ADVICE STOKES A RACIALLY CHARGED DEBATE
www.nytimes.com (2015)
104
YEARNING TO BREATHE FREE
The Economist (2015)
105
YOUNG PEOPLE ARE NOT APATHETIC ABOUT POLITICS, THEY JUST NEED A HELPING HAND The Guardian (2015)
Texte 1
A BREAK FROM FACEBOOK?
Researchers in Denmark who split 1,095 daily Facebook users into two groups, half given access to the site as normal and the remainder forced to quit cold turkey, found that after a week those on a break from the social network felt 55% less stressed. “We look at a lot of data on happiness and one of the things that often comes up is that comparing ourselves to our peers can increase dissatisfaction,” said the CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen. “Facebook is a constant bombardment of everyone else’s great news, but many of us look out of the window and see grey skies and rain. This makes the Facebook world, where everyone’s showing their best side, seem even more distortedly bright by contrast, so we wanted to see what happened when users took a break.” Participants aged between 16 and 76 were quizzed before the experiment began on how satisfied they felt, how active their social life was, how much they compared themselves to others, and how easy they found it to concentrate. The group was then split, with half behaving as normal and half agreeing to abstain from Facebook for seven days. Stine Chen, 26, found it tough at first, saying: “Facebook’s been a huge part of life since I was a teenager and lots of social activities are organised around it.” It was also a challenge for Sophie Anne Dornoy, 35: “When I woke up, even before getting out of bed, I’d open Facebook on my phone just to check if something exciting or important had happened during the night. I worried I’d end up on Facebook just out of habit.” She deleted the smartphone app and blocked the site on her desktop to reduce temptation. “After a few days, I noticed my to-do list was getting done faster than normal as I spent my time more productively,” she said. “I also felt a sort of calmness from not being confronted by Facebook all the time.” A week later, the group who had abstained reported higher levels of life satisfaction and better concentration, as well as feeling less lonely, less stressed and more sociable. “My flatmates and I had to chat instead of just checking Facebook,” said Chen. Dornoy found she had longer conversations on the phone than normal and reached out more to family and friends: “It felt good to know that the world doesn’t end without Facebook and that people are still able to reach you if they want to,” she said. The next step for researchers is to assess how long the positive effects of a social media sabbatical last, and what happens when volunteers go without Facebook for extended periods, like a year for instance.
Adapted from The Guardian November 2015 (454 words)
Texte 2
AFTER A CENTURY OF DECLINE, FRANCE'S VILLAGES HAVE STARTED GROWING AGAIN
Eighteen hairpin bends on a mountain road separate the four Alpine hamlets of Nâves from the towns in the valley below. At this time of year villagers are busy preparing winter stocks: chopping firewood, harvesting sugar beet, or laying down carrots in crates of sand. A century ago 650 people lived in Nâves, tending cattle and living off the land. Today the figure is just 123. Yet for the first time in a century, the decline has reversed. Across Western Europe, once-populous hamlets like Nâves are challenging policymakers to find a way to keep services going and villages viable. Rural areas in most of Europe’s poorer regions, including the former east but also Spain, Portugal and Greece, are emptying out as younger generations head for the cities. Yet after decades of decline, France’s villages have been growing again—even in unfashionable parts that tourists seldom reach. In 1982-1990, the remotest rural areas in France were still losing 6,400 people a year. By 1999-2007, those same areas had recorded an annual net gain of 59,800. The reasons are a mix of public policy and changing aspirations. France’s strong transport links and public services help to make village life workable. Even today, the school bus drives up each morning from the valley to collect just eight primary-school pupils from Nâves. The beat of nature attracts former city-dwellers: those who decamp to remote parts now that the Internet allows them to indulge their desire for isolated living without truly disconnecting. “New technology gives old villages a future,” says Jacques Delorme, who runs an IT business and lives in Nâves. There is a general sense that rural needs are not a national policy concern. Mindful of this, François Hollande, the president, last month launched a new scheme to improve rural services. He promised that by 2017 some 1,700 newly qualified doctors would get a bonus for working in remote places, and that high-speed internet will be extended into remote corners of the land. But with France’s strained public finances, he has only meagre sums to back his words. Back in Nâves, there is a form of upland resilience. Some locals still use the icy running water, piped into the stone troughs in the village centre, for washing vegetables. At this time of year, they are collecting walnuts and edible mushrooms from the hillside forest. But winters are harsh and the hairpin bends can be treacherous in the snow. Cold and isolation can challenge rural romanticism. Rural villages like this are not on the way to anywhere, and nobody arrives by chance. “To live here,” says Mr Delorme, “you have to like solitude.”
Adapted from The Economist October 2015 (453 words)
Texte 3
AID WORKERS AT CALAIS REFUGEE CAMP APPEAL FOR RIGHT KIND OF DONATIONS
Aid groups in Calais are struggling to sift through huge quantities of inappropriate donations sent from the UK, ranging from plus-sized clothes, which are usually too large for refugees, to wedding dresses, DVDs and electric heaters intended for use in a camp that has no electricity. Volunteers are appealing instead for blankets, tents and warm, waterproof coats as well as building materials to help them construct more weather-proof huts to accommodate the camp’s rapidly expanding population. Reports of the appalling conditions in the Calais camp, where more than 6,000 people are now living in tents and shacks with limited access to water and sanitation, have triggered an enormous surge of donations from schools, faith groups and Facebook networks in the UK. Last Saturday vans full of donations arrived from England; on some Saturdays in October as many as 40 vans arrived. While this support has been gratefully received by refugees, the scale of the response and the haphazard way that some donations have arrived is now creating logistical difficulties in the Calais-based warehouse as volunteers race to distribute food and strong winter shoes. They have been forced to use valuable time extracting much-needed sleeping bags and blankets from boxes that sometimes contain flimsy clothing, high-heeled shoes, skirts and baby clothes, largely unsuitable for worsening conditions in a camp where 90% of occupants are young men. The aid groups running the warehouse, Help Refugees and l’Auberge des Migrants, are urging people to consult online lists of the most urgently needed items before bringing anything to France. The regularly updated lists currently highlight the need for waterproof men’s walking boots; […] pre-packed bags containing sets of hats, gloves and scarves; men’s jeans and tracksuits. […] Because there has been limited support from major aid agencies and the French and UK governments, the response of grassroots organisations and volunteers to the crisis has had a very positive impact on conditions. Volunteers from the UK and around the world are providing clothes, tents, hot meals and English lessons, and in the past few weeks have built a play centre for children, a library and a refugee advice centre. But as the camp grows in size, the absence of a more organised response is becoming increasingly problematic. The only major charity working in Calais, Doctors of the World, has expressed concern about the unsustainable nature of this kind of support. “In many ways it is wonderful that so many people are collecting for Calais, but Calais is a serious humanitarian emergency which needs an organised humanitarian response,” said a spokesperson for the charity, which has been providing medical care to refugees in Calais since 2003. […] Adapted from theguardian.com November 2015 (457 words)
Texte 4
ALPHABET AND FACEBOOK DEVELOP RIVAL SECRET DRONE PLANS
Google and Facebook have significantly expanded their rival plans to develop unmanned aircraft that can provide broadband internet access from high above the Earth, The Guardian has learned. Both Facebook and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, have quietly registered new drone designs with the US Federal Aviation Administration. [...] Much of the world’s attention is focused on small drones, such as Alphabet’s Project Wing or Amazon’s Prime Air delivery drones, but Google and Facebook are also working on much larger drones that can operate far above passenger jets, and even as high as 90,000 feet. Flying for weeks or months at a time, such drones could theoretically provide city-sized areas with high-speed internet access, particularly in remote or undeveloped parts of the world. "We’re working on ways to use drones and satellites to connect the billion people who don’t live in range of existing wireless networks,” said Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, in July. [...] Both companies would benefit from an expanded internet network which would help them reach new users, and in turn develop new advertising markets. Over the summer, Facebook revealed a huge solar-powered drone called Aquila with a wingspan of 42 metres capable of operating at up to 90,000ft, sharing internet access with radios and lasers. Aquila was developed by Facebook in the UK. The drone is made from carbon fibre that is about three times stronger than steel and lighter than aluminium. [...] The Guardian has learned that the first and only Aquila prototype arrived in the US in late September, for flight testing later this year. [...] “Weight is always your biggest enemy,” said Missy Cummings, professor of aeronautics at Duke University, referring to a traditional challenge of designing aircraft. “Facebook and Google are starting to find out what Boeing and Lockheed Martin have known all along, which is that it is really hard to design these systems.”[...] Even if the companies solve the technical challenges of keeping drones aloft for long periods, sharing data via lasers and serving city-sized areas, both Alphabet and Facebook still face regulatory hurdles. Neither company has been granted a waiver to the current blanket ban on the commercial operation of unmanned aircraft. Google has also been testing its delivery drones in the US under a Certificate of Waiver or Authorization with NASA, which permitted flights intended to help NASA develop an automated air traffic control system for low-flying drones. This would not apply to drones flying far above other manned and unmanned aircraft. “There’s not a lot to run into between 60,000 feet and 90,000 feet,” says Cummings. “But I’m sure regulators would be deeply suspicious if Google and Facebook were flying these over the US.” Facebook and Alphabet would not comment.
Adapted from The Guardian, November 2015 (460 words)
Texte 5
ANONYMISING JOB APPLICATIONS TO ELIMINATE DISCRIMINATION IS NOT EASY
“If you've got the grades, the skills and the determination, this government will ensure you can succeed,” trumpeted David Cameron, the British prime minister, on October 26th, as he unveiled plans to tackle discrimination in the workplace. Ten big employers in the public and private sectors – including the civil service, HSBC and Deloitte – have agreed to start recruiting on a “name-blind” basis in Britain; others may also follow suit. In such schemes, those drawing up shortlists of applicants cannot see their names, with the aim of reducing racial and sexual bias. But do they work? Several countries have experimented with name-blind applications. In 2010 Germany’s Anti-Discrimination Agency, an advisory body, sponsored a voluntary scheme to get businesses to try it. In France a law passed in 2006 made the anonymising of applicants’ CVs compulsory for firms of over 50 employees. But the government was slow in laying down the conditions for how the law would operate, and only started enforcing it last year. In Sweden and the Netherlands there have been some trials. Discrimination against job applicants based on their names is well documented, particularly among ethnic minorities. An experiment in Germany found that candidates with Germansounding names were 14% more likely to be called for an interview than candidates with Turkish ones. A review of various studies, by the Institute for the Study of Labour (IZA), a German outfit, found that anonymised job applications boost the chances of ethnic-minority candidates being invited to an interview. A Swedish study found that it led to more ethnicminority people being hired. However, the results from other trials are less clear. A second Swedish experiment found that only women, not immigrants, were boosted by anonymous recruitment. According to the IZA, experiments in the Netherlands showed no increase in the likelihood of ethnic-minority candidates being offered a job if their CVs were seen anonymously, suggesting that discrimination had crept in at the interview stage. Ensuring that a candidate is completely anonymous is also tricky. A 2012 French study found that foreign-born candidates and those from poor districts were less likely to be called for interview when applications were anonymised. Its authors suggested that recruiters may have used other indicators, such as knowledge of Arabic, to identify origin. In places fraught with religious tension, such as Northern Ireland, the name of a school can reveal a candidate’s faith, while a few years missing on a CV may suggest maternity leave, and thus that the candidate is female. Going name-blind when shortlisting candidates may be a sensible start, but it is likely to be just a small step towards ending hiring bias.
Adapted from The Economist October 2015 (446 words)
Texte 6
AT WHAT POINT DOES A FUNDRAISING AD GO TOO FAR?
Is "poverty porn" making a comeback? That's the term that some people used back in the 1980s to describe attention-grabbing fundraising ads [...]. Back then, the media were filled with images of starving African children in desperate need of food, seemingly all alone in the world. And folks in the West were invited to save them from their misery. This kind of appeal worked. [...] But not everyone thought these kinds of images were appropriate. [...] By the end of the decade, the arguments against such images won the day. Nonprofits began using more positive images of the poor to tell stories. But some observers in the global development community believe exploitative photos of the poor are creeping back as a way to boost fundraising effort. The executive director of the anti-poverty organization War on Want, described the return of "poverty porn" in a 2014 article for The New International. [...] Teddy Ruge, a Ugandan-born writer who works to develop new businesses in Africa, defined poverty porn as "[finding] the most extreme situation and [making] it look like the most common situation on the continent." [...] It’s not always easy to tell when an ad goes too far. At what point does an image become exploitative? What are the do's and don'ts of charity photos in the digital age? Those questions were discussed this summer on an online chat run by the Overseas Development Institute. ODI is a think tank that works on international and humanitarian issues. "The general feeling is that development photography has moved on since those classic bad examples," says the digital editor for ODI. Journalists, academics, photographers shared recent examples of stereotypical negative photos. [...] They also shared what they considered fair and constructive photography, portraying the subjects as self-sufficient and dignified. But there's a danger of putting too much positive spin on life in poor countries. The cofounder of the Australia-based development blog WhyDev, believes some organizations have gone to the opposite end of the spectrum [...] Like poverty porn, these upbeat images don't present a full picture, he says. One example of this optimistic approach is Oxfam's Food For All campaign in 2014. The fundraising ads sought to inspire donors with beautiful African landscapes and abundant marketplaces. [...] There are some points of agreement: photographers should get the subject's consent, tell the subject what the image will be used for and provide detailed captions to the organization that will feature the picture. Only then can charities begin to create a more accurate image of countries that many Americans only know through the work of charities and NGOs.
Adapted from NPR September 2015 (444 words)
Texte 7
AUTOMAKERS BATTLE FOR DOMINANCE ON THE ROAD TO SELFDRIVING CAR
At the recent Frankfurt Auto Show, Ford Motor Co unveiled a new feature that lets drivers pre-set their car to go at or just over a speed limit. In-car cameras and software read and react to road signs, speeding the car up or slowing it down. Advances in "semi-autonomy" - features that help handle tricky or tiresome driving situations but still require a driver's oversight - have sparked a high-tech automotive arms race. Automakers hope semi-autonomous features will, over time, help drivers and regulators get over fears of riding in vehicles that accelerate, steer and stop themselves, making potentially life-or-death judgements. Among the biggest winners for now are the companies that produce electronic sensors, cameras and software that make self-driving features possible. At Silicon Valley's Nvidia Corp, video games remain the biggest market, but automotive revenue is the fastest-growing segment. "We're in well over 8 million cars on the road today and will be in more than 30 million in the next three to four years," says Nvidia's president and CEO. For consumers, getting their first car with semi-automated features can be both exciting and daunting, especially those who haven't bought a new car in years. "I had no idea this sort of thing was out there," says Mark Goldsmith, a TV news writer. "I'd been driving a 15-year-old Jeep, which only had cruise control that you constantly had to adjust, so all these new features are a novelty." Goldsmith says the suite of functions was "definitely" a factor that helped sell him and his wife on the car. But to other drivers, like Kirstin Houser, a communications and events manager in Frankfurt, mastering how to use all the buttons, switches and toggles to activate the automated drive functions on her family car was a time-consuming process which required "relearn(ing) how to drive". "There are just too many bells and whistles on the steering column, either to push, pull, scroll, hold down, release. By the time I remember which one to use, there's already a row of cars behind me honking to park my car," she said. Google is holding discussions with at least half a dozen car companies with aims of launching its self-driving car system by 2020. That same year, Japan's Big Three - Toyota, Nissan Motor Co and Honda - are targeting the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games to launch and showcase cars that will largely handle themselves in city traffic, but not entirely. The 2020 Olympics could become a venue for automotive as well as athletic competition, and not just among traditional car companies. Tokyo-based Robot Taxi plans to bypass semiautonomy and deploy 3,000 self-driving taxis that athletes, VIPs and tourists can summon by a smartphone app. Adapted from Reuters, November 2015 (452 words)
Texte 8
BANNING CHILD LABOUR IMPOSES NAIVE WESTERN IDEALS ON COMPLEX PROBLEMS
In an ideal world there would be no child labour, but instead opportunities for children to play, learn, relax and otherwise enjoy life. This ideal is reflected in the corporate social responsibility policies of numerous companies and of those selling branded consumer goods. They have committed to eradicating any form of child labour from their supply chains. This seems a perfectly sensible way to protect a vulnerable group. Unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world. Child labour is far from exceptional in many parts of the globe. There are an estimated 168 million children involved in child labour according to the International Labour Organization. Do parents whose offspring work love their kids any less? No. Many of these children work simply to make their families’ ends meet, poor families whose income is around the subsistence level often have little choice. [...] One may argue that a formal ban on child labour will be the requisite trigger to reform labour conditions in low-income countries, or at least improve the living situation of former child labourers. This is a naive idea, because it ignores the direct and indirect effects of such a ban. When talking in terms of a categorical ban on child labour, it’s important to understand that the involvement of children in economic activities depends on intercultural differences. Many societies see children working as perfectly acceptable, especially in the context of family business. The Forum for African Investigative Reporters, for instance, quoted a Cameroonian farmer and father who said of his own family: "I do not consider this child abuse, because we are making money that is used to pay their school fees". Imposing a complete ban on foreign producers is a way of imposing a contemporary western mindset. Does this mean that anything goes? No, business can and should be proactive to improve the situation of child labourers. One sound measure would be to apply some basic, unbendable rules throughout supply chains. For example, slave labour and dangerous working conditions should be categorically forbidden. When child labour is a financial necessity, the involvement of children should be subject to additional conditions. First, families should demonstrate, and employers should record, that the supplementary income by children is needed to attain the purchasing power for meeting their basic needs (such as food, housing, and health care). Second, employers should take measures that make children’s working lives bearable. Working hours should be limited and the nature of tasks should be commensurate with the physical and mental abilities of the children performing them. Furthermore, firms employing children should offer prospects for improvement, such as on-site schooling after work. Adapted from The Guardian October 2015 (449 words)
Texte 9
BRITAIN BENEFITS FROM WELCOMING EU MIGRANTS, SAY IN CAMPAIGNERS
Voters should “welcome” mass migration from Europe and current numbers of people coming to work in Britain are not too high, the new head of the "In" campaign has said. Speaking at the launch of a new pro-EU group, Lord Rose, the former chief executive of Marks and Spencer, said mass migration from Europe had not had a “detrimental” effect on Britain. He said that the hundreds of Europeans who had moved to Britain had boosted economic growth, adding that the UK must not “slam the door”. This contrasts with David Cameron’s determination to use renegotiation of Britain’s EU membership to dissuade migrants from moving to the UK. Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, raised the possibility of an exit yesterday, saying that, while he backed renegotiation, the price of leaving the EU was “lower than it’s ever been”. "Britain Stronger in Europe", the cross party group fighting for an "In" vote at the in/out referendum was launched yesterday in London with leading figures in business and entertainment painting an "In" vote as the “positive and patriotic” decision. There were warnings over the “leap into the dark” of exiting, with figures suggesting leaving would make it harder to deport murderers and cost every family around £3,000 a year. Nigel Farage, the UK Independence Party leader, has indicated he will put immigration at the heart of his pitch for an exit, with polls repeatedly showing it at the top of voters’ concerns. However, Lord Rose, the chairman of the "In" campaign, said in a BBC interview he did not believe EU immigration had been too high. “I don’t believe there are too many European migrants”, Lord Rose said. “If you’re in the EU you can come to the UK. Britain has benefited by having a number of migrants coming here. People come and work in the hospitals, people come and work in our transport systems … They do a very valuable job and we should welcome them.” […] Senior "In" campaign figures warned of what would happen if Britain voted to leave the EU in the referendum, due before the end of 2017. The former chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland said being outside the European Arrest warrant would undermine Britain’s ability to deport criminals […]: “If I was a villain somewhere else in Europe and I was escaping justice, I would be coming here because it’s going to take a lot longer to get you back.” Lord Rose said the "Out" campaign put Britain's prosperity and influence in the world at risk. “I don’t believe that is a risk worth taking”, he said.
Adapted from The Daily Telegraph, October 2015 (447 words)
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BRITISH PARLIAMENTARIANS REJECT AN ASSISTED DYING LAW
Most Britons are in favour of legalising assisted dying: the largest recent poll put the figure at 82%. The rest of the West tends to agree. Yet on September 11th, British MPs roundly voted down a long-anticipated bill to legalise it: 330 were against, just 118 voted in favour. Under the proposed bill, people with fewer than six months to live would have been prescribed a fatal dose of drugs, as long as they did not have dementia. Two doctors and a High Court judge would have had to approve each case. More and more western countries are legalising doctor assisted dying. Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland are among them, as are six American states (California, the latest to legalise it, did so on September 9th). Bills and legal cases are in progress in Canada, Germany and South Africa, and in around 20 American states. Why is Britain defying the trend? The reasons may seem compelling. The bill’s opponents have argued fewer would want to die if more end-of-life care was available; policy-makers should invest in hospices rather than speed the dying on their way, they argue. But research does not back this up: a sociologist at Brunel University in London, found that terminal cancer patients in hospices were more rather than less likely to consider assisted dying than their equivalents in hospital. Others have worried that the law might make victims of the confused and vulnerable: a bout of recoverable pain, or inheritance-hungry relatives, may push people over the edge. But in Oregon, where assisted dying has been in place since 1997, little evidence of this has emerged. Most people choosing doctor assisted dying have been well-educated, and mostly concerned with the loss of autonomy that came with their illnesses, rather than blinded by pain. Safeguards are possible: in Oregon, where assisted dying legislation is widely admired, doctors must check there is no pressure on the patient. And as patients must be due to die in six months, motivations to bump them off are limited. Indeed, for patients worried they are losing control, simply having the option to die may change their last few weeks or months for the better. Of 1,327 people who were prescribed lethal drugs over the years in Oregon, only 859 actually took them. One British man, Jeffrey Spector, who ended his life at Dignitas, an assisted dying organisation in Switzerland, told his family he was “going too early”, but was worried he would not be able to make the journey as the illness progressed. Allowing doctor assisted dying would relieve many terrible burdens. The British public has already been persuaded. The law should follow.
Adapted from The Economist, September 2015 (448 words)
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CAN THE WORLD GET RICHER FOR EVER?
Since the dawn of the industrial age, the world has been steadily getting wealthier, despite setbacks such as the Great Depression and the more recent global financial crisis. We make more, sell more and consume more than ever before. Yet, according to the United Nations, nearly three billion people still live on less than $2.50 (£1.70) per day. So, how can we raise living standards for those who still live in poverty? The answer, according to most governments, is rapid economic growth. It creates jobs, erodes debts and raises living standards. It is almost universally seen as a Good Thing. Yet there's a problem here. Growth is exponential. So an annual increase in gross domestic product (GDP) of 3% might not sound like much - but it means an economy will double in size every 23 years. So does this matter? According to a professor of physics at the University of California, it definitely does, as economic growth goes hand in hand with increasing energy consumption. "From a physical point of view, if we grew at 3% a year, in about 400 years' time we would actually be boiling the oceans - not because of global warming and CO2, but just because of the heat that is a natural by-product of the energy that we use," he says. This view is not entirely new. In fact, the English scholar Thomas Malthus made a similar point back in the 18th Century. His concern was not energy use but population growth. He believed that the population would grow as living standards rose, and that eventually food supplies would run out. That hasn't happened so far. In fact, we have simply become much better at producing food. So could we do something similar with energy? "There's potential to get renewable sources of power that don't produce carbon emissions, that are cheap and easily accessible," says an economist and environmental campaigner. "The goal is to get the cost of renewable power below the cost of, say, coal." Resource scarcity in areas such as energy and water is a possible constraint, but there are vast natural resources that are untapped and human ingenuity has in the past overcome many such constraints. That should be good news for many developing countries, who rely on growth to create jobs and boost living standards. But growth alone is not good enough, it needs to be the right kind of growth. "It's seen as helping to lift people out of poverty. It should not be about simply creaming away natural resources." "Being rich means living a full life, living a life of meaning. Having work for your hands and your mind and your heart.”
Adapted from BBC News March 2015 (453 words)
Texte 12
CHARGE FOR PLASTIC BAGS IN BRITAIN DRAWS APPLAUSE, ANGER AND HUMOR
Some warned of “bag rage” by irate shoppers. […] Nerves were rattled, jokes were made and the annoyance of it all was duly noted in Britain this week. Nevertheless, shoppers began weaning themselves off plastic shopping bags. The government introduced a 5 pence charge for plastic bags for most purchased items as a way to reduce pollution and waste. When bags are not flying in the breeze, entangled in trees or floating down waterways, they are taking up space in landfills ‒ and it can take 1,000 years for a plastic bag to decompose. Charging for plastic bags is not only meant to encourage people to use cloth or other renewable bags; it also could save and make money. The government estimates that the fee will help reduce the cost of cleaning up garbage by £60 million over the next decade. Stores and supermarkets are being encouraged to donate the proceeds from the bag charge to charities, which could also drive £730 million to charitable causes, officials said. […] The new rules in England apply to retailers with more than 250 fulltime employees. Retailers that fail to properly enforce the measure could be fined up to £5,000. A similar charge for plastic bags exists in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, but that seems to have had no influence on the critics. Similar efforts to regulate plastic bags have been put in place across the world. In 2002, Bangladesh became the first country to introduce a ban on thin plastic bags because of concerns that they were clogging drainage pipes and contributing to devastating flooding. In 2008, Rwanda banned plastic bags, helping to solidify its image as one of the most environmentally conscious nations in East Africa. In the United States, many communities have regulated or even prohibited the bags. Since 2007, they have been banned in nearly 100 municipalities in California, including Los Angeles. […] Only a tiny fraction of plastic bags are recycled. “Plastic bags end up everywhere ‒ stashed in cupboards, floating down canals, littering our streets or killing wildlife,” Friends of the Earth, a British environmental group, said in a statement welcoming the new measure in England. The Taxpayers’ Alliance, an anti-tax group, said the new measure would burden families struggling to get by. A 2013 study by the National Center for Policy Analysis in Washington, which champions laissez-faire economics, argued that paper and reusable bags were worse for the environment than plastic bags when it came to energy and water use, and to greenhouse gas emissions. “Every type of grocery bag incurs environmental costs,” wrote the author of the study. Whatever the arguments, the charge has inspired a mix of applause, resentment, fear and humor.
Adapted from The New York Times October 2015 (458 words)
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CHINA ABANDONS ONE-CHILD POLICY AFTER 35 YEARS
China has scrapped its one-child policy, allowing couples to have two children for the first time in more than three decades, official media has reported. The announcement was made at the close of a Communist party meeting focused on financial reforms and maintaining growth at a time of heightened concerns over the country’s economy. China will “fully implement a policy of allowing each couple to have two children as an active response to an ageing population”, a statement published by Xinhua news agency on Thursday said. There were no immediate details on the new policy or a timeframe for its implementation. For months there has been speculation that Beijing was preparing to abandon the divisive family planning rule, which was introduced by Communist party leaders in 1980 because of fears of a population boom. The government credits it with preventing 400m births, but the human cost has been immense, with forced sterilisations and abortions, infanticide, and a dramatic gender imbalance that means between 20 million and 30 million young men will never find female partners. Opponents say the policy has also created a demographic “timebomb”, with China’s 1.3 billion-strong population ageing rapidly, and the country’s labour pool shrinking. The UN estimates that by 2050 China will have about 440 million people over 60. The working-age population – those between 15 and 59 – fell by 3.71 million last year, a trend that is expected to continue. In recent years, there has been a gradual relaxation of China’s family planning laws: since 2013, couples in many parts of the country have been allowed to have two children if one parent was an only child. Dai Qing, a Chinese writer who has publicly called for the one-child policy to be scrapped, said Thursday’s announcement was a positive step but that questions remained, particularly about how the Communist party would enforce its new two-child policy. “Even if people are allowed to have two children, what if they want to have three children or more? What if unmarried women want to have their own children? At the end of the day, it’s about women’s reproductive rights and freedoms.” Stuart Gietel-Basten, a University of Oxford demographer who also argued for the end of the policy, said the announcement had come earlier than expected but that the rule change was unlikely to have a major long-term demographic impact. “In the short term, probably there will be a little baby boom particularly in some of the poorer provinces where the rules have been very strict, like in Sichuan or in parts of the south. But in the long term I don’t think it’s going to make an enormous amount of difference.”
Adapted from The Guardian Weekly October 2015 (459 words)
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CHINA’S RULING PARTY TARGETS GLUTTONY, SEXUAL IMPROPRIETY - AND GOLF
One of the many unspoken perks of being a senior Communist Party official in China has long been the comfortable lifestyle it can often bring, for example a lavish lunch followed by a rejuvenating game of golf. But perhaps not anymore. Amid a major crackdown on corruption led by President Xi Jinping, the country’s ruling party has toughened its internal rules to bar members from joining golf clubs or indulging in extravagant banquets and restaurant meals. This disciplinary code extends to not just officials but all 88 million Communist Party members. Those who refuse to stay off the fairways can be handed an official warning or, in serious cases, removed altogether from their party post. Corruption and excess among party officials of all levels has long been common in China, and a major source of public disquiet. Xi Jinping has made a campaign against such misdeeds a key part of leadership. On taking office in 2012, Xi – who, conveniently, is known for being a football fan rather than a golf aficionado – promised to target corrupt cadres of all seniority. Since then, an estimated 100,000 officials have been punished. The lengthy new official regulations do not specify why golf is singled out. The game has something of a reputation as a place for corrupt officials to make illicit deals. […] “In other countries golf is more about the sport, here it’s about the social interaction,” said the man, who gave only his surname, Huang. “If a company boss can’t play with a government official, there’s little point in him spending his money.” China has at least 500 golf courses, some are built illegally, in contravention on a ban on new courses, in part due to preserve scarce water supplies. Dozens have been shut this year alone. Another unwelcome new measure for high life-loving party members is a prohibition on “extravagant” eating, drinking or entertaining, again potentially punishable by dismissal. While the previous incarnation of the regulations banned officials from having mistresses or other adulterous partners, the new rules go further, warning against any “improper sexual relations with others which result in adverse effects”. The majority of the many dozen clauses in the new rules concern more party-specific discipline. “Party members must separate public and private interests, put the public’s interest first, and work selflessly,” a report by Xinhua said, summarising the rules. […] While China has a full system of civil government, with a parliament and prime minister, as well as president, the Communist Party remains the pre-eminent base of power. Xi’s main position comes more from his role as party general secretary, as well as chair of its Central Military Commission, than from being the nation’s president.[…]
Adapted from www.theguardian.com October 2015 (455 words)
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COKE TRIES TO SUGARCOAT THE TRUTH ON CALORIES
The Coca-Cola Company, which has suffered a large decline in consumption of sugary sodas as consumers worry about obesity, has formed a new organization to emphasize exercise as the best way to control obesity and to play down the importance of cutting calories. Coke and other beverage makers have long given money to industry-leaning scientists and formed innocent-sounding front groups to spread the message that sugary sodas have no harmful effect on health and should not be taxed or regulated. The new organization, the nonprofit Global Energy Balance Network, is the latest effort to put a “science based” gloss on industry positions. It is led by respected scientists who say Coca-Cola will have no control over what they study or say, but corporate sponsorship tends to affect a study’s results. An analysis published in a medical review found that studies financed by Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, the American Beverage Association and the sugar industry were five times more likely to find no link between sugary drinks and weight gain than studies reporting no industry sponsorship or financial conflicts of interest. The beverage industry in general, and Coca-Cola in particular, have suffered from public health campaigns against sugar-sweetened beverages. Since the late 1990s, the amount of fullcalorie soda drunk by the average American has dropped 25 percent. […] That poses potential financial problems for Coca-Cola. In its 2014 annual report, the company cited a multitude of risk factors that could adversely affect its business. First on the list was “obesity concerns” that could cause consumers to stop drinking sugary sodas, lead governments to impose new taxes or regulations and prompt lawsuits, actions which could adversely affect their profitability. Although Coke and Pepsi also sell diet sodas, those sales have also been declining in recent years, apparently because of fears over the safety of their substitute sweeteners. The industry has used a variety of tactics to spread its message — providing speakers for conventions or educational courses of dieticians and nutritionists, financing the research of likeminded scientists, and deploying armies of lobbyists to persuade cities, states and Congress not to crack down on sugary drinks. […] In Philadelphia, when the mayor sought to impose a new tax on sugary sodas, the industry’s trade group created a new foundation to provide a $10 million grant to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to fund research and treat overweight children, and successfully lobbied the City Council to let the proposal die. […] Meanwhile, the evidence continues to mount that sugar-sweetened drinks are a major contributor to obesity, heart disease and diabetes, and that exercise makes only a modest contribution to weight loss compared to ingesting fewer calories. Adapted from The New York Times August 2015 (446 words)
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COMPUTER GLITCHES ARE BASICALLY INEVITABLE. BUT FOR BIG COMPANIES, THEY CAN BE BIG PROBLEMS
A glitch on your personal computer is irritating. But a glitch on a network that controls critical systems at a major organization can be massively disruptive. Several companies demonstrated the problem on Wednesday. An "automation issue" at United Airlines led to a mandatory delay for its planes that lasted for almost two hours, affecting 4,900 flights around the world. The Wall Street Journal's homepage went down briefly. And the New York Stock Exchange suspended trading for nearly four hours due to an "internal technical issue." So far, it doesn't appear that any of these incidents were cyber attacks or anything other than technical hiccups ‒ and those are basically a fact of life, albeit a potentially damaging one. The effects of these glitches point to one of the major risks of how modern networks operate. Often systems are centralized, and automated. That can make it easier for various bits and pieces to work together, helping deliver us the world of digital convenience that consumers and businesses rely on. But that inter-connectivity also means that when something goes wrong with one part of a system, it might be hard to pin down the exact cause of the problem. Or it could even cascade and take down the whole system if there aren't fail-safes in place. "We receive tremendous benefits from moving older systems to modern technology ‒ it lowers the cost of services and capabilities, it adds efficiency, and opens up markets to individuals who might otherwise not be able to use them," said Steve Grobman, the chief technology officer at Intel Security. "But with those benefits, we have to tolerate new issues we didn't necessarily have in a less automated environment." Sometimes the issue will be an inherent flaw with software or some other hard to pin down technical problem. Other times, it will be a small human error that somehow ripples through a system like the electrical grid operator who forgot to turn a power monitoring program on after upgrading its software in 2003, contributing to a massive blackout in the Northeast. "We need to be very diligent to ensure we have redundancies, fail-safes, and good assessments of the cyber-risk profiles these systems have to mitigate them as much as possible," said Grobman. It's unclear what the specific protocols in place were at the companies that had problems Wednesday. But even the best systems with the best oversight still might encounter issues. The details remain scant about what appears to be a coincidental rush of technical difficulties. But combined, they're a reminder of the fragility of the technical infrastructures that underpin so much of our lives.
Adapted from The Washington Post July 2015 (452 words)
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DESIGNER BABIES AND GENETICALLY EDITED HUMANS WILL BE POSSIBLE SOON, SCIENTISTS AGREE
Designer babies, genetically engineered to be super-smart, disease free, and physically fit, are the stuff of science fiction. But science fiction often predicts reality. Even though there are still scientific hurdles that need to be cleared, the ability to edit human genes and, consequently, actually engineer a human being from birth, is something science is far closer to achieving than many may think. The key to gene editing that will theoretically make genetically engineered children possible and that Jennifer Doudna, a Berkeley biologist, helped discover three years ago is called CRISPR. It is described as a tool that allows biologists to basically "search-and-replace" components of DNA, meaning they can rewrite specific segments of something's genetic code. CRISPR has already been used in livestock and in monkeys. Livestock have been engineered to be healthier, while in the monkeys, researchers modified genes that regulate metabolism and immune cell development. Researchers are also experimenting with genetic changes that could eliminate viruses like HIV. However, CRISPR can make unwanted changes too, meaning that now, it is largely unreliable and inconsistent and researchers expect an improvement. Still, editing adult genes to cure conditions or even hacking the adult genome to make stronger, smarter humans does not change the genes that will be passed on to any children that person has. In order to pass those fixed or augmented cells on, you would have to edit a human embryo or the sperm and egg used to create the embryo. Editing an embryo would not just remove a health problem but it would leave lasting changes that are passed on, something that many scientists say is desirable in the case of awful health problems, but much more questionable in the case of enhancements. Some skeptical researchers said that it is still far too error prone to be considered practical to use in editing human embryos. However, progress is being made. Doctor Feng, a researcher at MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research, thinks that making a genetically edited human ‒ either without disease or augmented ‒ will be possible in 10 to 20 years. Stem cell expert Jonathan Tilly said that his lab is already trying to edit egg cells with CRISPR. Tilly said that once this is done with animals, it will prove that it can be done. "'Can you do it?' is one thing," he said, but then you ask "'Would you do it? Why? What is the purpose?' As scientists we want to know if it's feasible, but then we get into the bigger questions, and it's not a science question, it's a society question."
Adapted from Business Insider March 2015 (444 words)
Texte 18
DESPITE VOLKWAGEN SCANDAL, EUROPE’S DIESEL HABIT COULD BE HARD TO KICK
While diesels have struggled in the United States to overcome a reputation as smokebelching clunkers, they have rolled to dominance across the Atlantic. Diesels accounted for more than half the new cars sold in Western Europe last year, compared with 14 percent in 1990. Europeans’ embrace of diesels has encouraged manufacturers to improve the engine performance, and it has motivated governments, especially those of Germany and France, to support their auto industries’ diesel efforts. Although environmentalists have been sounding alarms for years, the forces propelling diesel were so strong that it might explain why drivers, carmakers and regulators have been willing at times to overlook diesels’ tendency to be bigger polluters than gasoline cars. “Ban diesels? You can’t be serious!”, Ségolène Royal, the French Environment and Energy Minister, said recently. “We can’t treat problems of this gravity with ideological slogans at the expense of the French interests.” [...] Some industry experts say that the Volkswagen scandal could prove a turning point in the diesel love affair, if the new scrutiny of European emissions standards and testing makes it easier for the environmentalists to be heard. The premise of the “clean diesel” notion that Volkswagen promoted was partly based on the fact that on a per-mile basis, diesel engines emit less carbon dioxide than gasoline engines. But diesel exhausts, unless cleaned in ways that Volkswagen’s software was designed to sidestep, produce larger quantities of other harmful gases along with fine particles that contribute to stubbornly persistent air quality problems in European cities. “There is a recognition that, fundamentally, it is going to be difficult to control all of the problems with diesel — smoke production is not going to go away,” said Peter Wells, codirector of the center for automotive industry research at Cardiff Business School. “In the very long term, diesel has had its day.” According to the European Environment Agency, which monitors air quality, 20 to 30 percent of urban residents in Europe are exposed to particle levels — mainly from diesel exhaust fumes — above those considered safe by the European Union, while about 10 percent are exposed to unsafe levels of nitrogen oxides. London and Paris have among the highest pollution levels in terms of nitrogen oxides. In March of this year and last, the smog in Paris reached such levels that the authorities were forced to temporarily limit the number of cars on the road each day. In the United States, with much lower gasoline prices, “there is no point buying a diesel,” said Garel Rhys, a professor at Cardiff University. He said Europeans’ embrace of diesels made perfect sense. “Essentially, growth came because consumers are economically rational individuals.” Adapted from The New York Times September 2015 (451 words)
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DIGITAL ADDICTION: THE SOCIAL COST OF CONSTANT MOBILE CONNECTION
Many of us check digital devices regularly, but is it interfering with our lives? Smartphone checking: people’s growing overdependence on digital media is now being taken seriously by psychologists. Ironically, technology itself may help us to alleviate the addiction. Overdependence on digital media is being taken seriously by psychologists, in part because of the ways devices have become interconnected with necessary activities, such as work and socialising. Even if we wanted to, it would be extremely difficult to cut off all access. But “addiction” is a weighted term and it would be too simplistic to lump the number of times you check your phone with alcoholism, substance abuse or gambling. However, there are similarities. According to a study by the Council for Research Excellence, people stare at TVs, cellphones and even GPS devices for about eight hours a day. A recent poll found that one in four people surveyed checks their phone every 30 minutes. Many people are happy with their phone use and don’t see it as negative. “We are able to stay in contact with so many more people so easily,” says Centre for Data Analytics. “…We are contacting people outside of our geographical circles. So what’s wrong with that?” However, there are some deleterious effects. “If your brain is telling you to check your cellphone and email every 10 minutes, you are disrupting your ability to perform tasks and it becomes increasingly difficult to concentrate on anything for longer periods.” The other problem is social. “We are a social species, where the ideal form of communication is face to face with a small number of people in real time. We are rapidly replacing this with asynchronous communications with people who are very far away from us.” Ironically, technology itself can alleviate addiction to technology. There are apps that can show you how much you’re using your device. IOS app Moment measures how much you use your iPhone or iPad every day. If you feel usage is too high, daily limits can be set. “Phone usage is not based on the number of tasks we have to complete because if we complete them ‘early’ we just find other tasks,” says Smeaton. “So if you finish reading and replying to your emails, you’ll go on to Facebook, or send a WhatsApp to somebody or keep doing things until you are called for dinner or the bus arrives. When we get in the zone, we use the devices until the time to stop arrives, not when the tasks are done. Apps or organisers that improve productivity don’t do so in order to give you more non-device time.”
Adapted from The Irish Times April 2015 (448 words)
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DISORDER ON THE BORDER?
Distressing scenes of Syrian refugees bottled up in a stadium on the Greek island of Kos and pictures of migrants in miserable conditions near the Channel Tunnel have become all too familiar. The news seems unrelentingly grim, reminding us that the wretched souls in Calais are only the tip of the iceberg. European nations are, in fact, in the grip of an acute emergency. Earlier this year, a vivid newspaper account of the plight of refugees fleeing across the Mediterranean was challenged by a charity giving support to women and girls. They pointed out that the term “migrant” has become loaded with negative connotations, discouraging sympathy for those making the desperate – often deadly – crossing to a new life. When we know that people are fleeing war and persecution, we should call them refugees. The University of Oxford also believes the term “migrant” has morphed from « a person who moves between countries » (the UN definition) to a pejorative term in the tabloids. The word ought to be neutral, for a migrant can just as easily be a Saudi billionaire moving to Mayfair as an African seeking a basic standard of living in Marseille. Yet there is no consensus on definition. When counting migrants and analysing the consequences of migration, the person who does the counting is of crucial importance. Should people be defined by foreign birth, by foreign citizenship, or by their movement into a new country? None of these definitions are equivalent and none fit precisely with ‘migrant’, defined as a person subject to immigration controls. The confusion comes from the question about who these people are. In 2011, the Migration Observatory found that respondents were most likely to think of immigrants as asylum seekers (62%) and least likely to think of them as students (29%). In fact, students make up the largest group of immigrants (37%) and asylum seekers the smallest (4%). Terminology employed by politicians and the media is crucial to public understanding of any issue, yet semantics can become highly charged. In Australia, those once called refugees and boat people are now officially referred to as “illegals”. Ministers have publicly alleged they could be “murderers or terrorists” and report “whole villages” arriving in uncontrollable “floods”. Australia’s policies are now a matter of “border protection” from “threats to national security”. This year, we have heard politicians claim that the vast majority of migrants to Europe are travelling for economic reasons; that they are “marauders”, arriving in “swarms”. Journalists tempted to repeat these notions should revise their figures: the 800,000 migrants who have arrived in Europe this year represent 0.11% of Europe’s 740m population, and 70% of them are genuine refugees fleeing war zones. And only about 1% reach Calais.
Adapted from The Guardian October 2015 (452 words)
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DON'T BEAT YOURSELVES UP ABOUT HOW MUCH TV YOUR KIDS WATCH
Screen time is a major parenting issue for our generation. Warnings abound about the perils inherent in its excess and there is much to be heeded in them, especially because the rise of hand-held, personal electronic devices has made screen time something more isolating and opaque than it used to be. Kids these days are often looking down. Allison Slater Tate has written convincingly about the new terrain we are navigating as parents in this regard. How will we deal with it when our children routinely ignore the simple pleasures around them – a river, a bird – in order to send emojis to their friends or catch the latest installment of some YouTuber playing Minecraft in Australia? And yet, I have long wondered if we are taking the screen time backlash a little too far. The American Academy of Pediatrics, which has just announced that they are adjusting their guidelines to reflect a more nuanced approach to media use, seems now to agree. “In a world where ‘screen time’ is becoming simply ‘time,’” they say, “our policies must evolve or become obsolete.” This is quite right. Our children might use electronics in ways that are bizarre and incomprehensible to us, but so long as that’s not all they do, so long as we are pulling the plug at a reasonable point, let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. We harp on about our own childhoods, we glorify the nature of our playtime, the freedom we had to roam, the forts we built. But my childhood was saturated with popular culture – television, movies, music, video games – not to mention the newest gadgets on which to enjoy it. My family were early adopters of Atari and Nintendo. […] These devices, of which our children have but the most updated versions, were in my house because they were valued by my parents, both for their own sake and for their role in keeping us up to date with a rapidly changing world. As a parent myself, I feel the same way about iPads and the wonders of the App Store. I don’t use screens only as a prop or distraction for my kids. In our family, they are also a vehicle for conversation and interaction, as well as a worthwhile endeavor in their own right: for the skills and cultural literacy they impart. In line with the AAP recommendation that “co-engagement counts,” I have watched TV with my kids since they were little. […] My kids have non-screen related interests, of course they do. They read books (with actual pages), play soccer in the backyard and they construct elaborate imaginative games.
Adapted from The Guardian.com October 2015 (450 words)
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DRIVEN FROM DISTRACTION
Human beings are a distractible bunch, and their propensity to be elsewhere, mentally speaking, is particularly dangerous when they are motoring. Attempts to deal with this go back a long way. In 1952, for example, the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey was fitted with the first rumble strips, which are bits of corrugated concrete that alert an inattentive driver with a rattle and a hum if his vehicle starts to drift off the carriageway while he is, say, paying too much attention to the radio. Today, though, there is more than just his favourite DJ to distract a driver. When American motorists are surveyed, two-thirds of them admit to using mobile phones while driving. Bans on doing so have had mixed success. The problem is worst among teenagers, already a high-risk group behind the wheel. A study published in March 2015, by the American Automobile Association, a motoring club, reviewed nearly 7,000 videos of teenage drivers who had had monitoring cameras put into their cars between 2007 and 2013 in exchange for cheaper insurance. That analysis found that distraction was a factor in 58% of crashes. Phone use was the second greatest contributor to accidents. Help may be at hand, though. Research presented on April 20th at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Seoul, South Korea, shows that yet more technology can ameliorate the problem ‒ not by precluding the use of phones, but by minimising the distraction they cause to drivers of all ages. They are not the only people studying the problem of driver distraction. Jeff Greenberg, a technologist at Ford in Dearborn, Michigan, is working on a driver workload manager that will, for example, delay low-fuel warnings for a few moments if sensors detect the person at the steering wheel is busy with other things. Another approach is to integrate phones better into a car’s other controls. Manufacturers such as Citroen, Ford and Volvo have already added phone controls to the touchscreen which regulates the vehicle’s air conditioning, navigation system and so on. One improvement in Mr. Greenberg’s sights is voice control, extending the limited set of tasks that existing speechrecognition software on smartphones can accomplish. Asking the car to place a call, find a particular song on YouTube or read a WhatsApp message aloud beats fiddling with a handset and lets the driver keep his eyes on the road. Google and Apple, authors of the most widely used smartphone operating systems, are both developing software, called Android Auto and Carplay respectively to do that.
Adapted from The Economist, April 2015 (440 words)
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DROUGHT SHAMERS DO BATTLE WITH WATER WASTERS IN CALIFORNIA Named and shamed: A new trend is developing in California where residents blast each other for water-wasting on social media as the drought-ridden state's battle over scarce resources turns nasty. Californians are taking to drought shaming sites to tattle on each other for wasting water. Residents are using the sites to out each other for reasons including neighbors with leaky sprinklers to waiters who serve water without asking as the state's historic drought continues. The tattling has also reached social media where residents are using the hashtags 'droughtshaming' and 'watershaming' to reveal any water-wasting activities. An app called DroughtShame was even developed to 'capture geo-tagged photo proof of disregard for California's water restrictions'. And the state launched a website on www.savewater.ca.gov, where residents can send details and photos of water waste. Complaints are then sent to local government agencies based on the address of the offense. California has multiple restrictions on water use, including banning washing cars with hoses that don't shut off and restricting lawn-watering within two days of rainfall. But enforcement varies widely across the parched state. In April, California adopted rules for mandatory cutbacks in urban water use, forcing cities to limit watering on public property, encourage homeowners to let their lawns die and impose mandatory water-saving targets for the hundreds of local agencies and cities that supply California customers. On drought shaming sites and social media, residents across the state have been posting pictures and videos of neighbors and businesses wasting water. On DroughtShame's Twitter account, someone shared the picture of sprinklers running during the whole night at a home in North Hollywood. Another resident shared a video of a neighbor on the civic networking site, Vizsafe, with a message that said: "My neighbor waters the grass every day or every other day, morning or noon, for about 30 minutes." Governor Jerry Brown sought the more stringent regulations, arguing that voluntary conservation efforts have so far not yielded the water savings needed amid a four-year drought. He ordered water agencies to cut urban water use by 25 per cent from levels in 2013, the year before he declared a drought emergency. Thus, water use in California in June 2015 fell by 27 per cent, passing the conservation target that was set by Governor Brown, CBS reported. While some residents find the drought shaming vindictive, the city said the competition is helping reduce water waste. From January to June 2015, Sacramento received more than 8,000 calls to its water-use complaint line. "Obviously we can't see everything, can't be everywhere, so having people in the community helping us out ‒ residents, neighbors ‒ reporting those types of things is a great tool for us too," a local government executive said.
Adapted from The Daily Mail, August 2015 (459 words)
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E-BOOK SALES SLIP, AND PRINT IS FAR FROM DEAD
Five years ago, the book world was seized by collective panic over the uncertain future of print. As readers migrated to new digital devices, e-book sales soared, up 1,260 percent between 2008 and 2010, alarming booksellers that watched consumers use their stores to find titles they would later buy online. Print sales dwindled, bookstores struggled to stay open, and publishers and authors feared that cheaper e-books would cannibalize their business. Then in 2011, the industry’s fears were realized when Borders declared bankruptcy. But the digital apocalypse never arrived, or at least not on schedule. While analysts once predicted that e-books would overtake print by 2015, digital sales have instead slowed sharply. Now there are signs that some e-book adopters are returning to print, or becoming hybrid readers, who juggle devices and paper. E-book sales fell by 10 percent in the first five months of this year, according to the Association of American Publishers, which collects data from nearly 1,200 publishers. Digital books accounted last year for around 20 percent of the market, roughly the same as they did a few years ago. The decline of E-books' popularity may signal that publishing, while not immune to technological upheaval, will weather the tidal wave of digital technology better than other forms of media, like music and television. E-book subscription services, modelled on companies like Netflix and Pandora, have struggled to convert book lovers into digital binge readers, and some have shut down. Sales of dedicated e-reading devices have plunged as consumers migrated to tablets and smartphones. And according to some surveys, young readers who are digital natives still prefer reading on paper. The surprising resilience of print has provided a lift to many booksellers. Independent bookstores, which were battered by the recession and competition from Amazon, are showing strong signs of resurgence “ People talked about the demise of physical books as if it was only a matter of time, but even 50 to 100 years from now, print will be a big chunk of our business,” said Markus Dohle, the chief executive of Penguin Random House, which has nearly 250 imprints globally. Print books account for more than 70 percent of the company’s sales in the United States. (…) Other big publishers, including HarperCollins, have followed suit. The faster deliveries have allowed bookstores to place smaller initial orders and restock as needed, which has reduced returns of unsold books by about 10 percent. On Amazon, the paperback editions of some popular titles, like “The Goldfinch” by Donna Tartt, are several dollars cheaper than their digital counterparts. Paperback sales rose by 8.4 percent in the first five months of this year, the Association of American Publishers reported.
Adapted from The New York Times September 2015 (451 words)
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EVERYONE HERE WANTS ENGLAND
Men sit on plastic chairs in the sand, huddled around a generator, all charging their mobile phones. An Arabic song plays out from the tinny speakers of one man's phone. Many of these men call home and tell their families life is good in Europe, sparing their loved ones the grim truth: They all came here to reach England, but for now they’re in the " Jungle" An estimated 3,000 people are living in the camp near the port in Calais. Most of them are young men from Sudan, Eritrea or Afghanistan. Several are from Syria. They all traveled for several weeks, months or even years across Europe to reach Calais. "No one comes to Calais because they want Calais," says Khan, a neatly dressed man from Pakistan. "Everyone here wants England." Khan says he only arrived a day before, but has already seen a young boy get his finger chopped off in the door of a truck. Several men hobble past on crutches. They were injured on their nightly excursions to try to stow away in trucks or break into the Eurotunnel. In the camp, a makeshift medical clinic has been set up to treat the ailments. The number of trauma-related injuries has increased sharply in recent weeks, as security measures around the Eurotunnel have been ramped up. Broken arms and twisted ankles from falling off trucks are common. Many come back with slashed hands from trying to climb over razor-wire fences. Camp life revolves around the help offered by local NGOs. Local people turn up in vans several times a day to offload donated food or reused building materials. At the nearby Jules Ferry center ‒ which is funded by the French government ‒ everyone can claim one hot meal a day and take a shower. There are signs that life in the Jungle is becoming more permanent. Water, toilets and streetlights have been installed by the local government. Local volunteers teach French in a miniature classroom. Alpha has been in Calais eight months and has tried to get into the trucks more than 20 times. He has created a little piece of England here in the Jungle ‒ naming his blue hut "The David Beckham House". The road to the port is less than 100 meters away, but in the last few weeks a tall security fence has been put up, blocking the camp from the trucks on the other side. French police can be seen, armed with tear gas and batons. Migrants are feeling increasingly frustrated but, Alpha says, the dream of getting to England is still very much alive: "Even if they build the fence into the sky, we are going to pass. Because God brought us here", he says.
Adapted from CNN, August 2015 (459 words)
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FATAL ADDICTIONS
You are not the same person carrying a firearm as you are without one. A device that can extinguish human life with the flick of a finger places power in the hands of an individual. And that power can become addictive. Growing up in the midst of a war in Lebanon and undergoing military training in high school put guns at the center of my childhood. As the grandson of an experienced marksman, the son of a hunter, and a hunter myself, I loved shooting guns. I was also a child who collected shrapnel and spent bullets from the streets in West Beirut – daily reminders of death and violence, but also of survival. As my collection grew, so did my appreciation for the value of each new morning with an intact family, a privilege that many friends and neighbors had lost. My military service quickly taught me that there was an inextricable link between weapons and suffering. I was trained to use guns against others before I was old enough to be considered a man. A gun was an instant pathway to respect – or more accurately, fear masquerading as respect. America’s obsessive relationship with firearms is familiar to me. I know the intoxicating sense of power a gun brings, particularly to a young man. But in the aftermath of the violence I witnessed and with the passage of time, I know that guns are dangerous and illusory shortcuts to strength or maturity, and above all no guarantee of personal safety. After each horrific mass shooting our intractable gun control debate begins all over again, with those who are categorically opposed to controls on gun ownership already insisting that a mass shooting is no reason to change laws. What is it about America and firearms? What makes us different from every other developed country in that we tolerate such disproportionate levels of gun violence? I see the debate about guns through the lens of a Beirut teenager surrounded by weapons, bloodshed and terror, all created with guns. For guns are a high. For those ill at ease with the challenges adulthood brings, firearms mean omnipotence. In America, the easy access citizens have to guns across the country creates the opportunity for otherwise nonfatal confrontations to become fatal. Allowing unfettered access to deadly weapons leads to the carnage we’re seeing in our schools, our churches, our movie theaters, our shopping malls, and our streets. The frustration expressed by President Obama is shared by millions, like me, who cannot fathom how we permit this to continue. Those of us who advocate for stronger gun control measures must understand that we are dealing not just with an obsession, but an addiction. And addictions are notoriously hard to break. Adapted from The Observer October 2015 (456 words)
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FIVE REASONS MEN ARE CLOSING THE LIFE EXPECTANCY GAP
After 30 years of closing the gap, new research shows that well-off men in professional jobs can expect to live for 82.5 years, passing the life expectancy of the average woman. Meanwhile, in the same period the average man has improved his lifespan by seven years, three more than the women. But what lies behind man's success? Here are five of the main reasons put forward. It possibly wasn't her chief motivation when deciding on the policy, but Margaret Thatcher's dismantling of British heavy industries is generally regarded as having had a profoundly positive effect on male life expectancy. Closing the coal mines, in addition to the decline of numerous other jobs in which injury and illness are occupational hazards, means the health of working class men has generally improved. From joint pains caused by physical underground work, to the respiratory problems that come from exposure to harmful fumes, the decline of manufacturing industries has probably extended the lives of many men. Where once men would spend their weekends smoking, drinking and eating kebabs, such vices are less common in the modern man. In particular, the prevalence of men smoking has more than halved in the last four decades. As for drinking, the UK's teetotaller population may have risen this year to one in five adults, but overall, alcohol consumption is on the rise. It's not all men: a report in May found that the proportion of girls who have been drunk at least twice was 40 per cent, higher than boys. Equality in the workplace has undoubtedly been a good thing, but it has exposed women to the associated negative aspects of corporate life, such as a drinking culture, high levels of stress, long hours away from home and an unhealthy diet. “Increases in women entering the labour force over the last 50 years are considered to have had an impact on levels of stress, smoking and drinking, leading to changes in the health of females,” stated a report into mortality rates last year. For years, over-sensitive egos prevented most men from visiting the doctors for any ailment that wasn't immediately life-threatening, but that seems to be changing. Heavily-publicised men's health initiatives have contributed to a growing acceptance that seeking a second opinion is a sensible option rather than a sign of weakness. Men have traditionally eaten more animal products than women, leaving them more susceptible to the associated health problems such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and weight gain. As the differences in male and female diets level out, then, women are beginning to have the same problems as men.
Adapted from The Daily Telegraph, October 2015 (440 words)
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FLOWING WATER ON MARS?
Liquid water runs down canyons and crater walls over the summer months on Mars, according to NASA Planetary researchers who say the discovery raises the chances of Mars being home to some form of life. The trickles leave long, dark stains on the Martian terrain that can reach hundreds of metres downhill in the warmer months, before they dry up in the autumn as surface temperatures drop. Images taken from the Mars orbit do show cliffs, and the steep walls of valleys and craters, streaked with intricate fan-like patterns. Scientists are not sure where the water comes from. Some say that it may rise up from underground ice or salty aquifers, or condense out of the thin Martian atmosphere. “There is liquid water today on the surface of Mars,” the lead scientist on NASA’s Mars exploration programme told the Guardian. “Because of this, we suspect that it is at least possible to have a habitable environment today.” The water flows could point NASA and other space agencies towards the most promising sites to find life on Mars, and to landing spots for future human missions where water can be collected from a natural supply. John Bridges, a professor of planetary science at the University of Leicester, said the study was fascinating, but might throw up some fresh concerns for space agencies. The flows could be used to find water sources on Mars, making them prime spots to hunt for life, and to land future human missions. But agencies were required to do their utmost to avoid contaminating other planets with microbes from Earth, making wet areas the most difficult to visit. “This will give them lots to think about,” he said. For now, researchers are focused on learning where the water comes from. According to one theory, the porous rocks under the Martian surface might hold frozen water that melts in the summer months and seeps up to the surface. Another possibility is that highly concentrated saline aquifers are dotted around beneath the surface, not as pools of water, but as saturated volumes of gritty rock. These could cause flows in some areas, but cannot easily explain water seeping down from the top of crater walls. A third possibility, and one favoured by the NASA scientists, is that salts on the Martian surface absorb water from the atmosphere until they have enough to run downhill. The process, known as deliquescence, is seen in the Atacama Desert, where the resulting damp patches are the only known place for microbes to live. “It’s a fascinating piece of work”, John Bridges said. “Our view of Mars is changing, and we’ll be discussing this for a long time to come.” Adapted from The Guardian, September, 2015 (449 words)
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FLU RATE WOULD DECLINE SIGNIFICANTLY IF THE U.S. MANDATED PAID SICK LEAVE
Opponents of sick leave like to say that forcing companies to pay workers when they’re ill is a "job killer." Failing to give workers time off when they’re sick may actually be a people killer. Thousands of Americans die every year from the flu, according to the Center for Disease Control. […] Between 5 and 20 percent of Americans get the flu each year, costing the country about $87 billion annually. […] Yet the U.S. stubbornly refuses to pass a paid sick leave law. We are the only wealthy nation in the world that does not mandate any form of paid sick time, instead leaving it up to employers. Only 53 percent of workers get paid sick leave. A report from economists at Cornell University and the Swiss Economic Institute looked at flu rates in the seven U.S. cities that recently implemented paid sick leave laws. Rates of infection in those places declined considerably -- in some places by as much as 20 percent ‒ after the laws went into effect, according to their analysis of data from Google Flu Trends. […] As you’d expect, the sick leave picture is worst for low-income, part-time and serviceindustry workers. Just 34 percent of the workers at the bottom get paid sick leave, compared to 87 percent at the top, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. […] More than half of the workers in the food industry go to work sick, according to a survey, released Monday, of workers at farms, ranches and restaurants, and others who prepare things for Americans to eat. Forty-five percent of those surveyed said they work while sick because they can’t afford to lose the money ‒ a phenomenon called “contagious presenteeism.” Sick people come to work and infect their co-workers, spreading disease. Sick parents without paid leave are also more likely to send their sick kids to school to infect other children. […] The movement for paid sick leave has been gaining momentum since San Francisco passed a paid sick leave law in 2007. Several other cities and states have followed. Connecticut was the first to pass a statewide law in 2012. Typically, most workers wind up using three paid sick days a year, said Hayes, who follows the studies on paid leave. […] Paid sick leave also leads to increased employee retention, studies have shown. And, of course, it’s worth pointing out that sick workers aren’t that effective at their jobs. The costs to businesses for providing sick leave are relatively small, as Bloomberg View noted last year. It seems opponents are making more of a moral argument about the role of government mandates on business, the piece points out.
Adapted from huffingtonpost.com October 2015 (454 words)
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FOOD WASTE: NATIONAL CAMPAIGN AIMS TO STOP THE ROT BY 2020
One-fifth of what households buy ends up as waste, and around 60% of that could have been eaten, according to a report from the government’s waste advisory group. Food producers, retailers, restaurants and consumers are being urged to join forces to secure a ban on all food waste going into landfill by 2020, in a bold national campaign. Compulsory collections of food waste from all homes and businesses by local councils are among a series of measures recommended in a new report to enable food waste to be harnessed as a valuable resource to provide energy, heat and benefits for agriculture. The ambition is to save the UK economy over £17bn a year through the reduction of food wasted by households, businesses and the public sector, preventing 27m tonnes of greenhouse gases a year from entering into the atmosphere. […] Last week official figures revealed the average UK family was wasting nearly £60 a month by throwing away almost an entire meal a day. A report from the government's waste advisory group Wrap showed Britons were chucking out the equivalent of 24 meals a month, adding up to 4.2m tonnes of food and drink every year that could have been consumed. Almost half of this is going straight from fridges or cupboards into the bin, Wrap found. […] At the same time the UK's largest retailer, Tesco, recently agreed to reduce its multibuy items and other promotions […] The report highlights where and why food waste is happening at each stage of the UK supply chain; what actions are being taken to tackle food waste in each sector and what more can be done in the future to drive the positive environmental, economic and social outcomes. […] The report calls for better collaboration at every stage of the supply chain to accelerate the adoption of best practice, improve waste prevention and maximise the value of food waste as a resource. A clear timetable for the phased introduction of a ban on food waste to landfill to come into force by 2020 would allow the industry the time to finance and develop an optimum collection and processing infrastructure, it says. Re-using food waste through processes such as anaerobic digestion could return over 13m tonnes a year of valuable nutrients to the soil, the report says, or generate electricity […], enough to power over 600,000 homes. […] The chief executive and co-founder of BioRegional said: "Achieving zero food waste to landfill within the next seven years is a big challenge and we will need the support and actions of individuals, businesses and the government if this vision is to be realised."
Adapted from The Guardian November 2014 (449 words)
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FOR CLIMATE'S SAKE, LET'S CUT FOOD WASTE!
Reducing food waste is the only climate action that reduces greenhouse gas emissions while unlocking solutions for hunger, nutrition, water scarcity, economic expansion and national security. No other can do the same. Yet the connection between food waste and climate change is missing from policy discussions and public discourse. The global population is forecast to reach 9.5 billion by 2050. At our current rate of growth forecasters believe the Earth must support an increase of 60% to 120% in global crop demands. It doesn't make sense to continue with the current paradigm, which is to grow more - and throw more away - to try to feed more people. Farming is already responsible for 14% of global greenhouse gases and significantly impacts our natural resources: 38% of our ice-free land is currently used for farming and 70% of all our fresh water is used to grow food. We already produce enough food to feed 10 billion people. The problem is that one-third or more of all food produced is lost or wasted. Two thirds of food loss occurs before it reaches the consumer. It rots in the fields post-harvest or in poor transportation systems to markets and consumers. This is particularly prevalent in developing economies. With its huge population and relatively undeveloped temperature-controlled supply chain (known as the cold chain), Asia's food loss happens across the continent. According to the Food Wastage Report, industrialized Asia absorbs 28% of global food loss and South and Southeast Asia 22%, accounting for 50% of total food loss. Even saving a portion of what is wasted can have a dramatic impact on reducing hunger, poverty, political instability, water shortages and carbon emissions. Food waste represents 3.3 billion tonnes of embodied carbon dioxide emissions every year. […] If we measured food waste as a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases behind China and the US. This is stunning, especially when you consider that one in nine people don't have enough to eat. Beyond energy, water is a critical resource literally drained by food waste. Of all the water on the planet, just 1.3% is freshwater that we can drink. Of that, we use 70% to grow our food, but then we throw away more than one-third of our food. Here's the stunning reality: the water we use to grow the food we throw away is greater than the water used by any single nation on the planet. […] The good news is that reducing food waste and loss will feed the hungry, address global warming and reduce demand on our natural resources. In better news, solutions are readily available for us to do so.
Adapted from The Ecologist September 2014 (454 words)
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FOR FIRST TIME, CANADA'S INDIGENOUS FLEX THEIR ELECTORAL MUSCLES IN A BIG WAY
Tania Cameron lives in a Canadian electoral district where most Aboriginal reservations lack drinkable water. Its overcrowded schools and crumbling infrastructure offer a snapshot of social ills that pervade native life. But her district, in north Ontario also epitomizes a political awakening that swept the country in the run-up to Monday's election. Until now, Aboriginals had cast as many as 20 percentage points fewer ballots than the general population since gaining the franchise 55 years ago. But that changed this week, as many Aboriginals now see political engagement as a path toward better conditions and opportunities for their communities. The Aboriginal path to the ballot box was blazed in 2012, in the wake of a pair of treaty issues touching on longstanding grievances. In Parliament, the government had passed a law that limited environmental scrutiny for pipelines, including ones in Aboriginal territory. Canada has violated centuries-old land treaties by removing safeguards for ancestral lands and failing to provide adequate living standards – almost 40 percent of indigenous people lack clean drinking water. Politicians were further put under pressure in June, when a Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that Canada had attempted “cultural genocide” against Aboriginal communities from the 1870s until 1996. During that span, the government took 150,000 children from their families to live in church-run dormitories known as “residential schools.” Many children never saw their parents again, were beaten for speaking their native languages, and were sometimes sexually abused. Furthermore, according to national figures, 1,186 Aboriginal women have been reported as missing or murdered, but prosecutions have been rare. This year, many more saw this election as the moment to try to flex Aboriginal muscle on the federal stage. The head of the largest indigenous group ‒ representing 900,000 First Nations people ‒ decided to vote for the first time, and urged his constituents to follow suit. “We owe it to our elders that fought for us to have the right to vote,'” she says. Officials have yet to tabulate data from individual polling stations, but Aboriginal-majority areas in the north of Manitoba and Saskatchewan saw a rise in voters by 18 percentage points and 36 percentage points respectively. At six reserves, officials had to photocopy blank ballots to meet demand. And the indigenous presence within the halls of Parliament is larger now, too: Of the 338 members of Parliament elected, a record 10 are Aboriginal. The morning after the vote, the grand chief for the province of Manitoba declared that native people were now a force to be reckoned with. “That giant is awake,” Derek Nepinak told reporters. “A Liberal majority government is going to have to deal with a giant, in the indigenous people of these lands.”
Adapted from The Christian Science Monitor October 2015 (460 words)
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FOR TEENS, E-CIGARETTE USE MAY LEAD TO CIGARETTE SMOKING
A new study suggests young people are more likely to start smoking cigarettes if they try vaping first. When e-cigarettes first debuted on the market in 2003, some believed the devices could help smokers quit. And while this may be true for a number of adult smokers, new research suggests it's not the case for young people. A new paper published Tuesday in JAMA Pediatrics finds that teens who start vaping may be more inclined to pick up real cigarettes. The study involved 694 young people, aged 16 to 24, most of whom claimed to be uninterested in picking up the habit. Just 16 participants regularly used e-cigarettes. Participants responded to surveys about smoking in 2012 and 2013. They were placed into three categories: those who had never smoked and had strong feelings about the importance of not starting, those who had never smoked but admitted they might not turn down a cigarette if it was offered, and smokers. The authors followed up a year later and found that 11 of 16 e-cigarette smokers and 128 of the 678 participants who had never used e-cigarettes progressed to smoking regular cigarettes. Further analysis determined there is a strong link between vaping and regular cigarette use. While these numbers may seem statistically insignificant, the authors note that the findings should be considered along with other data that suggest more teens are using e-cigarettes. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of middle school and high school students using e-cigarettes tripled between 2013 and 2014."Initial exposure to nicotine in other forms, such as smokeless tobacco, can lead to the later traditional cigarette smoking," the researchers explain in their study. "Because e-cigarettes deliver nicotine more slowly than traditional cigarettes, they may serve as a 'nicotine starter,' allowing a new user to advance to cigarette smoking as he or she becomes tolerant of the initial adverse effects.” The researchers also point out that there are more similarities between e-cigarettes and regular cigarettes than the general public is willing to admit. Vaping e-cigarettes and smoking regular cigarettes involves the same ritual of holding the object in one hand and inhaling and exhaling. In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Jonathan D. Klein of the American Academy of Pediatrics says the study indicates e-cigarette use is threatening to become a serious public health concern "At a time when many claim to be uncertain about the harms and benefits of ecigarettes and argue for more studies, these data provide strong longitudinal evidence that ecigarette use leads to smoking, most likely owing to nicotine addiction," he writes. "What we still need is the political will to act on the evidence and protect our youth."
Adapted from The Guardian, November 2014 (457 words)
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FORGET 'DEVELOPING' POOR COUNTRIES, IT'S TIME TO 'DEDEVELOP' RICH COUNTRIES
This week, heads of state are gathering in New York to sign the UN’s new sustainable development goals. The main objective is to eradicate poverty by 2030. It’s set to be a monumental international celebration. […] But beneath all the hype, it’s business as usual. The main strategy for eradicating poverty is the same: growth. Growth has been the main object of development for the past 70 years, despite the fact that it’s not working. Since 1980, the global economy has grown by 380%, but the number of people living in poverty on less than $5 a day has increased by more than 1.1 billion. That’s 17 times the population of Britain. So much for the trickle-down effect. Orthodox economists insist that all we need is yet more growth. More progressive types tell us that we need to shift some of the yields of growth from the richer segments of the population to the poorer ones, evening things out a bit. Neither approach is adequate. Why? Because even at current levels of average global consumption, we’re overshooting our planet’s bio-capacity by more than 50% each year. In other words, growth isn’t an option any more – we’ve already grown too much. […]. And the hard truth is that this global crisis is due almost entirely to overconsumption in rich countries. Instead of pushing poor countries to 'catch up' with rich ones, we should be getting rich countries to 'catch down' […] to more appropriate levels of development. We should look at societies where people live long and happy lives at relatively low levels of income and consumption not as basket cases that need to be developed towards western models, but as exemplars of efficient living. How much do we really need to live long and happy lives? In the US, life expectancy is 79 years and GDP per capita is $53,000. But many countries have achieved similar life expectancy with a mere fraction of this income. Cuba has a comparable life expectancy to the US and one of the highest literacy rates in the world with GDP per capita of only $6,000. Similar claims can be made of Peru, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Tunisia. […] And even if we look at measures of overall happiness and wellbeing in addition to life expectancy, a number of low and middle income countries rank highly. Costa Rica manages to sustain one of the highest happiness indicators and life expectancies in the world with a per capita income one-fourth that of the US. In light of this, perhaps we should regard such countries not as underdeveloped, but rather as appropriately developed. And maybe we need to start calling on rich countries to justify their excesses.
Adapted from The Guardian, September 2015 (459 words)
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FRENCH BASHING REMAINS A TRADITION AMONG U.S. REPUBLICANS Bashing the country of Voltaire has long been a favorite pastime in American Republican politics. The French were mocked as “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” in 2003 for opposing the Iraq war, and French fries were renamed “freedom fries.” John Kerry, when he was the Democratic nominee competing with George W. Bush for the presidency, was rebuked for looking ‒ Mon Dieu! ‒ French. And in the 2012 Republican presidential primary Mitt Romney was pilloried by his rival Newt Gingrich for the sin of speaking French. So it was perhaps no surprise in the Republican presidential debate Wednesday that Jeb Bush, seeking to revive his flagging candidacy, chided his rival and onetime protégé Marco Rubio for his attendance record in the Senate by comparing his work ethic to the French. Grimacing with apparent mock horror, he said: “I mean, literally, the Senate, what is it, like a French workweek? You get like three days where you have to show up?” The comments, predictably, did not go over well in France, where they were criticized for playing to a stereotype that, economists say and statistics show, is grossly exaggerated. France's 35-hour workweek, coupled with ample vacations, social protections and a generous welfare state, has burnished an image of the French as not liking to work. But while many French people have resisted even the hint of changing the 35-hour workweek, they also acknowledge that the rule ‒ which was intended to spur employment ‒ never lived up to its promises. Economists, too, say that the reality long ago surpassed the myth. Despite the symbolism of the 35-hour week for many French as a sign of the country’s enviable work-life balance, many employers find ways to circumvent the law, including paying overtime at higher rates. Full-time French workers last year put in an average of 38.9 hours a week, compared with the eurozone average of 39.6 hours a week, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. At the same time, labor productivity per hour last year in France was 14 percent higher than the European Union average, according to Eurostat, the Union’s statistics office. Nevertheless, France’s governing Socialist Party has been deeply reluctant to change a law that some now regard as quintessentially French as pain au chocolat, and attempts to question the 35-hour workweek by the country’s young economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, have sometimes spurred open rebellion. Gallic sensibilities notwithstanding, the French can take comfort that so far the Frenchbaiting of 2004 has been largely absent from this American presidential campaign. Back then, Tom De Lay, the Republican House majority leader at the time, would open speeches to supporters with an occasional routine. He would say hi, before adding: "Or, as John Kerry might say, Bonjour."
Adapted from The New York Times October 2015 (460 words)
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FRENCH POLICE INVESTIGATE MYSTERY DRONE FLIGHTS OVER CENTRAL PARIS
French police are investigating several mysterious drone flights over central Paris, months after a spate of unexplained drone sightings over the country’s nuclear plants sparked nervousness. Over two nights this week drones were spotted near the US embassy, the Élysée palace, the Invalides military museum, the Eiffel Tower and several main roads leading into and out of the French capital. There have been no claims of responsibility and it is not clear whether the various drones, reportedly of different types and sizes, are linked. The devices are banned over the capital and other built-up zones in France. It is illegal to fly one without a permit. An Al-Jazeera journalist will appear in court next week where he is expected to plead guilty to flying a drone. He and two colleagues were stopped and questioned by police on Wednesday in the Bois de Boulogne park, on the western edge of Paris. They had apparently been using a drone to make a TV report about the Paris drones mystery, and allegedly did not have a permit. The journalists’ drone, supplied by Al-Jazeera’s London office in November, has been confiscated. The two other journalists, who did not operate the drone, were released. It is unclear whether the mystery flights were the work of pranksters, would-be aerial photographers, tourists or opportunist copycats taking advantage of the media coverage, or whether they may be of more concern. The drones are not said to be linked to a terrorism threat. They are believed to have been small civilian drones of the kind owned by tens of thousands of people in France, and are likely to have been unable to carry anything more than a small camera. They could have been pre-programmed rather than operated from the ground as they flew. A government spokesman ruled out a security risk and said drones were not solely a French phenomenon. “There is nothing to worry about,” he said. “Drones have been spotted and investigations launched […]”. The sightings have renewed questions about mysterious drone flights over nuclear sites last year which still have not been explained. Le Figaro reported that police were investigating 56 drone sightings across France since 5 October, when the first drone detected over a nuclear site sparked suspicion. […] The sightings continued into November, and a total of 20 flyovers were reported. The drones’ operators were never found […]. On 20 January a small drone flew for a couple of seconds over the presidential palace, sparking a police investigation. […] Faced with the difficulty of intercepting drones and their operators, France has launched a €1m program aimed at developing ways of detecting them.
Adapted from The Guardian February 2015 (450 words)
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FROM SOMALILAND TO HARVARD
Of the millions of young men and women getting into college this month, one of the most unlikely is Abdisamad Adan, a 21-year-old beginning his freshman year at Harvard. Some of his 18 siblings are illiterate and never went even to first grade, and he was raised without electricity or indoor plumbing by an illiterate grandmother in a country that doesn’t officially exist. Yet, he excelled as he studied by candlelight, and he’s probably the only person in Harvard who knows how to milk a camel. Abdisamad is the first undergraduate the Harvard admissions office remembers from Somalia or its parts. He is from Somaliland, a breakaway republic that isn’t recognized by any other country (and so doesn’t have an embassy to grant him a visa). Yet Abdisamad brims with talent and intelligence. He’s a reminder of the fundamental aphorism of our age: Talent is universal, but opportunity is not. If not for a fluke, Abdisamad acknowledges, he might have joined friends to become part of the tide of migrants making a precarious journey by sea to Europe. How he came instead to Harvard is a tribute to his hard work and intellect, but also to luck, and to an American hedge fund tycoon who, bored by finance, moved to Somaliland and set up a school for brilliant kids who otherwise wouldn’t have a chance. The financier, Jonathan Starr, had an aunt who married a man from Somaliland, and he was charmed by stories about its deserts and nomads. So in 2008, he took a trip to Somaliland. His friends thought he was nuts when he founded an English-language boarding school for the brightest boys and girls from across Somaliland. Called the Abaarso School, it uses American teachers. This campus is where Abdisamad blossomed. He began ninth grade, struggling at first because classes were in English, which he didn’t speak. He quickly learned English, however, and after three years won a scholarship to study at a college prep school in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. There he thrived and decided to apply for Harvard. His admission to Harvard was treated as a national cause for celebration. Somaliland’s president invited him for a meeting, and he became a local hero. What’s indisputable is that access to a good school transformed Abdisamad’s life. Six of his brothers and sisters are getting no education at all, and some of those migrants you’ve been seeing on television drowning in their desperate struggle to get to Europe are from Somaliland. That’s the context in which Starr’s successful school should offer inspiration. Another student at M.I.T., a junior studying electrical engineering, grew up as a nomadic herder raising camels. “Being smart is universal,” he says. “It’s just that resources are not dispersed.”
Adapted from International New York Times September 2015 (459 words)
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GOOGLE’S DRIVERLESS CARS RUN INTO PROBLEMS: CARS WITH DRIVERS
Google, a leader in efforts to create driverless cars, has run into an odd safety conundrum: humans. Last month, as one of Google’s self-driving cars approached a crosswalk, it did what it was supposed to do when it slowed to allow a pedestrian to cross, prompting its “safety driver” to apply the brakes. The pedestrian was fine, but not so much Google’s car, which was hit from behind by a human-driven sedan. Google’s fleet of autonomous test cars is programmed to follow the letter of the law. But it can be tough to get around if you are a stickler for the rules. One Google car, in a test in 2009, couldn’t get through a four-way stop because its sensors kept waiting for other (human) drivers to stop completely and let it go. The human drivers kept inching forward, looking for the advantage ‒ paralyzing Google’s robot. […] It is not just a Google issue. Researchers in the fledgling field of autonomous vehicles say that one of the biggest challenges facing automated cars is blending them into a world in which humans don’t behave by the book. […] Traffic wrecks and deaths could well plummet in a world without any drivers, as some researchers predict. But wide use of self-driving cars is still many years away, and testers are still sorting out hypothetical risks ‒ like hackers ‒ and real world challenges, like what happens when an autonomous car breaks down on the highway. For now, there is the nearer-term problem of blending robots and humans. Already, cars from several automakers have technology that can warn or even take over for a driver, whether through advanced cruise control or brakes that apply themselves. […] Since 2009, Google cars have been in 16 crashes, mostly fender-benders, and in every single case, the company says, a human was at fault. […] Humans and machines, it seems, are an imperfect mix. […] The head of software for Google’s Self-Driving Car Project said that one thing he had learned from the project was that human drivers needed to be “less idiotic.” […] But an engineer from the design center in San Diego, after years of urging caution on driverless cars, now welcomes quick adoption because he says other motorists are increasingly distracted by cellphones and other in-car technology. Witness the experience of the co-founder of a Sunnyvale, Calif., analytics company, who recently saw one of Google’s self-driving cars at a red light. She could not resist the temptation to grab her phone and take a picture. “I don’t usually play with my phone while I’m driving. But it was right next to me so I had to seize that opportunity,” she said.
Adapted from The New York Times September 2015 (454 words)
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HALF OF EUROPE OPTS OUT OF NEW GM CROP SCHEME
Half of the European Union’s 28 countries and three of its regions have opted out of a new GM crop scheme, in a blow to biotech industry hopes. Under new EU rules agreed in March, 15 countries have now told Brussels they will send territorial exclusion requests to the big agricultural multinationals including Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta and Pioneer. Applications from Latvia and Greece have already been accepted by the firms and if that pattern is extended, around two-thirds of the EU’s population – and of its arable land – will be GM-free. Industry sources warned that Europe could soon become a “graveyard” for biotech products but environmentalists hailed the news. “A growing number of governments are rejecting the commission’s drive for GM crop approvals,” said Greenpeace’s EU food policy director Franziska Achterberg. “They don’t trust EU safety assessments and are rightly taking action to protect their agriculture and food. The only way to restore trust in the EU system now is for the commission to hit the pause button on GM crop approvals and to urgently reform safety testing and the approval system.” On Wednesday, Germany became the largest EU country to snub GM crops, when the agricultural minister told Brussels that his country had no appetite for the biotech produce. Other countries have exercised an opt out or said they plan to include Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Italy, Hungary, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland and Slovenia. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wallonia will also be opting out on a regional basis. Wales has more recently opted out, making England the only country in the British Isles to allow GM crop cultivation. The final deadline for withdrawals is 3 October, and at least two more EU countries are expected to join the list by then. EU sources say that agribusiness companies are most likely to object to opt-outs from big nations such as Germany. But these countries could then exercise the option of a national ban on public interest grounds, not related to environmental assessments by the EU’s regulator, the European Food Safety Authority. The news was greeted with weary resignation by the biotech industry which complains that only 140,000 hectares of Europe’s land are being cultivated with GM products – compared to 181m hectares in the rest of the world. “We deeply regret that some EU countries have decided to make use of the new licensed ban on the cultivation of safe and approved GM crops on their territory,” said Beat Spath, the director of the industry group Europabio. “The new EU legislation allowing these bans is a ‘stop’ sign for agricultural cultivation that sends a negative signal for all innovative industries considering investing in Europe.” Adapted from The Guardian October, 2015 (456 words)
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HELL'S GRANNIES
Mobility matters. Losing the right to drive is, for many elderly people, as traumatic as being widowed. And, as the population ages, that trauma will be felt by more and more people in the future. Yet the safety of other road users, let alone that of an elderly driver himself, is paramount. Normal driving tests are flawed, however. One problem is that, at the moment, licensing is usually a binary decision: either someone is permitted to drive or he is not. But this is silly. Reactions slow with age, but do so gradually. Eyesight deteriorates similarly. Some people may be safe to drive during the day, but not at night. Others may not be safe on long trips, because of loss of concentration, but would be fine pottering down to the shops. Some might be okay at low speeds, and could thus be given licences on condition their car is fitted with a speed governor. Unfortunately, neither the authorities nor drivers themselves have reliable methods of telling the difference. This cuts both ways. A minor prang or proscribed medical condition might end someone’s driving career prematurely. Alternatively, a person who should have hung up his ignition key long ago might cause a serious accident One answer would be customised licences that, for example, prohibit long-distance driving but permit trips to the supermarket. But knowing how to tailor these licences to individuals requires a sophisticated and systematic way to assess people’s capabilities. And that is the purpose of DriverLab, a simulator being built at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, in Canada. It is expressly designed to test how good existing licence-holders are. The researchers behind DriverLab, have taken an actual vehicle (an Audi A3), removed its engine, mounted it onto a turntable that can swivel 360°, and surrounded it with a seamless grey projection screen. The car’s rear-view mirrors look ordinary, but they are actually the screens of computers. That means the team can show the driver only what they want him to see. The main screen displays the combined computer-generated images from 12 projectors suspended above the car. The resulting illusion can take the occupant of the car on virtual journeys ranging from busy streets to mountain passes, in broad daylight or in the middle of the night, in rainstorms, fog or clear weather. While all this is happening, cameras continuously track where the driver’s hands, feet and eyes are, and a voice recorder preserves his every word. Though more costly than a standard driving test, it would be far more fine-grained ‒ and, at least for those elderly drivers who otherwise face losing their licences completely, the extra cost would no doubt be borne willingly by the person being tested.
Adapted from The Economist November 2015 (452 words)
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HILLARY CLINTON: DEATH PENALTY USED 'TOO FREQUENTLY' IN THE US
Hillary Clinton does not support abolishing the death penalty, but questions the frequency with which it is applied. Clinton says the federal government needs to take a “hard look” at capital punishment which has been “too frequently applied” in an “indiscriminate way”. “I do not favor abolishing however, because I think there are certain cases that still deserve the consideration of the death penalty,” she says. Clinton qualified her support of the death penalty by explaining that it should be used only in “very limited and rare” circumstances. “We have a lot of evidence now that it has been too frequently applied and very often in a discriminatory way,” Clinton said. Her remarks on the death penalty, though cautiously phrased, amount to a rare foray by Clinton into a subject that she has generally sidestepped. In 1976, as a young lawyer in Arkansas, she was part of a team that successfully fought to keep an intellectually disabled person, Harry Giles, from the death chamber. Her passionate stance against execution in that case contrasted strongly with that of her husband Bill Clinton, who boosted his tough-on-crime credentials in the 1992 presidential election by refusing to grant clemency to a condemned man, Rickey Ray Rector. Hillary Clinton’s own views have been hard to pin down in recent years given her prolonged silence on the issue. In her bid for the New York seat in the US Senate in 2000, she said that she gave her “unenthusiastic support” to capital punishment – a hedged position similar to the one she has recently expressed that does not please the liberal wing of the Democratic party. Clinton’s latest comments come against the backdrop of a nationwide shortage of lethal injection drugs, the result of a European-led boycott, that has refreshed the debate over the death penalty and raised important constitutional questions about what constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment”. The scarcity of lethal drugs has forced states to scramble to obtain alternatives, leading several states to resort to using untested cocktails as a means of executing condemned prisoners. She also noted that several states are “beginning to pull back from either applying the death penalty or narrowing the scope of the cases where it can be applied,” Clinton said, “We have to be smarter and more careful about how we do it”. Meanwhile, Clinton’s rivals for the Democratic nomination for president are both opposed to the death penalty as they consider it is “fundamentally at odds with our values”. The governor of Maryland abolished the death penalty in his State in 2013. “Our nation should not be in the company of Iran, Iraq, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Yemen in carrying out the majority of public executions.”
Adapted from The Guardian October 2015 (457 words)
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HISTORIANS’ FEARS AS ISIL DESTROYS PALMYRA TEMPLE
Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have destroyed one of the best known temples in Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra after spending a month filling it with explosives. Syrian officials said the Roman-era Temple of Baal Shamin, regarded as the second most significant in Palmyra was destroyed in a huge explosion on Sunday, days after the terrorist group beheaded the elderly antiquities director. The United Nations yesterday declared the act as a “war crime”. ISIL seized historic Palmyra and the modern town of the same name in May, raising fears of its imminent destruction. It was understood to have remained largely untouched as the jihadists instead used the ruins as a stage for their executions. But the director-general of Syria’s antiquities ministry said yesterday that the temple had been destroyed. “Daesh placed a large quantity of explosives in the temple of Baal Shamin and then blew it up, causing much damage to the temple”, he said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIL. A resident confirmed the news, saying the militants had been laying explosives for a month. He added he was unaware of any other areas being prepared for destruction. The UN cultural watchdog, UNESCO, called the destruction of the temple a “war crime” and an immense loss for the Syrian people and humanity”. “The art and architecture of Palmyra, standing at the crossroads of several civilizations, is a symbol of the complexity and wealth of the Syrian identity and history,” said UNESCO’s director-general. “Extremists seek to destroy this diversity and richness, and I call on the international community to stand united against this persistent cultural cleansing.” The temple was built in AD17 and became one of the most important landmarks inside a city which sat at the heart of an empire that broke away from Rome in the third century. “Our darkest predictions are unfortunately taking place”, said an official, adding that the jihadists also destroyed the ancient lion of Al-lat statue in July and transformed the museum into a prison and courtroom. The city’s ruins are one of Syria’s most famous sights, often referred to as the Pearl of the Desert. A survivor of Roman conquest, the site is the most complete panorama from classical antiquity to remain intact. Whether Palmyra can withstand the maelstrom of Syria’s war remains to be seen. Historians say the site’s significance has increased as the country around it disintegrates. “When, in due course, the killing stops, the blood dries and the Syrian people attempt to refashion something out of the rubble to which their land has been reduced, they will need symbols,” wrote an historian in a recent article.
Adapted from Daily Telegraph August 2015 (448 words)
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HOT DOGS, BACON AND OTHER PROCESSED MEATS CAUSE CANCER
A research division of the World Health Organization announced Monday that bacon, sausage and other processed meats cause cancer and that red meat probably does, too. The report by the influential group stakes out one of the most aggressive stances against meat taken by a major health organization, and it is expected to face stiff criticism in the United States. The WHO findings were drafted by a panel of 22 international experts who reviewed decades of research on the link between red meat, processed meats and cancer. The panel reviewed animal experiments, studies of human diet and health, and cell processes that could explain how red meat might cause cancer. But the panel’s decision was not unanimous, and by raising lethal concerns about a food that anchors countless American meals, it will be controversial. The $95 billion U.S. beef industry has been preparing for months to mount a response, and some scientists, including some unaffiliated with the meat industry, have questioned whether the evidence is substantial enough to draw the strong conclusions that the WHO panel did. In reaching its conclusion, the panel sought to quantify the risks, and compared to carcinogens such as cigarettes, the magnitude of the danger appears small, experts said. The WHO panel cited studies suggesting that an additional 3.5 ounces of red meat everyday raises the risk of colorectal cancer by 17 percent; eating an additional 1.8 ounces of processed meat daily raises the risk by 18 percent, according to the research cited. “For an individual, the risk of developing colorectal cancer because of their consumption of processed meat remains small, but this risk increases with the amount of meat consumed,” says an official with the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, which produced the report. “In view of the large number of people who consume processed meat, the global impact on cancer incidence is of public health importance.” About 34,000 cancer deaths a year worldwide are attributable to diets high in processed meats, according to figures cited by the panel. […] For consumers, the WHO announcement offers scant practical advice even while casting aspersions over a wide array of foods. Red meat includes beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton and goat. Processed meat includes hot dogs, ham, sausages, corned beef and beef jerky – or any other meat that has been cured, smoked, salted or otherwise changed to enhance flavor or improve preservation. How much of those is it safe to eat? The group doesn’t offer much guidance: “The data available for evaluation did not permit a conclusion about whether a safe level exists.” Should we be vegetarians? Again, the group does not hazard an answer. […]
Adapted from The Washington Post 0ctober 2015 (456 words)
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HOW GREEN ARE YOUR BANANAS?
European retailers have imposed 'ethical' certification processes on their banana suppliers, but reports from Ecuadorian plantations reveal serious weaknesses in the schemes that leave workers poisoned and abused. International certification schemes have evolved to respond to market demands for ethical products. Banana exporters can no longer sell to the European market without being certified by GlobalGap, which requires them to adhere to a strict set of health, safety, environmental and labour codes. Retailers such as Tesco have gone even further, moving to work directly with their banana suppliers. Britain's largest supermarket has developed a scrupulous certification scheme that suppliers must comply with if they want their fruit to appear on the retail giant's shelves.[…] "The certification schemes have led to a lot of positive changes for the workers", claims one Ecuadorian producer. "We had to make the packing plant safer and affiliate all our employees to the national social security scheme." Inspections of certified exporters are conducted once a year to ensure they continue to comply with the regulations. Company representatives claim that the inspectors are free to select which employees they wish to speak to. But workers tell another story. […] The claims made by workers clearly call the efficacy of international certification schemes into question, and the issue is made more complex by the use of third-party suppliers. A considerable portion of Ecuador's plantations is made up of relatively small-scale producers, and most cannot meet their export targets simply by using their own fruit. They fill the gap by purchasing bananas from smaller plantations, ones not subject to the same worries about certification because they are not selling direct to the European market. Carlos has worked for one such third-party supplier for 10 years. The 55 year old has never been given a contract and has no entitlement to a state pension or national social security as a result. Planes regularly fly over the plantation where he works, raining down pesticides on the fruit while workers are in the fields. There is no covered canteen for the workers, and their food is contaminated as a result. The plantation where Carlos works sells its fruit to an Ecuadorian exporting company with a strict social and ethical policy that aspires to Fairtrade certification. Workers are provided with protective equipment, clean facilities and regular training. […] Yet like countless other labourers who are employed informally, Carlos is not only left without security but also without a voice: with no contract he is not protected by employment law. The violation of workers' rights remains endemic in many of Ecuador's plantations. Workers have reported doing long hours with no overtime pay, women being dismissed when they become pregnant and frequent verbal abuse from supervisors.
Adapted from The Ecologist August 2015 (454 words)
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HOW THE INTERNET HAS CHANGED BULLYING
This summer, American Psychologist, released a special issue on the topic of bullying and victimization reading that bullying is the result of an unequal power dynamic ‒ the strong attacking the weak. It can often happen in different ways: through physical violence, verbal abuse (in person or online), or the management of relationships (spreading rumors, humiliation, and exclusion). It is usually prolonged. Finally, emerging research demonstrates that bullying follows us throughout life. Workplace and professional bullying is just as common as childhood bullying; often, it’s just less obvious. In urban and even mid-sized city environments, anonymity is possible. Even if you are bullied in school, you can have a supportive friend group at your local pickup basketball game. And there are multiple schools and multiple neighborhoods. You can float from one to the other, leaving bullying behind you in the process. By contrast, in rural settings, it is impossible to get away. The next school may be a hundred miles distant, so you are stuck where you are. What is more, everyone knows everyone. Isolation can lead to a sense of helplessness and lack of control or worse. In some ways, when it comes to bullying, the Internet has made the world more rural. Before the Internet, bullying ended when you withdrew from whatever environment you were in. But now, the bullying dynamic is harder to contain and harder to ignore. If you are harassed on your Facebook page, all of your social circles know about it; as long as you have access to the network, a ceaseless stream of notifications leaves you vulnerable to victimhood. The inescapability of “cyber-bullying” has huge consequences not just for children but also for adults. The effects of adult bullying can be just as severe, if not more so, than those of childhood bullying. While students can go to their teachers if they’re being bullied, if you report your boss, you could be out of a job. And adult victims of cyber-bullying tend to suffer higher levels of mental strain and lower job satisfaction than those subjected to more traditional forms of bullying. An undermining colleague can be put out of mind at the end of the day. But someone who persecutes you over e-mail, social networks, or anonymous comments is far more difficult to avoid and dismiss. In short, the picture that has emerged suggests that the Internet has made bullying both harder to escape and harder to identify. It has also, perhaps, made bullies out of some of us who would otherwise not be. We are immersed in an online world in which consequences often go unseen.
Adapted from The New Yorker 0ctober 2015 (440 words)
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IF WE BEND TO PRESSURE, WHERE WOULD WE PUT A QUOTA OF MIGRANTS?
The migration crisis that Europe has feared for so long has now materialized. At the weekend, the Italian navy picked up 3,000 people from ramshackle craft in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya. The Greeks are struggling to cope with the thousands arriving via Turkey. On the Macedonian border with Greece, riot police tried in vain to hold back hundreds of migrants making their way towards Germany and beyond. In the end they relented and put many of them on trains heading north. What is to be done? The problem for the EU is that the clamor from desperate people wanting to enter its gilded portals cannot be heeded without causing domestic political upheaval. In Berlin, where Angela Merkel held emergency talks with France’s President, the pressure is mounting after it was confirmed that Germany expects 800,000 refugees this year, more than the entire EU received in 2014. Unsurprisingly, the Germans are now complaining that they are being asked to take too many migrants. The demands for “burden sharing” are growing as the crisis deepens. But what does this mean? Since there are no borders under the Schengen Agreement, a quota system is meaningless. Once the migrants are in the EU, they can go wherever they want. In 1990, the formal abolition of frontiers and visa controls coincided with the collapse of communism and the first wave of immigration into Western Europe began, principally from countries that have since joined the EU. The latest encroachment is far more problematic since there are, in theory, millions of people who would like to come to Europe. People might stop trying get across to Europe if they knew they would be greeted by border guards demanding papers. Eventually the word might get back that it is not worth making the perilous journey across the Sahara and the Med. The European Parliament wants “safe and lawful routes for asylum seekers and refugees into the EU”. One leading MEP said the EU should be “building bridges not erecting barriers”. A two-year quota scheme to relocate 40,000 migrants was agreed by Britain earlier this summer, but this crisis has already gone well beyond that. This week’s immigration figures will confirm that more foreign nationals are settling in this country than at any time in our history – and that is before we agree to take a share of the new migrant wave. If we submit to pressure, and open our doors further, where on Earth will those coming through them live, given the chronic shortage of housing? And where will their children go to school, given the pressure on places especially in the South East?
Adapted from Daily Telegraph September 2015 (452 words)
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IF YOU'RE UNHAPPY IN DUBAI, THE POLICE MAY CALL YOU
If you say you’re unhappy in Dubai, the police may call you to ask you why. It’s because of an online survey, launched earlier this month, which aims to help Dubai break into the top 10 rankings of the world’s happiest cities by 2021. The simple survey asks users to choose between a frown, a smile and an unimpressed straight line. The police say that they will call those who say they are unhappy, which puzzles some observers, including William Davies, a senior lecturer at the University of London who recently published the book The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold Us Wellbeing. “This looks to me like an attempt to try to slightly frighten people into a) replying to the questions and b) replying to say they’re happy because people really don’t want to be rung by the local police with the question: “Well, what’s your problem?” Davies says. […] The effort to measure happiness can be seen in government offices across Dubai, one of seven of the United Arab Emirates. Small tablet computers placed next to civil servants allow citizens to provide instant feedback on their experience. Last year, authorities also began ranking municipal offices with a two-to-seven star system based on their customer service. […] That effort has included the Dubai police, well-known abroad for some of the luxury cars employed in its fleet. Twitter messages from the police often include the hashtag “Your Security Our Happiness” in both Arabic and English. At a recent electronics show, the Dubai police unveiled its happiness survey. It sent text messages to a number of Dubai residents, including a link to a webpage showing a picture of Dubai’s ruler […] with the Burj Khalifa tower behind him. It asked one question in English and Arabic: “Are you happy in Dubai?” Police reported that the survey received more than 200, 000 responses in its first day, with 84 per cent saying they were happy, 6 per cent neutral and 10 per cent unhappy. […] The United Arab Emirates is ranked number 20 out of 158 countries surveyed in the United Nations’ 2015 World Happiness Report. Though coming first in the Arab world, the United Arab Emirates hopes to break into the top 10 by 2021, which will mark the 50th anniversary of the nation’s founding. Davies warns, however, that focusing solely on happiness, either in Dubai or elsewhere in the world, could mask other issues. “I think it diverts attention away from broader political or economic factors that might actually be problematic or unjust,” Davies says. “It’s possible to imagine a society which had great concern for happiness but very little concern for, say, human rights or the rights of minorities.”
Adapted from The Independent October 2015 (460 words)
Texte 48
IN THE FIGHT TO STOP CLIMATE CHANGE, FORESTS ARE A VITAL WEAPON
Deforestation has a profound impact on climate change. Forests are undervalued assets in meeting the twin global challenges of our time: achieving prosperity and safeguarding climate stability. It’s time we gave them the attention – and finance – that they deserve. […] When tropical forests are cut and left to decay or are burned, as happened in an area almost twice the size of Costa Rica last year, the carbon stored in leaves, branches, trunks, roots and soil is released into the atmosphere. For many forest-rich developing countries, deforestation, not fossil fuel use, is the major source of emissions. If tropical deforestation were a country, it would rank somewhere between China and the European Union as a source of current annual greenhouse gas emissions. So halting deforestation would be a giant step toward taming climate change. That’s not all. Standing forests soak up carbon into vegetation and soil, providing a safe and natural Carbon Capture and Storage technology. If we were to stop tropical deforestation tomorrow, allow damaged forests to grow back, and protect mature forests, the resulting reduction in emissions and removal of carbon from the atmosphere could equal up to one-third of current global emissions from all sources. The good news is that climate negotiators have already agreed on a way to make this happen. It’s called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, in which rich countries reward developing countries for reducing deforestation on a pay-for-performance basis. Many developing countries have indicated that they would be willing to reduce emissions further in return for international financial support. Rich countries could do more to fight climate change at lower cost by financing tropical forest conservation in addition to their own domestic emission cuts. […] In addition to mitigating the emissions that cause climate change, conserving tropical forests contributes to development in myriad ways. New science suggests that forests support agriculture by regulating weather at continental scales, in addition to the shade, forage, and pollination they provide to adjacent farms. This means that deforestation of the Amazon rainforest threatens to deny rainfall to faraway crops in Brazil’s agricultural heartland. […] Moreover, poor countries and poor people in those countries will be the biggest losers from climate change. A single tropical storm can knock a country off its economic growth path for decades. And the poorest households, whose health, livelihoods, and housing are already precarious, have the fewest resources to adapt to change or recover from natural disasters. Intact forests are more resistant to the impacts of extreme weather events, such as the landslides that follow heavy rains and the forest fires that follow dry spells in Indonesia.
Adapted from theguardian.com October 2015 (445 words)
Texte 49
INSTITUTIONS WORTH $2.6 TRILLION HAVE NOW PULLED INVESTMENTS OUT OF FOSSIL FUELS
Leonardo DiCaprio and over 2,000 individuals and 400 institutions are now committed to pulling their money from fossil fuel companies, together representing a remarkable $2.6tn of investments, it was revealed on Tuesday. A new analysis shows that the value of the funds committed to selling off their investments in coal, oil and gas companies has rocketed in the last year, rising 50-fold. Major pension funds and insurance companies have joined the universities and churches that founded the divestment movement, all of whom fear the impact of climate change on both the world and the value of their investment portfolios. Among the biggest divesters are the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund, held by Norway, and two of the world’s biggest pension funds, in California. The UN’s climate chief called for the shift of investment from fossil fuels to meet the $1tna-year need for clean investment. “Investing at scale in clean, efficient power offers one of the clearest, no regret choices ever presented to human progress,” she said. DiCaprio, who on Tuesday revealed the divestment of his personal wealth and his charitable foundation’s funds, said: “Climate change is severely impacting the health of our planet and all of its inhabitants, and we must transition to a clean energy economy that does not rely on fossil fuels. Now is the time to divest and invest to let our world leaders know that we, as individuals and institutions, are taking action to address climate change, and we expect them to do their part in Paris.” Bill McKibben, of the 350.org climate campaign that started the divestment movement, said: “In the hottest year we’ve ever measured on our planet, big institutions and organisations are finally stepping up to say: we won’t participate in this charade, and we will stand up to the fossil fuel companies that are causing it. A 50-fold increase is a sign that civil society is finally fully on the move in the battle against climate change.” Scientists agree that most existing coal, oil and gas reserves must remain in the ground if global warming is to be kept below the internationally-agreed danger limit of 2°C. This means that, if action on climate change is successful, the vast majority of fossil fuels will be unburnable and the companies owning those reserves could crash in value. Many coal companies have already seen their share prices crash as limits on carbon emissions get stricter. The new report, by Arabella Advisors, shows that the number of institutions committed to fossil fuel divestment has soared from 181 in September 2014 to 436 today. These institutions, which include local government, health and education bodies, represent more than 646 million individuals around the world.
Adapted from The Guardian, September 2015 (457 words)
Texte 50
IS IT OK TO EAT FARMED SALMON NOW?
After years of bad press, salmon farms are signing up to new certification standards in a bid to prove their environmental and social credentials. Standing on the edge of a circular cage anchored to the seabed a few hundred meters offshore, salmon farmer Jan Børre is feeling proud. His industry has been criticized over the past two decades with reports emerging of seal deaths, pollution and escaping fish. But his farm, close to the Norwegian island of Skjervøy, has become one of the first to achieve an ethical accreditation designed to limit such problems. With 14 cages and more than 2 million salmon, Børre’s farm is one of the most modern sites in Norway, with submerged cameras in each cage monitored by staff on a support boat checking that the feed – dispensed via long pipes – is being evenly distributed to the fish. Since first reared in Norway in the 1960s, farmed salmon has expanded rapidly in the last two decades and now accounts for 70% of all the salmon we eat. Norway, Chile and Scotland dominate production of the fish, which prefer cool, sheltered and tidal waters to maximize growth rates and ward off disease. Helped by its heavy promotion as a healthy source of omega-3 fatty acids, salmon now ranks as the biggest selling seafood in the UK with retail sales of £700m in 2014. At first, farmed salmon seemed like a positive step towards reducing pressure on wild fish stocks. That optimism was quickly overtaken by concerns about its reliance on wild fish in feed, the use of chemicals to treat sea lice outbreaks and escaping fish introducing negative genetic traits into wild populations. […] Børre’s’ farm is part of the salmon industry’s attempt to fight back. Its owner is the Leroy Seafood Group, the world’s second biggest farmed salmon producer and the first to start selling salmon produced to stricter standards. Drawn up by NGOs (including WWF), marine scientists and the salmon industry, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certification is intended to safeguard against the worst problems. The standards include a ban on the prophylactic use of antibiotics (i.e. to prevent rather than treat infections), and maximum levels of fish-based feed and disclosure of the use of any feed containing genetically modified material. However, not everyone is convinced that the standards are sufficient. Yet, even before the new ethical standards came in, the industry had been making huge progress. For example, while seals being shot on a farm did make the news again recently, the numbers being shot have declined. "The really big issues now are around disease levels and what goes into the feed".
Adapted from The Guardian, September, 2015 (446words)
Texte 51
IS THE FEMINIZATION OF PART TIME WORK ABOUT TO END?
For far too long, we have accepted the feminisation of part time work. The assumption is that those who want and need it are women with caring responsibilities and families. It has also suffered from an assumption that part time work, in some way, equates to a diminished version of full time work. How often is it prefixed by an apology – ‘just’ or ‘only’? And how often is it an assumed truth that, with part time work, comes an end to career progression? […] A decade ago I faced the first brick wall of my professional life. I was ambitious and skilled, looking for a senior role with some flexibility - and I was told by recruiters this wasn’t possible. Yet, I was surrounded by peers in all kinds of roles, industries, and in businesses of all sizes, who were managing critical roles, in less than full time hours. The problem was, no one was openly talking about it. Fast-forward to 2015, and we are now witnessing a quiet revolution in the world of part time work in the UK. And guess what? Men are right at the heart of it. We now know there are 680,000 people in the UK who are formally working part time in the higher paid sector. […] And one in three is a man. What’s even more interesting is that this trend among men is now reflected at all levels of the labour market. Earlier this year, the number of men actively choosing to work part time hit the million mark for the very first time. And new data today shows […] that one in three part time workers is now male. […] While there’s no denying that women continue to be the prevailing gender working part time, today’s new research proves that the direction of travel for those choosing to work less than full time, is for all kinds of different people, at different life stages and for a variety of different reasons. For the first time ever, this year’s list has the highest number of men – all of whom are working less than full time for a variety of reasons, and it is these ‘whys’ that are the real drivers of change in the way we work. It’s also what will stop part time work being seen as a ‘woman’s game’. From the younger men, who are choosing to share childcare responsibilities with their partners; those who want a different type of working life and are pursuing parallel careers; those who are in the later stages of their career and are choosing to make time for their passions; to those who need to balance working life with medical conditions.
Adapted from The Telegraph November 2015 (456 words)
Texte 52
JOBS AND THE ROBOT REVOLUTION
Technology has given birth to new career paths, but some jobs have disappeared as machines do them faster. An Oxford study claims that computerisation puts nearly half of jobs into the high-risk category, which means they could be redundant within 10 to 20 years. So is there any way to make sure you don’t become surplus to requirement? The jobs that seem to be at high risk are those intermediary roles, a lot of office and administration work and sales work. The rise of robots is far from science fiction. Amazon is already putting robots to work in its warehouses, and plans to use drones to deliver products to customers in 30 minutes or less. Innovations in self-driving cars are set to transform travel and transportation, while automation is also transforming agriculture, retail and the financial services, and looks set to do the same for law and medicine. But there are areas where humans can outperform machines. People will be hired for things robots can’t do. Take journalism. Some news writing has already been automated, but as journalism is not a pure transmission of information, it isn’t a natural field for a robot to excel in. These profoundly human skills, along with others such as creativity, problem solving and caring, are the ones people will get hired for in the future. So what can you do if you are worried about the long-term potential of your chosen career? One option is to look at the skills shortages where you live and invest in the relevant training. In the UK, the IT sector is a massive growth area. It is predicted there will be 750,000 computer science jobs to fill by 2017, – but just 50,000 computer science students graduated in 2014. This massive IT skills shortage in the UK market is a big risk to the economy. But for some of us, future proofing our careers may be easier than expected. In fact, many people that are immersed in social media have grown up with skills that are invaluable in the workplace. Employers need to learn from digital savvy people who are quick to pick up on new trends, who adapt quickly to change and are task-led rather than confined to the narrow remit of their job role. However, schools have yet to take advantage of the potential of technology in the classroom to give every student the skills they need in today’s connected world. Embracing technology is likely to be the best way to survive the changing face of jobs. But unlike the previous generation where you could work in one industry for your whole life, it is more normal now to jump from career to career.
Adapted from The Independent October 2015 (450 words)
Texte 53
KEEP MOBILE PHONES OUT OF THE CLASSROOM
This week, school is back. Kids everywhere will trudge their way through school gates, mourning the end of the long and wet summer holidays. Senior leadership teams everywhere will be preparing to unveil new policies aimed at improving student behaviour and attitudes to learning. Somewhere, the debate about whether mobiles should be allowed in classrooms will resurface. Given that more than 90% of today's teenagers own one, it is an important question for teachers and one that won't be going away any time soon. In most schools, you will find mobile phones treated like contraband. They are items to be kept strictly out of any adult's sightline. One glimpse could, after all, land the owner in a world of bother, often culminating in the phone's confiscation. Because of this, students tend to view their teachers as alien inhabitants from another planet, oblivious to how practically everyone carries a phone 100% of the time. Teachers, for our part, are merely subscribing to a simple enough maxim, out of sight out of mind. Yet a number of mainly fee-paying schools are promoting pupils' use of mobiles within school and lessons. Headteacher Caroline Jordan, of Heading school, said: "Until recently we did not allow them in the classrooms. However, over the last year or so we have begun to harness the technology. We believe there is a place for smartphones as resources that most of our girls carry around with them." The proposal sounds unmanageable. In a class of 30, how do you ensure students are actually googling the question you've posed? Who is to say they're not quickly checking an update on Facebook, or Twitter or Whatsapp? Isn't this essentially inviting unnecessary teacher scrutiny and surveillance? Yet, despite all this, I do understand the reasoning: choosing not to exploit the ubiquity of such devices appears technophobic and foolhardy. Indeed, as educators seek to be engaging and student-led, isn't it best that we meet pupils where they are rather than where we want them to be? It is a persuasive line but one that falls apart on closer scrutiny. A recent large-scale study found that banning mobile phones improved exam results by 2%, even when gender and class had been accounted for. At first glance it seems an insignificant rise but the impact is equivalent to one extra week of school a year. The researchers from the London School of Economics have centred their work on 91 schools and the exam results from 130.000 pupils since 2001. For those entitled to free school meals or with special education needs the ban was doubly effective. Investigations such as this throw into question whether mobile phones could, in fact, intensify inequality.
Adapted from The Guardian September 2015 (452 words)
Texte 54
KIDS' DRUG-RESISTANT BACTERIA BLAMED ON FARM ANTIBIOTIC USE
Children's health is suffering due to the excessive use of antibiotics in farm animals, according to a new report. Kids are becoming infected with bacteria that are resistant to treatment with the same antibiotics that are commonly used in raising farm animals, and it is difficult to treat children who are infected with the drug-resistant bacteria, the report said. Adding antibiotics to the feed of healthy farm animals can make them grow faster on less food. However, it also may lead bacteria in the animals to change, and become resistant to these antibiotics, the researchers said. If people become infected with these bacteria, antibiotics are ineffective in treating the infection. Children may become exposed to multiple-drug-resistant bacteria in a number of ways, for example, by eating food that has been contaminated with the bacteria from the animals, or by coming into contact with animals that have been treated with antibiotics. The vast majority of children or adults who come into contact with these organisms will not become ill, but for those who do become ill, it is almost always a very serious problem because of the difficulty in treating the infections that occur. Children whose immune systems are compromised because they are going through chemotherapy or because they have an immune deficiency are particularly vulnerable to all kinds of infections. If they become infected with these multiple-resistant organisms, then their treatment is even more difficult than a child with typical immune system who becomes infected with these organisms. More than 2 million Americans get sick with antimicrobial-resistant infections each year, and more than 23,000 die as a result of these infections, according to the federal statistics cited in the new report, published today in the journal Pediatrics. About 60 percent of the antimicrobial agents that are sold for use in food-producing animals are considered important for treating human infections, according to the report. Many of these agents that are used in food-producing animals are the same or similar to those used for treating humans. In human medicine, antibiotics are normally prescribed by doctors, but when it comes to their use in food animals, antibiotics may often be used without a prescription or veterinary oversight. Moreover, antibiotics are frequently used in animals that are not sick. Rather, the drugs are used to promote faster growth, the researchers said. In their report, they stressed the importance of restricting the use of antibiotics to treating illness in animals and humans. Antibiotic use in animals should be similar to antibiotic use in human beings, that is, it should be used for treating infections, and not be administered to hundreds or thousands of animals at a time just to promote their growth.
Adapted from LiveScience.com, November 2015 (451 words)
Texte 55
LEARN A SECOND LANGUAGE TO SLOW AGEING BRAIN’S DECLINE
Feel too old or too stupid to learn a second language? It may be worth persevering. A study that tracked hundreds of Scottish people for decades is the strongest evidence yet that speaking an extra language slows the mental decline that accompanies ageing. The benefits hold regardless of your IQ and even if you learn your second language as an adult. Previous studies have shown that people with Alzheimer’s disease who are fluent in two languages exhibit symptoms of the condition four or five years later than people who are monolingual, and that people who are bilingual perform better in some cognitive tests. Now Thomas Bak of the University of Edinburgh, UK, and his colleagues have turned to the Lothian Birth Cohort study which has tracked about 1100 people born in 1936 in and around Edinburgh. All were monolingual English speakers at age 11, when they had taken a battery of cognitive tests. The study wasn’t designed to investigate language effects. But 853 of the participants were tracked down when they were in their early 70s. It transpired that almost one-third, or 262, of them had learned to speak at least one additional language and that 65 had learned it after the age of 18. As a result, the study provides a unique research opportunity, says Ellen Bialystok at York University in Toronto, Canada, who was first to discover that being bilingual delays the onset of Alzheimer’s. “You have this absolutely homogenous sample of Scottish kids – all monolingual – and you let them go off and have their lives and see what happens,” she says. Bak’s team gave the participants cognitive tests and compared these with the test scores from when they were 11. Those who had learned an extra language performed better in the cognitive tests in their 70s than would be predicted from their earlier scores, indicating that the extra language itself is beneficial. The strongest effects were on general intelligence and reading. This further suggests that the benefits are down to the extra language, because if they were simply due to greater intelligence, you would expect there to be a boost across all skills. Bak’s team found that the benefits to the ageing brain were comparable to physical activity, or not smoking. Ellen Bialystok says the cognitive benefits seen in the Scottish study chime with her own work on bilingual people with Alzheimer’s disease, suggesting that the same beneficial processes are at work. How could languages protect the brain? A leading theory is that people who speak several languages constantly activate all the available words in each one before choosing the appropriate expression, giving them a mental workout.
Adapted from New Scientist June 2015 (449 words)
Texte 56
LEFT THE COFFEE POT ON? NO WORRIES. THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT.
Smart homes are becoming more common as people push the boundaries of digital technology to help them look after their health and security, control their carbon footprint and make living easier. The Lauterette home in Northern Virginia is a textbook example of how to live digitally. “I have over a hundred switches connected to appliances,” said Jeff Lauterette, director of technology at the National Petroleum Council, who lives with his wife, Cassie, and two children in a three-level, 6,000-square-foot house. They get phone alerts ranging from the playful (the boys are clowning around after bedtime) to the serious (an unknown car or person is on the driveway). One key to an immersive digital lifestyle is an automation system that resides in your home. Universal Devices makes a black box that looks like a cable box, called the ISY (Intelligent System). It connects to a home network and power lines, and to a smartphone, tablet or computer. “About a dozen apps on the market use the ISY, which works with controllable outlets, light switches, multi-button keypad switches, motion detectors, door contacts, ceiling fan controls and many other devices”, Lauterette said. “You log into the ISY Web site on your computer and create programs to turn things on and off at certain times. It’s a simple process.” Lauterette said that he programmed dozens of variables across the house to enhance efficiency, save energy and maximize safety. In the kitchen, he uses the system for convenience. If he puts a chicken in the oven or on the grill, he inserts a meat thermometer, and when the temperature hits 400 degrees, his phone beeps. For safety, the garbage disposal stops after five seconds. In the garden, he uses the ISY to save water. If the soil probe detects wet soil or the weather report predicts rain, then the ISY will disable the sprinklers. In the backyard pool, he uses the ISY to ensure clean water for the boys. He receives alerts on acidity, salt and chlorine content. In the front yard last winter, he programmed the system to save electricity. When snow reached the garden lights, they automatically turned off. A smartphone or tablet is a key accessory, which means commands can be accessed remotely via an app or by voice control. The ISY also enables virtual on-off switches. You can put a keypad switch on the night table, turn on the bathroom lights before you get out of bed and turn them off when you get back in. You also can turn on the coffee pot when you wake up. Even without a dedicated automation system, you can still have remote capabilities, because many companies make Smart appliances that have their own app.
Adapted from The Washington Post August 2015 (461 words)
Texte 57
LIQUID LUNCH
“One should eat to live, not live to eat,” wrote Molière, the French comedy playwright. Some workaholic entrepreneurs have taken him at his word. Soylent, a two-year-old startup, is trying to save consumers time and money by selling them a healthy, cheap “meal” that they can drink. Each vegetarian portion has only around 400 calories, costs around $3 and boasts of being as nutritious as and more environmentally-friendly than processed food and meat. Soylent has found a place among American workaholics who resent the cost and hassle of preparing regular meals. This is especially true in Silicon Valley, California, home of many “early-adopter” engineers too consumed with coding the future to break from work. Yet their bad diets can damage their health. Several years ago Sam Altman, an entrepreneur who is now president of Y Combinator, a startup boot camp, was so cost-conscious and focused on building his first company that for weeks he ate only ramen noodles and coffee ice cream, until he developed scurvy. He later became an investor in Soylent. At first the product was sold as a powder, but even that was a hassle for some consumers who felt too busy to prepare the mixture, so on September 9th Soylent started shipping version 2.0, which comes already mixed and bottled. The name Soylent is a tribute to a 1966 science-fiction novel, “Make Room! Make Room!”, set in an overpopulated world where everyone eats a mixture of lentils and soy (and, in the film version, human flesh). Rob Rhinehart, the drink’s 27-year-old creator, came up with the idea when he was working on a different startup, focused on wireless internet. He was so poor that he started mixing his own food, and later dropped the other project to focus on food technology. He is, by any measure, extreme. He considers shopping at grocery stores, in the presence of “rotting” produce, a “multisensory living nightmare”, and no longer owns a fridge. Soylent has proved that it can appeal to a niche, as well as to a handful of financiers: in January the firm raised $20m from investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, a well-regarded venture-capital firm. But it has plenty of obstacles to overcome. Yucky-sounding ingredients like algal oil (yes, derived from algae) will put many off, as well as reviews from early users that Soylent makes them gassy. “I prefer my food with both flavor and texture,” says one young, vegetarian entrepreneur who has tried it. Mr. Rhinehart insists that Soylent’s “neutral” taste is the best way to appeal to the broadest group of people. Just how big that group really is, however, remains to be seen.
Adapted from The Economist September 2015 (440 words)
Texte 58
MEN DO MORE AT HOME, BUT NOT AS MUCH AS THEY THINK
Men today are much more committed to equality at home, than in previous generations, sharing dinner-cooking and diaper-changing duties. But even in families in which both parents work outside the home, the division of labor at home remains unequal. Men tend to disagree. They say they do as much housework and child care as their wives ‒ even though data show that they don’t. This disconnect shows up in surveys, in which fathers said they shared home and child responsibilities equally, while mothers said they did more. But the mothers’ perceptions are supported by plentiful research, including more rigorous data collection in which people keep diaries of the ways they spend their time. The results offer one reason that the gender revolution in the workplace has stalled in many ways ‒ particularly around the time women start having children. Despite enormous advances for women in the labor market, they still shoulder much more responsibility at home. The Journal of Marriage and Family said “what this means is extra work for women that is hard and stressful and also pushes them out of the work force. Women are taking on more of the economic risk that’s associated with a child.” Ms Yavorsky from Ohio State studied the division of labor among 364 parents. When couples were surveyed on their perceptions of how they spent their time after having a child, there wasn’t much of a gender gap ‒ and both sexes overestimated the amount they spent on housework and child care. But the researchers found the surveys weren’t necessarily accurate because longitudinal time diaries, from pregnancy until babies were 9 months, revealed something different. Before children, there was no gender gap ‒ men and women each did about 14.5 hours of housework a week. (The researchers did not know whether these couples were always so equitable, or whether the men picked up more of the slack while the women were pregnant.) But after a birth, women’s total work ‒ including paid work, housework and child care ‒ increased 21 hours a week and men’s increased 12.5 hours. For women, but not men, child care did not substitute for any of their existing work; it was all supplemental. “Most males say they want to have a high-achieving partner,” Ms. Yavorsky said. “However, that very much changes after a birth of a baby and other highly gendered, ritualized time periods.” New fathers and mothers each worked about the same number of hours at their jobs. Fathers did five fewer hours of housework, while mothers did the same amount they always had. Over all, mothers spent an additional three hours a day on home and child chores, while fathers spent roughly one hour and 45 more minutes.
Adapted from The New York Times November 2015 (460 words)
Texte 59
METHANE RELEASE MAY TRIGGER DANGEROUS GLOBAL WARMING
While most attention has been given to carbon dioxide, it isn’t the only greenhouse gas that scientists are worried about. Carbon dioxide is the most important human-emitted greenhouse gas, but methane has also increased in the atmosphere and it adds to our concerns. While methane is not currently as important as carbon dioxide, it has a hidden danger. Molecule for molecule, methane traps more heat than carbon dioxide; approximately 30 times more, depending on the time frame under consideration. But what has scientists focusing on methane is the way it is released into the atmosphere. Unlike carbon dioxide, which is emitted primarily through burning of fossil fuels, methane has a large natural emission component. This natural emission is from warming permafrost in the northern latitudes. Permafrost is permanently frozen ground. As the Earth warms, and the Arctic warms especially fast, the permafrost melts and soil decomposition accelerates. Consequently, an initial warming leads to more emission, leading to more warming and more emission. It is a vicious cycle and there may be a tipping point where this self-reinforcing cycle takes over. Recently, a policy briefing from the world-leading Woods Hole Research Center has moved our understanding of this risk further through a clearly-written summary. The briefing cites two recent papers that study the so-called permafrost carbon feedback. One of these studies makes use of projections from the most recent report to estimate that up to 205 gigatons equivalent of carbon dioxide could be released due to melting permafrost. This would cause up to 0.5°C extra warming. Just as bad, the permafrost melting would continue after 2100 which would cause even more warming. Under this scenario, meeting a 2°C limit would be harder than anticipated. The current targets do not adequately account for this feedback. To put this in perspective, permafrost contains almost twice as much carbon as is present in the atmosphere. In the rapidly warming Arctic (warming twice as fast as the globe as a whole), the upper layers of this frozen soil begin to thaw, allowing deposited organic material to decompose. The plant material, which has accumulated over thousands of years, is concentrated in to upper layers. There is a network of monitoring stations that have detected a significant heating trend over the past few decades. A Woods Hole expert told me that it’s essential that policymakers begin to seriously consider the possibility of a substantial permafrost carbon feedback to global warming. So, this means that reducing carbon dioxide pollution is even more important. If we are to stop the warming–thawing–more–warming cycle, it is critical to reduce emissions now. According to these experts, this is a serious issue, and we should listen to them.
Adapted from The Guardian October 2015 (453 words)
Texte 60
MILLIONS OF PEOPLE SPEND TWO OR MORE HOURS COMMUTING A DAY The housing crisis and lack of spending on roads and railways is leading to longer commutes for workers, a study has shown. The number of people spending more than two hours travelling to and from work every day has jumped by 72% over the past decade to more than 3 million, according to research by the Trade Union Council. The analysis also showed that the number of commuters travelling for three or more hours a day had risen by 75%, from 500,000 to 880,000 over the past decade. Women have suffered the largest increase in long commuting, with a 131% rise in those travelling three hours or more since 2004. […] The union organisation said soaring rents and high house prices, coupled with the UK’s “creaking” infrastructure, had led to people having to spend longer getting to work. More low paid workers in particular are facing longer and costlier commutes, the TUC said. On average, UK commuting times rose by three minutes a day between 2004 and 2014, from 52 to 55 minutes. The TUC general secretary said: “It’s bad enough most of us spend an hour a day getting to and from work, but spare a thought for those extreme commuters who travel for more than 10, or even 15, hours a week. Employers need to address the problem that many of their staff are spending an ever-increasing number of hours getting to and from work.” He said more home and flexible working could easily be introduced to allow people to cut their commutes and save money. “This would not only be popular with workers, but fewer, better-spaced journeys would help to beat overcrowding on the roads and railways,” she said. The chief executive of campaign group Work Wise, said: “Are we really prepared to move into winter with the same anticipated long and often disrupted commutes? Or, are we going to change the way we work by commuting less with the aid of internet and mobile technologies.” “Employers should grasp this opportunity by changing the way employees work and commute, and introduce more flexibility to cut out these restrictive influences on business performance as well as the wellbeing of their employees.” A government spokesman said: “Government initiatives have helped more than 230,000 people to buy since 2010, and we are supporting record investment in transport infrastructure – more than £127bn between now and 2020.” “We have got Britain building again, with the latest figures showing that new homes are up by 9% on this time last year as well as investing £15bn to increase the capacity and conditions of England’s roads, and embarking on the most ambitious programme of rail upgrades since the Victorian era.” Adapted from The Guardian, November 2015 (455 words)
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MOTHER OF ALL HIGHS
At a soirée on the outskirts of Denver, Colorado, one woman greets her fellow guests with a delicate bowl of vanilla sea-salt caramels, each one laced with marijuana. “It’s quite subtle,” she insists. I just keep a few in my bag for when I’m feeling stressed out.” Over light chat about family and work, the group quickly cleaned up the bowl. It is a scene Americans will be accustomed to by about 2025. Cannabis is now legal for recreational use in four states (Alaska, Oregon, California, Colorado) and the District of Columbia, and for medical use in another 21. Colorado collected $44m in recreational marijuana taxes last year, and $72.5m in the first eight months of 2015. The state is on course to collect $109m for the year. But one crucial, and highly influential, group remains unconvinced and keeps fighting against cannabis legalization. Mothers do not seem to fit neatly into the male story of cannabis. Even now, the leading figures in the legalization movement are businessmen. Perhaps this is unsurprising. But those hoping to take the drug mainstream know they have to get mothers on their side. And one way to do so is to emphasize the health benefits of the weed. According to a recent estimate, a third of American adults use alternative medicines. More and more research papers now promote cannabis as a natural substitute for pharmaceuticals. It has even been credited with treating everything, from lethargy to cancer, simply by stimulating nerves. The federal government recently awarded $69m to the University of Mississippi to expand marijuana growth for medical research. All this will count for little, however, so long as spliffs only remain a cheeky teenage habit. Mary’s Medicinals sells fragrant lotions with a stylish leaflet on “the science behind cannabinoids”‒ chemical compounds inside the drug which, research suggests, are expected to have a soothing effect on the nervous system. House Of Jane, a multi-state chain of cafés, offers “gourmet coffees, herbal teas, and fine edibles” laced with marijuana, with the tagline “medicate responsibly”. Businesses are optimistic for the future. Winning over mothers has long been a ploy to turbocharge sales, according to the coauthors of “Trillion Dollar Moms”. Mothers control $1.6 trillion of direct consumer spending and influence the buying habits of their entire household. In politics, it was the soccer moms, newspapers declared in 1996, who returned Bill Clinton to the White House. And mothers tend to make a family’s medical decisions too. If matriarchs can be persuaded that marijuana boosts rather than imperils health, cannabis caramels may one day be found stuck to the teeth of a grateful nation.
Adapted from The Economist October 2015 (441 words)
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NASA ANNOUNCEMENT: WATER FOUND FLOWING ON RED PLANET COULD SUSTAIN LIFE
Water exists in liquid form on the surface of Mars, NASA scientists have said, making it possible for life to be sustained on the Red Planet. The water appears to exist in the form of “thin layers of wet soil", rather than pools of standing water, Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona said. Crucially, it “suggests that it would be possible for there to be life today on Mars”, John Grunsfeld, NASA's science mission chief, said. Water is essential to life as we know it on Earth – and on Earth, wherever there is water there is also life, the scientists said. However, it is not yet known whether the briny water discovered on Mars may be too salty to support terrestrial life forms. Although microbes do exist in salty habitats on the Atacama Desert in South America, the most likely location for microbes on Mars would be in fresh water that scientists believe might exist deeper beneath the surface of the planet. Dr Grunsfeld said the briny water discovered on Mars could also be useful to future travellers, not only for hydration but potentially even for growing crops in “inflatable greenhouses”. NASA has already said it wants to put men on Mars and Dr Grunsfeld said he hoped NASA would be able to do so in the near future. Any Mars mission by NASA would cost tens of billions of dollars. Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program said: “Now we know there is liquid water on the surface of this cold, desert planet. It seems that the more we study Mars, the more we learn how life could be supported and where there are resources to support life in the future.” The scientific paper behind the announcement, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, stopped short of claiming definitive proof of water but said the salt findings strongly supported the hypothesis. It suggested possible origins of the water could include melting ice, an underground aquifer or water vapor from the thin Martian atmosphere, although it also set out shortcomings with each of the possible explanations. Cynics questioned the timing of NASA’s announcement, which coincides with the launch of the Ridley Scott film The Martian, starring Matt Damon, which NASA has assisted in promoting. The film is based on a book by Andy Weir, who has admitted that NASA liked his book because they “saw it as an opportunity to reengage the public with space travel”. Wired magazine has pointed out that NASA sorely needs such public support as “for a Mars mission, the agency would need an estimated $80 to $100 billion over the next 20 years, which Congress so far has refused to authorize”.
Adapted from The Telegraph September 2015 (447 words)
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NEWEST IMMIGRANTS ASSIMILATING AS FAST AS PREVIOUS ONES, REPORT SAYS
The newest generations of immigrants are assimilating into American society as fast and broadly as the previous ones according to a report published on Monday by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Immigrants’ education levels, the diversity of their jobs, their wages and their mastery of English improved as they lived for more time in the United States, and the gains were even greater for their American-born children, the report concluded. The report is an effort by scholars to address many contentious issues in the increasingly heated immigration debate. It is the first major report by the national academies on the integration of immigrants since 1997. […] One of the scholars, Professor Waters, said the report should allay fears that recent immigrants committed crimes more frequently than Americans, that they were generally in poor health and burden public health care systems, or that they were failing to learn English. “The desire on the part of immigrants to learn English is very high,” Professor Waters said. Concerns that the latest generation of immigrants is seeking to impose its languages on American society “is not something people should be worried about,” she said. […] Many immigrants ‒ about 85 percent of the foreign-born ‒ speak a language other than English at home. For 62 percent of them, that language is Spanish. But many of those immigrants speak English proficiently outside the home. About 50 percent of the foreign-born say they speak English “very well” or “well,” while only 10 percent say they do not speak English at all. […] In a finding the scholars called surprising, the report says foreign-born adults and children are healthier in general than Americans. They are less likely to die from cancer or heart disease, and have fewer chronic illnesses and lower rates of obesity. Educational achievement varied widely among different national groups, because of a significant population of highly skilled and educated foreigners, mainly from Asia, who have come in recent years. Almost one-quarter of immigrants have college degrees. On crime, the report found that over all, immigrant men of 18 to 39 were incarcerated at about one-fourth the rate of American men in that group. “Cities and neighborhoods with greater concentrations of immigrants have much lower rates of crime and violence” than similar places without immigrants, the report said. “We’ve always been worried that immigrants increase crime, and it has never been true for the first generation,” Professor Waters said. However, there is evidence the crime rate is increasing as immigrants become assimilated, rising to match the rates of native-born Americans. “If this trend is confirmed, it may be an unwelcome aspect of integration,” the researchers wrote.
Adapted from The New York Times September 2015 (453 words)
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ORTHOREXIA: AN OBSESSION WITH HEALTHY EATING NOT YET RECOGNISED BY PSYCHIATRY “When does ‘eating clean’ become an eating disorder?” That was the headline on the newspaper Broadly's lengthy piece on a little-researched, still-disputed medical condition known as “orthorexia.” Within 24 hours of publication, “Orthorexia” was trending on Facebook and the piece had garnered thousands of comments. Half the responses were ecstatic. The other half were contemptuous. The Broadly piece this week was just the latest of many on orthorexia nervosa (literally, “correct appetite disorder”), an illness that has been making the rounds online, though it’s absent from all psychiatric manuals. Most doctors don’t yet recognize “orthorexia,” at least, not as an official diagnosis. But people who have spent hours looking at images of food online probably will. It’s a perfect explanation for the fixation on “clean eating” that exists offline but can be exacerbated by the food blogs, or the anxiety around health that exists just outside the frames of carefully-crafted Instagram shots of well-composed plates. When Instagrammer Jordan Younger, better known as “the blonde vegan,” announced that she would be easing up on her restrictive-yet-aestheticallypleasing diet because it was making her isolated and ill, the post was so popular it crashed the site. In it, Younger identified as orthorexic. Steven Bratman, a doctor who coined the term, didn’t originally intend for orthorexia to become a diagnosis. In 2009, he told the New York Times he used it for patients who kept coming to him with increasingly obsessive concerns about their diets. Orthorexia, as Bratman defines it, is a disorder distinct from anorexia or bulimia. It’s not the diet that’s the problem ‒ it’s the obsession that accompanies it. And unlike most other eating disorders, the orthorexic’s objective isn’t weight loss. It’s purity. Many psychiatrists believe that what some call orthorexia is really a form of anorexia or obsessive compulsive disorder, and studies have found that the symptoms of the former overlap significantly with the latter two. Like anorexics, people with orthorexia are preoccupied with food and the state of their bodies. Like people suffering from OCD, they are often searching for control. And, as with any eating disorder, orthorexia takes a mental and physical toll: the problem can be isolating and anxiety-inducing and often leads to unhealthy weight loss. An unhealthy attachment to “clean eating” may not signal a new kind of eating disorder so much as a new manifestation of an existing one. Angela Guarda, director of the Johns Hopkins Eating Disorders Program, told the Guardian that eating disorders may appear different depending on the time period, but the root cause is the same.
Adapted from www.independent.co.uk November 2015 (440 words)
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PARENTS CAN TRACK WHETHER THEIR COLLEGE-AGED KIDS ARE GOING TO CLASSES. THEY SHOULDN’T.
Parents who want their kids to succeed more than anything are now being sold a high-tech solution. Class 120 is a $199-a-year smartphone app that tracks your teenager and alerts you if the kid isn’t in his scheduled class, and, according to figures provided by the company, 4,000 subscribers are enrolled for the upcoming fall semester. Attendance is a great predictor of college grades, even more so than scores on standardized admissions tests. If grades are good predictors of graduation, and if a parent is paying for college, isn’t it a great idea for parents to track whether their young adults are in class? In short: No. This is a terrible idea. It’s easy to see how parents get themselves into a situation where tracking their kids makes sense. A student is admitted to college by a process that focuses primarily on grades, courses taken and admissions test scores. Monitoring grades and scores is easy. But adequate grades and test scores set a low bar. They don’t take into account whether that kid is ready for the responsibility of college ‒ whether he has the strength of self-discipline, maturity and the skill set needed to care for him or herself. Monitoring the development of character is much harder for parents. Character growth happens through encountering and learning to cope with disappointments, tough jams and failures. A certain defeat may yield an element of character while revealing the deeper realms of success. The truth is kids need to learn to fail. College is an ideal place to practice adult responsibility and independence in an environment where the stakes are relatively low. The majority of students rise to this challenge in their first year, manage to get to class on time, do their homework and return as sophomores. They learn to shape their newly parent-free days around a variety of other extracurricular activities that evolve them into interesting, engaging and employable adults ‒ individuals who can make their own decisions about whether to get out of bed and go to work in the morning. Maybe your child hasn’t learned this lesson by now, but he has to learn it sometime. An alarm clock’s job is to wake you up, and the thing works pretty well. It does not provide a reason to get up, however, particularly on a frigid December morning. If your student’s tracker says she failed to go to class and your daughter says she went, Class 120's Web site suggests finding out: “Did the student bring the smartphone to class?” However, if the device indicates your daughter never misses class, a parent may then want to determine “Just who is it that brings the smartphone to class each time?”
Adapted from The Washington Post August 2015 (460 words)
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PLASTIC BAG CHARGE BACKED BY ENGLISH PUBLIC
About 7.6 billion plastic bags were handed out in the United Kingdom last year. This figure means 140 bags per person. As in many other European countries, a 5p charge per bag will soon be implemented throughout the country and nearly two-thirds of people support it. The charge for single-use bags sees England catching up with the rest of the UK, with Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all having reported dramatic falls in consumption after similar schemes were introduced. Despite the government deciding to exempt shops with fewer than 250 employees from having to charge shoppers 5p per bag, the Association of Convenience Stores has said 16 per cent of small shops and newsagents will implement it regardless. Half of English defendants support smaller shops enacting the charge with 30 per cent against it, according to the polling the British company ICM conducted for the Break the Bag Habit coalition. Support for the general principle of the 5p charge to tackle waste was higher, at 62 per cent in favour versus 25 per cent against. The spokeswoman for the coalition, which includes Keep Britain Tidy, the Campaign to Protect Rural England and other charities, said: “This poll shows that the appetite is there to support a more comprehensive scheme, and tackle more of the bag litter that blights our countryside, rivers, towns and seas.” Since about 7.6 billion plastic bags were given out in the UK last year, and the number has risen for five years running, the charge is expected to raise around £73 million a year for good causes, with retailers choosing where the money goes. Parks and woodland walks are among the schemes that Tesco has said it will fund with the proceeds. Online grocery delivery companies will also be required to take part in the scheme, with companies charging 5p per bag delivered. One of them said it would pay customers 5p back per bag they returned to its delivery drivers for recycling. Friends of the Earth said the exemptions for smaller retailers - which the Liberal Democrat party had promised to drop if re-elected - made no sense. “The English charge is a good start, but it makes no sense that it only applies to big retailers. Shoppers will get mixed messages depending on where they shop. This could defeat the main point of the charge in the first place – to change the way people and stores think about over-using plastic bags,” said the group’s senior resources campaigner, David Powell. The environmental charity also highlighted the fact that household recycling rates have stalled in England. Government officials have admitted the country is likely to miss EU recycling targets for 2020.
Adapted from The Guardian September, 2015 (452 words)
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POLITICIANS MUST GET TOUGH ON SUGAR TO CURB OBESITY CRISIS The world faces a crisis in obesity and type 2 diabetes, almost entirely due to the consumption of cheap, processed food full of sugar and fat. These foods are marketed cleverly, but are very high in calories and give no feeling of fullness. Unsurprisingly, they cause many people to become obese. Despite the UK’s health minister, Jeremy Hunt’s assertion that this issue was one of his highest priorities, both he and Department of Health officials have refused to take any action to prevent childhood obesity. In the run up to the UK election earlier this year both Hunt and the Prime Minister, David Cameron, ruled out a tax on sugar without specifying why. Yet, several countries have a sugar tax, particularly on sugar-sweetened soft drinks. In Mexico, consumption of such drinks fell by 12 per cent in the first year after the introduction of a 10 per cent tax. Consumption in France has also fallen after a much lower tax was brought in. The most important way of reducing calorie intake from sugar would be to reformulate foods. This has successfully been carried out with salt in the UK: most of the products that we now buy from supermarkets have 30-40 per cent less salt, without the consumer necessarily being aware of it. The result has been a fall in salt intake in the UK and a fall in population blood pressure. It has been calculated that this has prevented approximately 9000 stroke and heart attack deaths per year. The same reformulation could be done for sugar, particularly in sugar-sweetened soft drinks, as removing the sugar doesn’t reduce the drink’s volume. Some supermarkets have already started the process. The sweetness of artificially sweetened drinks would also have to be reduced, as there is increasing evidence that artificial sweeteners stimulate appetite. The problem however is that we desperately need an independent agency for nutrition in order to oversee calorie intake in a coherent, structured way. We also need a restriction on marketing – ideally a ban on marketing of all unhealthy foods, just like cigarettes. Unhealthy food is now a much bigger cause of death in the UK than tobacco. Price promotions in supermarkets that focus on the unhealthiest foods and encourage greater consumption should be stopped. And we should limit availability and portion size. The prime minister needs to intervene and come up with a strong obesity plan with an independent nutritional agency that will be able to further reduce the consumption of salt, sugar, saturated fat and unhealthy products. That way, the health service, teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, has some possibility of being saved, and the UK would once again be leading the world in health.
Adapted from New Scientist October 2015 (458 words)
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PUBLISH, OR BE DAMNED
Take a prescription drug, and you also take a leap of faith: faith that your doctor has made the right diagnosis, that you won’t suffer an adverse reaction, and that the company that developed the drug didn’t conceal anything about it from the authorities. The last of these ought to be the least of a patient’s worries. Sadly, the pharmaceutical industry has a shameful track record on this front. Time and again, companies have been caught pulling the wool over regulators’ eyes in a bid to get their products on the market. One of the most egregious cases was that of the painkiller Rofecoxib. Launched in 1999, it was used by about 80 million people before its maker pulled it out in the face of compelling evidence that it increased heart attack risk – a fact the company knew but kept secret for five years. Sharp practice of this kind is still widespread. Drug trials are not always registered. The results of around half never see the light of day, and positive results are more likely to be published than negative ones. As a result, the evidence on which regulators and doctors make life-and-death decisions is fragmentary and biased in the interests of the drug companies. That needs to change, and it is changing. From next year, all clinical trials in the European Union will have to be registered in a publicly accessible database and all results published within a year of the trial ending. This is welcome, but it is not enough. It will only apply to future trials, even though most medicines were approved based on trials done long ago. There are also fears that the new regime will not prevent the industry hiding negative results. In fact, it could make matters worse by creating the impression that the problem has been solved. The new system does not, in fact, demand full disclosure. Companies will merely be compelled to release documents known as clinical study reports. These are more detailed than journal articles but do not contain full information, down to the level of individual participants. Releasing such fine-grained data is problematic as it can reveal the identity of anonymous volunteers, which is why companies will not be made to do so. That may seem an acceptable compromise, but some critics say it fails to eliminate the temptation for companies to bury bad news. [...] Independent researchers say that total transparency is the only way to stop drug companies from cheating us. Further progress is possible. Researchers are developing ways to release full data without compromising anonymity. But it is clear that if the case for full disclosure was already strong, it is now overwhelming.
Adapted from New Scientist September 2015 (450 words)
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PUPILS 'HELD BACK' BY OVEREMPHASIS ON ARTS
Schoolchildren who focus exclusively on arts and humanities-style subjects risk restricting their future career path, Education Secretary, Mrs Nicky Morgan has warned. Disciplines such as the sciences and maths open more doors for pupils than many subjects traditionally favoured by academic all-rounders, according to Nicky Morgan. She said too many young people were still making GCSE and A-level choices at school that held them back for the rest of their lives. It follows the publication of figures in a report last year that showed a nearly 80 per cent increase in the number of students taking degrees in humanities, business and creative arts or design between 2002 and 2012. Over the same period, universities only witnessed a 20 per cent rise in students taking physical sciences, engineering and technology degrees. Mrs Morgan’s comments were made as a campaign was launched by business leaders to promote science, technology, engineering and maths – the STEM subjects – at school and college. The campaign – Your Life – is designed to increase the number of students taking Alevels in maths and physics by more than 50 per cent in the next three years as well as encouraging more bright graduates to work as science teachers. It comes amid fears from business leaders that many companies are being starved of highly-skilled workers because too many teenagers shun practical disciplines at GCSE, A-level and university. Addressing the campaign launch in central London, Mrs Morgan said that just a decade ago, pupils were being told to take the maths and sciences only if they wanted a specific skilled career such as a doctor, pharmacist or engineer. “If you didn’t know what you wanted to do… then the arts and the humanities were what you chose because they were useful, we were told, for all kinds of jobs,” she said. “We now know that this couldn’t be further from the truth. That the subjects to keep young people’s options open are STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering and maths. Because the skills gained from studying these subjects will come in useful in almost any job you care to mention; from the creative and beauty industries to architecture.” Mrs Morgan said that “too many young people are making choices at age 15 which will hold them back for the rest of their lives”. She insisted “significant” progress had been made in recent years, with maths now the most popular A-level subject but more had to be done to encourage pupils – particularly girls – to study STEM subjects to a high standard. “We must make sure that teenage girls don't feel, and certainly are not told, that certain subjects are the preserve of men, ” she said.
Adapted from The Daily Telegraph, November 2015 (449 words)
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RATHER THAN DESECRATE THE ARCTIC SHOULD BUSINESS MINE THE MOON?
Corporates and governments are joining the race to exploit extraterrestrial resources in the face of dwindling natural capital on Earth. An obvious solution to enabling a sustainable future is to consume less. This is a laudable goal but in a society driven by consumption, it’s not an achievable one. The world’s population needs to both consume less and expand its resource base, and seeking energy and raw materials from space is one way to do this. But surely this could never be economically viable? At today’s prices perhaps not. Yet in 20 years it is a safe prediction that increasing scarcity will have driven up the cost of energy and many critical metals by at least 10 or 20 times in real terms. Space access technologies will also have improved. By the 2030s or 2040s, obtaining extraterrestrial resources will be cost effective. Some companies and governments have recognised this future reality and are making ambitious plans. In April 2014, researchers at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) revealed a technology road map for space-based solar power (SBSP). This would place vast solar power satellites in orbit, and could beam 1 gigawatt of power to an island off Tokyo sometime in the 2030s. US companies Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, intend to mine asteroids. About 1,500 near-Earth asteroids are prime candidates for mining operations, with some estimated to contain 1.5 times the known world-reserves of platinum group metals. Even at today’s prices, many individual asteroids are thought to harbour raw materials worth more than $100bn. China is taking the lead with its Chang’s lunar exploration program. This has already landed a space probe on the moon, and in 2017 intends to return a lander to the Earth with a cargo of lunar rock. If all goes well, there could be a manned Chinese moonbase by the 2030s. This could cement China as a dominant 21st century superpower, as well as deliver the kind of technological advantages that the US reaped from Apollo. China’s lunar ambitions may also safeguard future energy supplies as Chang’s chief scientist, professor Ouyang Ziyuan, is one of many who believe that a lunar resource called helium-3 could fuel future nuclear fusion power stations. Helium-3 is extremely rare on Earth, but in the future could be worth billions of dollars a tonne as a clean nuclear fuel. The estimated 1.1m tonnes of helium-3 contained in the lunar topsoil could therefore justify a long-term industrial occupation of the Moon. Alone among nations, China has both the money and the forward-looking political apparatus to achieve this.
Adapted from The Guardian August 2014 (442 words)
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REFUGEE CRISIS: IS CLIMATE CHANGE AFFECTING MASS MIGRATION?
John Kerry painted an apocalyptic vision of climate change last week as he addressed a global warming conference in Alaska. "You think migration is a challenge in Europe today because of extremism, wait until you see what happens when there's an absence of water and an absence of food", the US secretary of state warned. Few experts would argue with Kerry's analysis of the future, but some would argue his vision is already upon us. The current refugee crisis […] is the first wave of emigration to be explicitly linked to climate change, according to one leading scientist, Professor Richard Seager of Columbia University in New York, who acknowledges that there is much more to the Syrian uprising than the climate, but says that global warming played a key role in creating the conditions that fuelled the civil war behind the refugee emergency. "Syria was destabilised by 1.5 million migrants from rural communities fleeing a three-year drought that was made more intense and persistent by human-driven climate change […] he says. Syria is not the only country affected by this drying. Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Iraq and Iran are too. However the various social, religious and ethnic wars play out, in the coming years and decades, the region will feel the stress of declining water resources." East African countries such as Somalia and Sudan are also vulnerable to drought-fuelled conflict, according to Professor Seager, along with parts of Central America – especially Mexico, which is afflicted by crime, politically unstable, short of water and reliant on agriculture.[…] Africa is another continent likely to suffer from climate change. "In sub-Saharan Africa we're likely to see increased incidence of drought, lower crop yields and food price spikes in years to come", […] " says Richard Black, director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence think tank. Meanwhile, the Sahel band of desert, stretching from Senegal to Eritrea and including parts of Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Nigeria, is forecast to suffer huge levels of displacement. A recent report from the group Organising to Advance Solutions in the Sahel suggested that over the next three to four decades up to 200 million people are likely to be without sustainable food supplies. This assumes that temperatures in the region rise by as much as 5°C by 2050, with the population expected to grow from about 100 million now to 600 million by the end of the century. "It would be totally implausible to sustainably accommodate this scale of growth," said the report. "Without immediate, large-scale action, death rates from food shortages will rise as crops wither and livestock die, and the largest involuntary migration in history could occur." […]
Adapted from www.independent.co.uk September 2015 (456 words)
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RETHINKING WORK
How satisfied are we with our jobs? Gallup regularly polls workers around the world to find out. Its survey last year found that almost 90 percent of workers were either “not engaged” with or “actively disengaged” from their jobs. Why? One possibility is that it’s just human nature to dislike work. This was the view of Adam Smith, the father of industrial capitalism, who felt that people were naturally lazy and would work only for pay. This idea has been enormously influential. About a century later, it helped create systems of manufacture that minimized the need for skill and close attention. Today, in factories, offices and other workplaces, the details may be different but the overall situation is the same: Work is structured on the assumption that we do it only because we have to. I think that this cynical and pessimistic approach to work is entirely backward. It is making us dissatisfied with our jobs ‒ and it is also making us worse at them. For our sakes, and for the sakes of those who employ us, things need to change. To start with, I don’t think most people recognize themselves in Adam Smith’s description of wage-driven idlers. We care about more than money. We want work that is challenging and engaging, and that provides us opportunities to learn and grow. We want to work with colleagues we respect and with supervisors who respect us. Most of all, we want work that is meaningful ‒ that makes a difference to other people and thus ennobles us in at least some small way. About 15 years ago, a Yale organizational behavior professor and colleagues studied custodians in a major academic hospital. Though custodians’ official job duties never even mentioned other human beings, many of them viewed their work as including doing whatever they could to comfort patients and their families and to assist the professional staff members with patient care. They would help family members of patients find their way around the hospital. The custodians received no financial compensation for this “extra” work. But this aspect of the job, they said, was what got them out of bed every morning. “I enjoy entertaining the patients,” said one. “That’s what I enjoy the most.” Yet more than 200 years later, there is still little evidence of this satisfaction-efficiency trade-off. In fact, most evidence points in the opposite direction. In his 1998 book, “The Human Equation,” which reviewed numerous studies across dozens of different industries, a Stanford organizational behavior professor found that workplaces that offered employees work that was challenging, engaging and meaningful, and over which they had some discretion, were more profitable than workplaces that treated employees as cogs in a production machine.
Adapted from The New York Times August 2015 (452 words)
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RISE OF THE ROBOTS: HOW LONG DO WE HAVE UNTIL THEY TAKE OUR JOBS?
They have mastered the art of poker, helped write a cookbook and can hold a basic conversation. The decision by a Japanese bank to staff their frontdesk with robots is just the latest in a series of advances and predictions that suggest we will all be replaced, by automatons. Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, estimates that robots will reach human levels of intelligence by 2029, leaving us about 14 years to reign supreme. The increase in computing prowess during the past decade has expanded the tasks computers can undertake independently. IBM’s Watson computer is being successfully applied to medical diagnosis. By mining medical research papers available online and analysing diagnostic images, it can outperform doctors in some tasks. Most recently, the same machine has been transformed into an “artificial lawyer”, which can search legal databases and correspondence for relevant information. Before mourning or rejoicing over the imminent demise of some professions, it is worth noting that these machines only do well at responding to certain predictable questions. Like the iPhone’s Siri, if you ask the right things, it sounds competent, but the responses are often silly. The next step, elusive thus far, is developing a program that actually understands the meaning of words and phrases. Computer scientists generally concede that jokes and sarcasm are still beyond computers. Beyond purely intellectual tasks, the physical capability of robots is also rapidly advancing. Improved processing of visual information means that driverless cars are now on the horizon and a glance at some of the galloping and armoured machines developed by Boston Dynamics gives a sinister hint of the military potential. But the best technology today still performs far worse on skills such as dexterity and balance – attributes that come naturally to humans. Engineers can build a robot capable of loading a dishwasher or taking out the dustbin, but at colossal expense, making such machines a very distant prospect in the home. There is also the question of what we want our robotic companions to look like. While films, from Terminator to Ex Machina, tend to portray essentially “souped up” humans, in reality we may be more comfortable with entities that look a little bit less like us. The so-called “uncanny valley” effect means that many people find robots creepy when their features look and move almost like humans. Perhaps with this in mind, when Japanese scientists developed a robot to provide emotional support to the sick and elderly, they chose to make it in the shape of a baby seal, called Paro. Similarly, scientists at the University of Lincoln went for plain white plastic features when designing a “printable companion”, Marc, that can be screwed together from 3D-printed components. Adapted from The Guardian February 2015 (458 words)
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ROBOT DOCTORS AND LAWYERS? IT’S A CHANGE WE SHOULD EMBRACE
The professions exist because they help us to solve problems that we do not have the expertise or the time to handle ourselves. Yet there are now systems that can do much of this without human experts. As these machines are becoming increasingly capable, now is a good time to ask whether the traditional professions that solved our problems in the 20th century are fit for the purpose in the 21st. Traditionally, we have trusted doctors to keep us in good health, teachers to educate our children, lawyers to advise us on our entitlements and accountants to manage our finances. Yet this tradition is under siege as professional work relies more and more on technology. The first change we observe is that professionals use new systems to help them work in the traditional way – software is used, for example, by accountants to perform difficult computations and by engineers to design more complex buildings. The second change is very different – the introduction of a range of increasingly capable systems will entirely replace the work of traditional professionals and will lead to the gradual dismantling of the traditional professions. The idea that the traditional professions will play a less prominent role in the future is troubling for many people. Among common anxieties and objections, however, are two underlying mistakes. The first mistake is to reject the idea that professional work, unlike “simpler” types of work, can be computerised. This is often based on the belief that professional work is too “complex” to be performed by a machine. This is wrong because when professional work is broken down into its constituent tasks, a great many of these can be done by machines. This objection also underestimates the capabilities of these new systems, which can undertake an increasing number of tasks more efficiently and affordably than human beings. The second mistake is to let our admiration for the professions distort our judgment about the systems that might replace them in the future. A classic case of this is the possible loss of “personal interaction”. Often, critics say that this personal interaction is in fact the most important thing about the professions. But the purpose of the professions is not to provide people with “personal interaction”. It is to solve problems that people do not have the wherewithal to solve themselves. In the 20th century, the best way to do this involved face-toface interaction with other human beings. In the 21st century, technology will allow us to transform the way we solve problems. It will not bring about an end to healthcare, law, or accounting, it will find more affordable and accessible ways, and spread expertise far more widely across society.
Adapted from The Guardian October 2015 (455 words)
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ROBOT REVOLUTION
Could the rise of “thinking machines” exacerbate inequalities or create more jobs? According to a new sociological study, a “robot revolution” will transform the global economy over the next 20 years, cutting the costs of doing business but exacerbating social inequality. In the short term, indeed, machines are expected to take over everything from assembling machine parts to flipping burgers, sweeping and cleaning offices and warehouses. Robots are also expected to perform most manual jobs in the house, such as hoovering the living room or even caring for the elderly. Such development of artificial intelligence means computers will increasingly be able to “think”. “Thinking”, as far as computers are concerned, essentially means performing analytical tasks that were once seen as requiring human judgement. Will then robots replace humans such as, for example, doctors and lawyers? Yes, specialists say. It’s a change we should embrace. In a 300-page report, revealed exclusively to The Guardian, analysts from an investment bank outline the impact of what they regard as the fourth industrial revolution, after steam, mass production and electronics. “We are facing a paradigm shift which will change the way we live and work,” the authors say. “The pace of disruptive technological innovation has gone from linear to parabolic in recent years. Penetration of robots and artificial intelligence has hit every industry sector, and has become an integral part of our daily lives.” However, this revolution could leave many workers at risk of being displaced by technology over the next 20 years. According to the Oxford University research cited in the report, up to 35% of all workers in the United Kingdom, and 47% in the United States could lose their jobs. Those job losses would likely be concentrated at the bottom of the income scale. The trend is worrisome in markets like the US because many of the jobs created in recent years are low-paying, manual or service jobs which are generally considered ‘high risk’ for replacement by robots. “One major risk of the take-up of robots and artificial intelligence is the potential for increasing labor polarization, particularly for low-paying jobs such as service occupations, and a hollowing-out of middle income manual labor jobs.” The authors have calculated that the total global market for robots and artificial intelligence is expected to reach $152.7bn (£99bn) by 2020. Therefore, they have also estimated that the adoption of these new technologies could improve productivity by 30% in some industries. This increase could then, in the longer term, lead to the creating of more jobs, especially at the top of the income scale… So, we are back to our initial question: Will the rise of “thinking machines” exacerbate inequalities or create more jobs? Adapted from The Guardian, November, 2015 (453 words)
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RUGBY GETTING AS POPULAR AS CLASSIC SPORTS AT GIRLS’ SCHOOLS
Rugby is rapidly gaining popularity among girls, a leading headteacher has said, as a survey found more than half of girls’ schools now offer the sport. Alun Jones, the president of the Girls’ Schools Association, said the popularity of rugby was such that it could even overtake traditionally female sports in the future. Recent figures have confirmed the growing popularity of rugby, which in some cases is even overtaking football. One survey found that six in 10 girls’ schools offered pupils the opportunity to play either tag rugby, league or union on a regular basis, involving an average of 76 girls per school. A further 14 per cent intended to introduce the sport in the school. Separately, 11 per cent of girls’ schools take part in rugby fixtures. Mr Jones, who is also principal of St Gabriel’s, Newbury, said : "I can see rugby growing in girls’ schools because it’s a great sport in its own right and girls are increasingly looking for greater variety and as they grow through adolescence they are looking for something new beyond netball or hockey". He said rugby may have already outpaced the growth of hockey, netball and lacrosse, which are offered in most girls’ schools, adding: "It will take a long time before rugby overtakes these sports but I can see it growing faster in girls’ schools". Some girls’ schools even have partnerships with local rugby teams, which provide them with access to specialist facilities and training, while others have their own pitch and in-house specialists, the survey found. The survey, by the Girls’ Schools Association, follows reports of a rise in girls playing cricket and football. Out of the 35 schools surveyed, 11 per cent said they have links with the Rugby Football Union and a further 34 per cent were considering pursuing them. Among the schools across the country that have taken to rugby recently, Manchester High School for Girls has a partnership with Salford Reds that involves curriculum rugby and tag rugby for more than 100 girls in Years 11-12. Several schools have now joint sessions between girls both at the school and at the local rugby club. They play rugby union and tag rugby as extracurricular activities for girls in Years 9 to 12 and have recently ventured into friendly fixtures. One of the housemistresses and rugby coaches, said: "Girls are keen to do rugby. They enjoy playing a "different" sport. More schools should be playing it as it tends to promote a healthy approach to appearance and size, as well as being good exercise." Adapted from The Daily Telegraph, November 2015 (445 words)
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SILICON VALLEY TRIES TO ALTER YOUR PERCEPTION OF CANNABIS
One morning in September, I logged on to the website of HelloMD, a medical start-up that promises to connect patients with doctors instantly over the Internet. I filled out my personal details, explained my ailment ‒ I often get heartburn ‒ and entered in my credit card number to cover the $50 consultation fee. Within 10 minutes, a pediatrician based near Washington who is licensed to practice medicine in my home state of California popped up on my screen. She appeared to be sitting in her home ‒ there were a few teddy bears and ceramic figurines on a cabinet behind her ‒ and she wore a red shirt, not a white coat. The doctor asked about my medical history and current symptoms. The interview lasted about three minutes, after which she announced what everyone who visits HelloMD expects to hear: According to her diagnosis, my heartburn made me a candidate for medical marijuana, which has been legal in California since 1996. HelloMD is at the forefront of a new trend in Silicon Valley: the cannabis tech start-up. As marijuana laws are being loosened across the country, entrepreneurs and investors are creating new businesses to cash in on this new business. Like start-ups in other industries, these firms are trying to use technology to bring speed and efficiency to what has long been a face-to-face, penand-paper market. In the process, they are also trying to alter mainstream perceptions of the marijuana industry, shedding the Rasta imagery to cultivate a wider audience. “California is the biggest domino,” said Justin Hartfield, the founder and chief executive of Weedmaps, a sort of Yelp for cannabis users. “Once California goes legal, very shortly after we’ll have a majority of states where adult use is legal.” The Arc View Group, a company that connects investors to cannabis businesses, estimates the American legal cannabis industry generated $2.4 billion in sales in 2014, up 74 percent from 2013, and that legalization will lead to continued growth of at least double-digit percentage points for the rest of the decade. HelloMD emailed me a letter, a “medical recommendation” that is the technical equivalent of a medical marijuana prescription, stating that “this patient has been diagnosed with a serious medical condition, and that the medical use of marijuana is appropriate.” Using Weedmaps, I found a service that would deliver marijuana to my house. I chose a Shatter Tank, a $100 penshaped electronic cannabis-extract vaporizer (even for drugs, I choose the techie route). About an hour later, a young man who bore the faint smell of a joint rang my doorbell and handed me the package. The entire process was easier than ordering a pizza. […]
Adapted from The New York Times (457 words)
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SINGAPORE INTRODUCES ROBOCOACH TO KEEP OLDER CITIZENS IN SHAPE It can’t fight crime or act as a butler but Robocoach is working with Singapore’s older citizens to help them stay healthy with regular exercise. The android with metal arms and a screen for a face is already leading sessions and will roll out its services to five “senior activity centres” across the city-state this year, according to Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), a government body that supports the country’s tech industry. “It has been effective in engaging seniors to do their exercise routines correctly with its motion-sensor technology,” the IDA told the Guardian. “Feedback has been positive as seniors enjoy a novel way in physical exercises,” it said, although interaction with human volunteers is “just as important”. Unlike the fictional superhuman cyborg Robocop from the 1987 film, whose primary directive is to fight crime with lethal force, Robocoach is part of a project that “aims to bridge the digital divide among seniors aged 50 and above”. The IDA hopes to review the project over time, implementing more Robocoaches if it proves a successful trainer. The robot is already working at Singapore’s Lions Befrienders senior activity centre. Singapore’s Ngee Ann Polytechnic developed Robocoach and says “she” has a rosy red face, blue eyes and two teeth, and mimics human movements. The robot “takes her responsibilities very seriously and coaches the elderly in performing 15 types of arm exercises each week. She can recognise the human voice instructing her to start off the exercise routine,” a report on Ngee Ann’s website says. “She slows down the pace during group workouts to make sure everyone can catch up.” Singapore has the world’s third most rapidly ageing population, according to the IMF. Japan, which has the fastest ageing population, is leading in the field of robotics and the country’s Riken Institute this year announced Robobear, a cartoon-faced android that can help lift a person from a bed into a wheelchair. “With its rapidly increasing elderly population, Japan faces an urgent need for new approaches to assist care-giving personnel. One of the most strenuous tasks for such personnel, carried out an average of 40 times every day, is that of lifting a patient from a bed into a wheelchair, and this is a major cause of lower back pain,” Riken said. “Robots are well-suited to this task, yet none have yet been deployed in care-giving facilities.” French company Aldebaran is developing Romeo, a 140cm humanoid robot intended to assist elderly people and those who have mobility issues. He can open doors, climb stairs and grab objects on a table. Adapted from The Guardian October 2015 (440 words)
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SIX MYTHS ABOUT SLEEP
According to recent news reports, it’s a myth that we all need eight hours sleep a night – because a study involving hunter-gatherer societies in Africa and South America, whose habits are thought to mirror how humans used to live, showed they made do with six. […] But if you are looking for sleep myths to debunk, here are some that have come out of our research review at Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences this year. One start time doesn’t suit everyone. Too many people believe starting early is the sign of a good employee: up at 5am, gym at 5.30, work at 7. But these early-rising “larks” are extremely rare. Highly productive, creative workers sleep well and arrive later. Politicians and leaders of industry brag about their need for only a few hours of sleep. Yet too little sleep can destroy successful leaders. Margaret Thatcher developed Alzheimer’s – probably after leaving office. The former UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson and US president Ronald Reagan probably had the condition in office. What’s the connection? Natural sleep has restorative functions – it detoxes the neurotoxic waste that accumulates when you’re awake. Too little sleep, and this waste remains. Lack of sleep can be dangerous in other ways: it is a central contributor to CEO burnout. Jetlag is known to lead to bad decisions. And poor sleep causes millions of road accidents. […] It’s also a common belief that adolescents are tired, irritable and uncooperative because they choose to stay up too late and are difficult to wake in the morning because they are lazy. In fact, the real problem is their biological timing system. […] Adolescents should be sleeping in two or three hours later than their school or work schedules allow. Harvard Medical School checked the performance of their doctors on 24-hour shifts. They were shocked. Interns towards the ends of their shifts made 36% more serious errors. Of consultants who regularly worked 24-hour shifts, 74% showed signs of burnout or depression. The research found that shorter shifts and more informed placement of recovery days got much better results. Continue to start work early and most people will still lose far too much sleep. They will have a price to pay: increased risk of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, greater stimulant/sedative/alcohol use, exhaustion, irritability, anxiety, depressed mood, frustration and anger. In contrast, later starts improve output, efficiency and quality of life. Sleep matters. Organisation leaders can boost productivity, mood and health by changing the times people work. Schools and universities can improve learning and health. Now we understand so much more about sleep, we can use that knowledge to improve the quality of life of everyone. Sweet dreams.
Adapted from The Guardian October 2015 (457 words)
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‘SMART’ DRUGS ARE GETTING A LOT SMARTER
If you could take a pill that would make you better at your job, with few or no negative consequences, would you do it? Researchers from the University of Oxford and Harvard Medical School concluded that a drug called Modafinil, which is typically used to treat sleep disorders, is a cognitive enhancer. Essentially, it can help normal people think better. Some of the studies also showed gains in flexible thinking, combining information, or coping with novelty. The drug didn’t seem to influence creativity either way. Modafinil is one of an arsenal of drugs, which includes Adderall, Ritalin, and Concerta that are increasingly used by college students and adults seeking greater productivity. Just 1.5 percent of adults aged 26 to 34 were taking ADHD medications in 2008, but that number had almost doubled to 2.8 percent in 2013. Adderall and Modafinil are different chemically, but their effects on cognition are similar. Adderall, or amphetamine, works by boosting the brain’s levels of norepinephrine and dopamine, two chemicals that are responsible for concentration and alertness. Scientists are less sure how Modafinil works. One pathway is by stimulating the release of histamine, which produces a sensation of wakefulness. […] But Modafinil also works on other neurotransmitter systems in the brain, and the resulting effect is one of allowing users to perform complex cognitive tasks more effectively. These drugs can have negative health consequences, especially at large doses. […] Some research has shown that the long-term use of Modafinil can affect sleep patterns. In rare cases, stimulants like Adderall have been shown to induce psychosis. Still, some psychiatrists say the health risks of cognitive enhancers are overstated. The side effects are no worse than having one too many coffees ‒ jitteriness and stomach aches. The paper hints at a coming debate over the ethics of smart drugs. Currently, people require psychiatric diagnoses in order to be prescribed any of these pills. But if these medicines are ultimately found to be safe, and they work for almost everyone, should anyone be able to take them? And if Modafinil does become more widespread, where does it end? Will we soon be locked in a productivity arms race, pumping out late-night memos with one hand while Googling for the latest smart-drug advancement with the other? […] Will CEOs welcome the rise of extra-sharp workers who never need sleep? These are not hypothetical questions. […] The FDA doesn’t prioritize approving drugs for healthy people who want to become superheroes. Similarly, doctors aren’t allowed to prescribe medication to people who aren’t sick. But if white-collar workers are pounding spreadsheets for 16 hours a day ‒ as they reportedly are at companies like Amazon ‒ those standards are bound to be questioned sooner rather than later.
Adapted from The Atlantic September 2015 (456 words)
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SOCIAL MEDIA IS HARMING THE MENTAL HEALTH OF TEENAGERS
The digital landscape has put increased pressure on teenagers today, and we feel it. There are so many media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, you name it. I made a conscious decison to avoid Snapchat and Instagram because of the social pressure I saw them putting on my 14-year-old little sister. If my mum turned off the WIFI at 11pm, my little sister would beg me to turn my phone into a hotspot. She always needed to load her Snapchat stories one more time, or to reply to a message that had come in two minutes ago because she didn't want her friend to feel ignored. If I refused, saying she could respond in the morning, I'd get the « You're ruining my social life » speech. Even as a teenager as well, I sometimes find this craze a little baffling. A new study has found that teenagers who engage with social media during the night could be damaging their sleep and increasing their risk of anxiety and depression. Teenagers spoke about the pressure they felt to make themselves available 24/7, and the resulting anxiety if they did not respond immediately to texts or posts. Teens are so emotionally invested in social media that a fifth of secondary school pupils will wake up at night and log on, just to make sure they don't miss out. Perhaps the worst thing about this is that teenagers need more sleep than adults. Night-time social media use could be detrimental to their health. Research has shown that teenagers need 9.5 hours of sleep each night but on average only get 7.5 hours. A lack of sleep can make teenagers tired, irritable, depressed and more likely to catch colds, flu and gastroenteritis. These days, I am always tired at school, and I am not one to stay up until 2am chatting with a boy. Homework and the pressure to have the perfect set of grades mean I'm up late working. And it seems that at school, most of my mates are exhausted too. During the summer holidays, I lost my phone. And for the week that I was phoneless, it felt like a disaster. I love my phone. It gives me quick access to information and allows me to be constantly looped in with my friends, to know exactly what is going on in their lives. So when I didn't have my phone for a week, I felt a slight sense of Fomo, or if you're not up to speed with the lingo, fear of missing out. By the end of the week, I'd got used to not having a phone and I'd quite enjoyed the break from social media.
Adapted from The Guardian September 2015 (454 words)
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SOLAR POWER TO THE PEOPLE “We shall make electric light so cheap that only the wealthy can afford to burn candles,” said Thomas Edison, inventor of the modern lightbulb. That was almost a century and a half ago. Today in Africa, 621 million people – two-thirds of the population – live without electricity. And the numbers are rising. A kettle boiled twice a day in the UK uses five times as much electricity as someone in Mali uses in a year. Nigeria is one of the world’s biggest oil exporters but 93 million residents depend on firewood and charcoal for heat and light. On current trends, there is no chance Africa will hit the global target of energy for all by 2030. Unlike droughts, health epidemics and illiteracy, Africa’s energy crisis seldom makes the headlines. Yet the social, economic and human costs are devastating. The toxic fumes released by burning firewood and dung kill 600,000 people a year – half of them children. Health clinics are unable to refrigerate life-saving vaccines and children are denied the light they need to study. Politics is at the heart of Africa’s energy crisis. Power utilities are vehicles for political patronage and, in some cases, institutionalized theft. That’s why the sheer scale of Africa’s energy deficit often fuels a sense of fatalism and paralysis. Yet Sub-Saharan Africa has the world’s most abundant and least exploited renewable energy source: solar power. With the price of solar panels plunging, there are opportunities for firms and governments to connect millions of poor households to affordable small-scale, off-grid systems. This would help the poorest most. The latest Africa Progress Panel report estimates that 138 million households living on less than $2.50 a day spend $10bn annually on energy-related products, including charcoal, candles and kerosene. Off-grid solar power could slash these costs, releasing resources for productive investment, health and education, driving down poverty and raising life expectancy. The only thing missing in most countries is government action to support, encourage and enable this investment. Supporting the development of large-scale renewable energy is not just the right thing to do for Africa. It is also the smart thing to do on climate change. One of the symptoms of Africa’s energy poverty is the destruction of forests to produce charcoal for rising urban populations: fewer trees means the loss of vital carbon sinks. Small-scale solar energy can provide millions of people with a first step on the energy ladder. Throughout history, electricity has fuelled the growth that has created jobs, cut poverty, and improved the quality of life. Now, almost 150 years after Edison developed the lightbulb, it is time to spark an African energy revolution. All that’s needed is international cooperation and political will.
Adapted from The Guardian June 2015 (451 words)
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STOP GOOGLING. LET'S TALK
College students tell me they know how to look someone in the eye and type on their phones at the same time, their split attention undetected. They say it’s a skill they mastered in middle school when they wanted to text in class without getting caught. Now they use it when they want to be both with their friends and, as some put it, “elsewhere.” These days, we feel less of a need to hide the fact that we are dividing our attention. A 2015 study said 89 percent of cellphone owners said they had used their phones during the last social gathering they attended. But they weren’t happy about it; 82 percent of adults felt that the way they used their phones in social settings hurt the conversation. I’ve been studying the psychology of online connectivity for more than 30 years. When college students explain to me how dividing their attention plays out in the dining hall, some refer to a “rule of three.” In a conversation among five or six people at dinner, you have to check that three people are paying attention ‒ heads up ‒ before you give yourself permission to look down at your phone. So conversation proceeds, but with different people having their heads up at different times. The effect is what you would expect: Conversation is kept relatively light, on topics where people feel they can drop in and out. One 15-year-old I interviewed at a summer camp talked about her reaction when she went out to dinner with her father and he took out his phone to add “facts” to their conversation. “Daddy,” she said, “stop Googling. I want to talk to you.” A 15-year-old boy told me that someday he wanted to raise a family, not the way his parents are raising him with no phones at meals and plentiful family conversation. Across generations, technology is implicated in this assault on empathy. We’ve gotten used to being connected all the time, but we have found ways around conversation ‒ at least from conversation that is open-ended and spontaneous, in which we play with ideas and allow ourselves to be fully present and vulnerable. But it is in this type of conversation ‒ where we learn to make eye contact, to become aware of another person’s posture and tone, to comfort one another and respectfully challenge one another ‒ that empathy and intimacy flourish. Of course, we can find empathic conversations today, but the trend line is clear. It’s not only that we turn away from talking face to face to chat online. It’s that we don’t allow these conversations to happen in the first place because we keep our phones in the landscape.
Adapted from The Economist September 2015 (456 words)
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STRESSFUL WORKPLACES, SHORTER LIVES
Typical antidotes for overwork include taking a break, exercising or going on vacation. But what if overwork is unavoidable, as is the case for many low-paid employees who must work two or more jobs just to get by? What if work-related stress is chronic, as is the case for working parents whose employers do not offer regular schedules, sick days or other company benefits? What if the amount or quality of one’s work is no protection against layoffs or abusive bosses? The answer, detailed in a new study by researchers at Stanford and Harvard, is that work stress can and does shorten lives. The risk goes up as education level goes down, because the lower someone’s level of education, the greater the exposure to work-related stress from unemployment, layoffs, job insecurity, shift work, lack of health insurance, work-family conflict, arbitrary management and low control over scheduling and work duties. Building on previous research on workplace stressors, the researchers measured the extent to which workplace stress cuts life short. Here are some findings: Among men with 12 or fewer years of education, non-Hispanic blacks lost nearly 3 years of life to work-related stress, followed by Hispanic men at 2 years and non-Hispanic whites at 1 year. For men with 17 or more years of education, black men lost about one year, followed by Hispanic men at half a year and white men at a quarter of a year. […] Demographers have long noted that longevity varies by gender, race, income and education. The new study found that 10 percent to 38 percent of the difference in life expectancy across demographic groups can be explained by differing levels of stress in the job. Across all groups, the combination of layoffs, unemployment and lack of health insurance was the biggest contributor toward inequality in life spans. The next biggest was low job control, defined as the level of discretion one has over one’s work. This was followed by job insecurity in men and shift work in women. The unavoidable conclusion is that a healthier population requires healthier workplaces. Job security would be enhanced if government officials focused on full employment in fiscal and monetary policy. Other helpful policies would include a higher minimum wage, fair-scheduling laws, paid time off and job sharing to reduce layoffs in bad economic times. Obamacare is a step in the right direction of insuring more Americans, though it appears that the only way to cover everyone is to sever the link between insurance and work. It is customary to debate those and other issues in terms of cost versus benefits, individual responsibility versus social obligation. A more important question is how many people will die too soon before policymakers take corrective action.
Adapted from The New York Times October 2015 (458 words)
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SURVEILLANCE BILL TO INCLUDE INTERNET RECORDS STORAGE The police and security services will have to get permission to access the content and councils will be banned from trawling the records. Home Secretary Theresa May insists the powers are needed to fight terrorism and promises tough safeguards. [...] At the moment the home secretary and other senior ministers sign warrants allowing the security services to hack the computers of suspected terrorists and criminals - more than 2,700 were signed last year. [...] The draft bill, which David Cameron says is one of the most important pieces of legislation of this parliament, will be unveiled in a Commons statement by Mrs May and will then be examined in detail by both Houses of Parliament . [...] London Mayor Boris Johnson warned that the new powers must not be used as an "instrument of oppression". [...] The language in the draft bill will be dry - but quite simply it creates new powers to allow arms of the state to access your online life - if they have cause and legal justification to do so. How will the powers be used? Most certainly against terrorism suspects, organised criminals and people involved in abuse, exploitation and kidnappings. Will they be used against the innocent? Ministers will promise world-leading levels of restrictions, scrutiny and oversight which they say will be designed to prevent abuse from ever taking place. Critics will call this a snooper's charter - but security chiefs and police say they're not interested in your online shopping habits - only the habits of serious threats to society. [...] Mrs May has long called for new laws to give police and security services the power to access online communications data, saying some sites had become "safe havens" for serious criminals and terrorists. She has argued for similar rules to those governing phone records which can be accessed without a ministerial warrant - for online communications. [...] Such data would consist of a basic domain address, and not a full browsing history of pages within that site or search terms entered. For example, police could see that someone visited www.bbc.co.uk - but not the individual pages they viewed. [...] Mrs May has said the government "will not be giving powers to go through people's browsing history". Councils will not be able to obtain these records, Home Office sources said. For more intrusive surveillance - involving the detailed content of the communications - security services need to obtain a warrant. [...] Among the safeguards emphasised by Home Office sources would be a new criminal offence of "knowingly or recklessly obtaining communications data from a telecommunications operator without lawful authority", carrying a prison sentence of up to two years.
Adapted from www.bbc.com, November 2015 (451 words)
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THE CARS THAT ATE PARIS The French capital gave birth to the flâneur, that casual wanderer of the modern town whose “immense joy” is to stroll the streets “amid the ebb and flow of movement”, in the words of Baudelaire. But most of the ebb and flow these days comes from traffic roaring along the main boulevards. Now, in an effort to awaken its inhabitants’ inner flâneurs, Paris is to hold its first car-free day, on September 27th. Inspired by similar events elsewhere, notably in Brussels, a group of eco-citizens came up with the idea last year. […] The upshot is not the complete car ban that the group originally sought. The car-free zone will cover only the capital’s central neighbourhoods. It will take place on a Sunday. And taxis, buses and residents’ cars will still be allowed on the streets, albeit at crawling pace. Yet the event may well capture the imagination of Parisians, who, the mayor hopes, will picnic on the cobblestones and reclaim the streets. The unfamiliar sounds of a car-free day will doubtless underscore how much noise and grime a modern city tolerates. Paris does not suffer from Beijing-style levels of smog. But there are constant worries about toxic fine-particle pollution, particularly from France’s large number of diesel engines. Background levels of fine particles were 50% above target limits in 2014, and up to three times those thresholds by roadsides, according to Paris’s air-quality watchdog. In March, when pollution levels briefly exceeded those in Beijing, the city banned diesel vehicles and half of all cars on alternate days. The car-free day is not the first step Paris has taken to discourage noxious emissions. The French capital implemented Vélib, the city’s bike-sharing service, long before London copied it; there is now a similar scheme for electric cars. One road along the Seine has been partially closed, leaving it free for walkers, cyclists and joggers. There is no toll to enter the city, but the Paris region this month introduced a reduced-rate pass on public transport to encourage suburbdwellers to take the train. Some angry Parisian car-owners accuse Ms Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, of an obsessive anti-car mania, prompted by the Socialists’ need for Green party votes at the town hall. Paris is particularly keen to show off its eco-credentials right now. In December, it will host the world climate-change conference. The French are working hard to try to secure a binding global deal on curbing carbon emissions. It may be time for Paris to take more aggressive measures than a single car-free day. The last thing France wants is to have 40,000 people turn up to try to save the planet and find the city of lights obscured by smog.
Adapted from The Economist September 2015 (450 words)
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THE DAY ICELAND'S WOMEN WENT ON STRIKE When Ronald Reagan became the US President, one small boy in Iceland was outraged. "He can't be a president - he's a man!" he explained to his mother when he saw the news on television. It was November 1980, and Vigdis Finnbogadottir, a divorced single mother, had won Iceland's presidency that summer. The boy didn't know it, but Vigdis was Europe's first female president, and the first woman in the world to be democratically elected as a head of state. Many more Icelandic children may well have grown up assuming that being president was a woman's job, as Vigdis went on to hold the position for 16 years - years that made Iceland become known as "the world's most feminist country". But Vigdis insists she would never have been president had it not been for the events of one sunny day - 24 October 1975 - when 90% of women in the country decided to demonstrate their importance by going on strike. Instead of going to the office, doing housework or childcare, they took to the streets in their thousands to rally for equal rights with men. It is known in Iceland as the Women's Day Off, and Vigdis sees it as a watershed moment. "What happened that day was the first step for women's emancipation in Iceland," she says. "It completely paralysed the country and opened the eyes of many men." Banks, factories and some shops had to close, as did schools and nurseries - leaving many fathers with no choice but to take their children to work. There were reports of men arming themselves with sweets and colouring pencils to entertain the crowds of overexcited children in their workplaces. Sausages - easy to cook and popular with children - were in such demand the shops sold out. It was a baptism of fire for some fathers, which explains the other name the day has been given - the Long Friday. "We heard children playing in the background while the newsreaders read the news on the radio, it was a great thing to listen to, knowing that the men had to take care of everything”. "Things went back to normal the next day, but with the knowledge that women are as well as men the pillars of society. Many companies and institutions came to a halt - it completely changed the way of thinking," says Vigdis. Women in Iceland got the right to vote 100 years ago, in 1915 - behind only New Zealand and Finland. But over the next 60 years, only nine women took seats in parliament. In 1975 there were just three female MPs, or just 5% of the parliament, and this was a major source of frustration.
Adapted from BBC News October 2015 (459 words)
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THE DECLINE OF 'BIG SODA'
Five years ago, Mayor Michael A. Nutter proposed a tax on soda in Philadelphia, and the industry rose up to beat it back. It worked: The soda tax proposal never got out of a City Council committee. It’s a familiar story. Soda taxes have also flopped in New York State and San Francisco. So far, only superliberal Berkeley, Calif., has succeeded in adopting such a measure over industry objections. The obvious lesson from Philadelphia is that the soda industry is winning the policy battles over the future of its product. But the bigger picture is that soda companies are losing the war. Even as anti-obesity campaigners like Mr. Nutter have failed to pass taxes, they have accomplished something larger. In the course of the fight, they have reminded people that soda is not a very healthy product. They have echoed similar messages coming from public health researchers and others ‒ and fundamentally changed the way Americans think about soda. Over the last 20 years, sales of full-calorie soda in the United States have plummeted by more than 25 percent. Soda consumption, which rocketed from the 1960s through the 1990s, is now experiencing a serious and sustained decline. Sales are stagnating as a growing number of Americans say they are actively trying to avoid the drinks that have been a mainstay of American culture. Sales of bottled water have shot up, and bottled water is now on track to overtake soda as the largest beverage category in two years, according to at least one industry projection. The drop in soda consumption represents the single largest change in the American diet in the last decade and is responsible for a substantial reduction in the number of daily calories consumed by the average American child. From 2004 to 2012, children consumed 79 fewer sugar-sweetened beverage calories a day, according to a large government survey, representing a 4 percent cut in calories over all. As total calorie intake has declined, obesity rates among school-age children appear to have leveled off. The change is happening faster in Philadelphia than in the country as a whole. Daily soda consumption among teenagers, a group closely tracked by federal researchers, dropped sharply ‒ by 24 percent ‒ from 2007 to 2013, compared with about 20 percent for the country. Last month, the city Department of Public Health reported a sustained decline in childhood obesity over the last seven years. Those reductions are not accidents. The soda tax didn’t pass. But the debate about it, along with a series of related city policies, helped discourage people from drinking soda and encouraged Americans to change their bad habits.
Adapted from The New York Times October 2015 (440 words)
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THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF NAPPING
Napping might be seen as lazy, but it shouldn’t have that stigma anymore. Taking a couple of hours to fall asleep in the afternoon might actually have more health benefits than you think. In a new study researchers found that a short nap could reverse the negative health effects of a night of poor sleep, and also reduce stress and bolster the immune system. In a day and age when people don’t seem to be getting enough sleep ‒ one in three adults report they sleep an average of six or less hours a night, according to the National Health Interview Survey ‒ taking naps occasionally could help mitigate the effects of sleep deprivation. “Our data suggests a 30-minute nap can reverse the hormonal impact of a night of poor sleep,” Brice Faraut of the Université Paris Descartes-Sorbonne, an author of the study, said in the press release. “This is the first study that found napping could restore biomarkers of neuroendocrine and immune health to normal levels.”[…] Other studies have found that napping is better for you than previously imagined. One recent study found that naps helped students improve their memory: Taking a nap after studying helped them retain the information they just learned, more so than students who didn’t nap. Napping can also increase alertness, performance, and productivity. It also has emotional and psychological benefits. Taking even a quick cat nap can allow a person to escape from daily stresses for a short time, rejuvenate and refresh themselves, then face the rest of the day with renewed vigor. Sometimes, coffee or nap breaks are essential to get through a tough day of work or studying — and you shouldn’t feel guilty about it. “Napping may offer a way to counter the damaging effects of sleep restriction by helping the immune and neuroendocrine systems to recover,” Faraut said in the press release. “The findings support the development of practical strategies for addressing chronically sleepdeprived populations, such as night and shift workers.” Sleep deprivation is a real problem, and consistent lack of sleep can cause both physical and psychological ailments, including chronic issues like obesity, diabetes, stress, and cognitive impairment. People who lack sleep are also more likely to develop depression. While not all companies are as kind as Google when it comes to work-life balance for employees, perhaps this research about the benefits of naps can at least inspire employers to improve their work environments. While you might not have to purchase special egg-shaped EnergyPods like Google (which allows employees to cocoon themselves in "pods" to take brief naps during the day to feel rejuvenated and improve performance), allowing your employees to take walks, naps, and breaks throughout the day will only be beneficial for you.
Adapted from Medical Daily January 2015 (457 words)
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THE QUEEN’S RECORD-LONG REIGN HAS SEEN BRITAIN’S GREATEST TIME OF CHANGE
When Elizabeth II was crowned, she began presiding over the greatest period of change in Britain’s history – the country has become more anxious and seen its power and influence drop. The monarchy has been forced to change too; and the future of both is much less easy to predict than it seemed when the Queen came to the throne. On Wednesday, Elizabeth will become the longest reigning British monarch. On 2 June 1953, the coronation was broadcast on TV for the first time. People rejoiced and danced. But in reality the empire was in decline. Between 1945 and 1965 the number of colonial people ruled by Britain dropped drastically. In 1956, the Suez canal crisis ended all notions that Britain was a world superpower. The Queen cherishes the importance of the Commonwealth. But the Jamaican prime minister suggested in 2012 that she wished to move towards having a Jamaican head of state – and the New Zealand prime minister noted in 2014 that it was “probably inevitable” that the country would become a republic. Scotland may still leave the union during the Queen’s reign. Britain is among the richest countries in the world – yet around a quarter of its children live in poverty. We still have a large global influence, but whether such an influence will remain if the Commonwealth contracts and we leave Europe is difficult to predict. Surely the events of the 1990s have tarnished the royal image of perfection, when charting the breakdown of Charles and Diana’s marriage became a national obsession. Even the Economist dubbed the monarchy “an ideal whose time has passed”. And then came the terrible death of Diana in 1997. Courtiers had to reverse their initial choice of a private commemoration and give Diana a state funeral. The royal family had to throw off any suggestion of coldness. The younger royals have brought a new popularity to the royal family, and the Queen’s willingness to play ball with the media – agreeing to look as if she were jumping out of a helicopter at the Olympic opening ceremony in 2012 – has created sympathy where once there was resentment. Affection for the Queen herself is strong, but there has been questioning of costs and aspects of her family’s behaviour, and the balance between public interest and press intrusion is perennially troubled. In the last 63 years, the world – and Britain – has radically changed. Our global influence has certainly declined. The Queen’s constancy and longevity have gained her great respect across the world. The royal family have also had to embrace change. And one thing is for certain: if the monarchy wishes to stay relevant and in power, it will have to change more.
Adapted from The Guardian September 2015 (460 words)
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THE RISE OF 'SELFIE SURGERY': HOW YOUNG IS TOO YOUNG TO HAVE COSMETIC WORK?
We all want to look good on Instagram. But could it be driving increasing numbers of 20somethings to get fillers, Botox and cosmetic surgery? Earlier this month, Kylie Jenner – the reality star with more than 36 million Instagram followers – gave an interview to The New York Times where she praised her surgeon for his ‘natural’ way with lip filler. So far, so normal – in recent years, stars admitting to having ‘work done’ has gone from headline-hitting to barely a mention. Except that Kylie had just turned 18. It’s easy to write off her story as an extreme celebrity example, but this isn’t the case. ‘Increasingly, we’re seeing women in their early 20s – and sometimes younger – having work done,’ says London plastic surgeon Dr Alex Karidis. ‘These women have grown up reading about celebrities having Botox and fillers, and find it completely acceptable. They take it for granted that if they want smoother skin or plumper lips, they can have them – and see no reason to wait.’ Dr Karidis says social media have been a driving force in this movement. ‘For these girls, Instagram is a way of life. They want to document everything and want to look perfect while doing so.’ Last year, The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons said that members were being approached by increasingly younger women wanting cosmetic work. Yet people of that age can still be immature and vulnerable. Anybody over the age of 18 can have surgery. A good surgeon will turn away an 18-year-old wanting Botox – but an unethical one may not. Among very young women, there are a small number of valid reasons for having cosmetic correction, but there’s an awful lot being done that isn’t appropriate. One reason is social media and the peer pressure to look a certain way. The second problem is that in the UK the filler industry isn’t regulated. […] Early work can make a patient look older. Often when a 22-year-old has cheek filler or Botox, she looks like a 32-year-old trying to look like a 22-year-old. There’s also a perception that “preventative work” will ward off ageing – it won’t. You don’t need to start these treatments until your 30s or 40s, and only then if you’re seriously concerned about ageing. However, Dr Karidis says that not all young patients are insecure and gullible. ‘Many are surprisingly grounded,’ he says. ‘They may see their “big” nose or “thin” lips as an obstacle to self-acceptance. They do their research, discuss it with their parents and know what they’re doing. Clinics will turn younger patients away, but they often return years later to have the work done anyway.’
Adapted from The Daily Telegraph September 2015 (453 words)
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THE WAGES OF MOTHERHOOD
A single mother says she quit her full-time job because she could not afford full-time childcare. Now she works three days a week. When offered full-time and double her salary, she declined because she would have been worse off due to childcare costs, and unable to make ends meet. One in five mothers refuses a job offer, and one in eight leaves a job, due to childcare costs. The cost of childcare is now so high that some working parents are struggling to break even – or paying even more for it than they take home. Latest figures show the average full-time nursery bill for a child under two now tops a staggering £11,000 a year, or £14,750 in London. More than twice as many women (29%), than men (14%), have found that returning to work after having a child just isn’t financially worthwhile, according to research. Yet each year a mother is absent from the workplace, her future wages will fall by 4%. Mothers of very young children may even return to work just to be able to anticipate wage rises once schools take charge of their children during the daytime. Research suggests two-thirds of unemployed mothers aren’t working because childcare is too expensive, while 67% of wage-earning mums say the cost of childcare prevents them working more. There are parents who can afford to be back at their jobs, but the cost of childcare means others – especially mothers – are locked out of the job market, despite evidence that women in their 20s and 30s now earn slightly more (up to 1.1%) than men in full-time work. Unless a mother earns significantly more than her male partner, it is likely to be the woman who stops working or goes part-time. Women still feel guilty for going out to work instead of spending time with kids. Men rarely do. Even when both partners earn roughly the same, a woman’s wage is more likely to be weighed against the total cost of childcare, instead of the couple sharing the burden equally. By the time a mother returns to work full-time, her male partner is typically earning 21% more than her, instead of the average 7% pay gap among childless couples, according to an OECD report. Her typical retirement pension is just over half a man’s average. While most women enjoy parenting, staying at home can cause long-term damage to their careers. And while every employee now has the right to flexible working once every 12 months, employers are entitled to reject a flexible working request for many business reasons: additional costs, an inability to meet customer demand, to reorganize work, or recruit new staff…
Adapted from The Guardian October 2015 (446 words)
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VANCOUVER STUDENTS WIN TOP PRIZES AT INTEL SCIENCE FAIR Forget baking soda volcanoes. One Vancouver student invented a new way to curb the spread of global epidemics for his science project ‒ and now he's US$75,000 richer. Raymond Wang, 17, won first prize at the world's largest high school science fair in Pittsburgh. He created a new air circulation system to isolate and eliminate germs in aircraft cabins, in order to reduce travellers' exposure to disease. "To be recognized as having one of the top projects is truly mind-blowing." Wang said after winning the prestigious Gordon E. Moore Award. Eleven Canadian students won prizes at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, the world's largest high school science fair, which featured 1,700 young scientists from across the world. Wang, a Grade 11 student at St. George's School, said he was inspired to look into epidemics after the recent Ebola outbreak. Although Ebola is not spread through the air, he came across some frightening statistics about other diseases, including that a plane traveller with H1N1 can potentially spread pathogens to 17 other passengers. “I started to look into, 'Why isn't anyone doing anything about this?” (…) he said. So the teenager set about finding a solution and was able to generate the industry's first high-resolution simulation of air flow inside commercial aircraft cabins. He then applied some modifications to redirect the air to give everyone their own breathing space. The results were a decrease in pathogen inhalation by about 55 times per passenger and a 190 per cent improvement in fresh air inhalation. "In the future, this will curb the spread of disease no matter where people are sitting in the cabin. So we can really effectively reduce the risk of future epidemics," Wang said. He's already filed for a patent and hopes to use the prize money to further his research. He said his invention, which he calls an "air flow inlet director," could be installed overnight for the cost of the average passenger's airline ticket. Another Vancouver 16-year-old teen, Nicole Ticea, won the Intel Foundation Young Scientist award and received a prize of US$50,000 for her disposable and electricity-free HIV testing device. The easy-to-use tool provides results in an hour and should cost less than US$5 to produce. Ticea has already founded her own company, which recently received a US$100,000 grant to continue developing the technology. The student said she created the device to help combat the high rate of undiagnosed HIV in low-income communities. “Over time, I fully realized there was a story to be told with this entire HIV epidemic that not only involved how we create better testing, but 'How do we make testing more accessible?' ”
Adapted from CTV news, The Canadian Press May 2015 (453 words)
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VOLKSWAGEN DIESEL SCANDAL THREATENS TO RUIN ITS CREDIBILITY AND VALUE
The expanding Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal threatens to destroy the credibility and value of a giant automaker. The company's […] shares have lost a third of their value since Friday and more than half since April. VW's alleged crimes appear premeditated and carefully plotted rather than resulting from negligence, incompetence or bureaucracy. The company lied to regulators for more than a year before admitting the digital deception. The nature of VW's action ‒ installing a software "defeat device" to change engine performance during testing ‒ has enraged once-loyal VW customers. Such hardened consumer attitudes will not be easy to change. "You can spend decades building a brand and wipe it out in a heartbeat ‒ that's the biggest risk to VW," an analyst said. The company's stock had already fallen steadily from a high of $260 in April to $185 on Friday. After the cheating allegations became public, the stock dived, to close at $120 on Tuesday. Volkswagen is the world's largest automaker. But its performance had already suffered before the cheating scandal particularly in the two markets key to its future growth: China and the U.S. Sales of all brands have slowed in China amid an economic downturn. In the U.S., VW's outdated models have led to a loss in market share, from a high of 3.5% in July 2012 to only 2.3% in the same month this year. […] In California ‒ which has the nation's toughest emissions standards ‒ the Department of Motor Vehicles will require Volkswagen owners to prove they have made the fix before renewing their state registration. Multiple lawsuits and class-action lawsuits have also been filed, in multiple jurisdictions. In Germany, the company's chief executive, Martin Winterkorn said he was "endlessly sorry" for having betrayed consumer trust in his company. He laid the blame on the "terrible mistakes of a few people," whom he did not identify. Winterkorn has resisted calls for his resignation. Volkswagen's diesel woes began after European regulators noticed discrepancies between emissions and performance test results and drivers' real-world experiences. An American institution […] was eventually hired to perform emissions tests on several cars. "The results showed the VW vehicles to be higher in real-world emissions by 15 to 30 times," said a professor engaged in the study. The VW revelations are not the first major case of a manufacturer cheating on emissions tests for diesel engines. More than a decade ago, government officials reached a $1-billion settlement with seven diesel engine manufacturers, charged with using similar devices that illegally bypassed emission control equipment. The manufacturers agreed to pay $83.4 million in fines. The West Virginia laboratory that caught VW cheating was built with money from those fines. Adapted from The Los Angeles Times September 2015 (451 words)
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WE COULD END FAMINE IF WE CUT FOOD WASTE BY A QUARTER – SO WHY DON’T WE?
According to the UN, developed countries throw away around 30 - 40% of all food purchased. And if food waste was cut by a quarter, world famine could be solved. Here in the UK, of the 41m tonnes of food that is bought each year, 15m is wasted. You might think supermarkets are the biggest culprits. But the truth is that most have made major strides in recent years. The waste-advisory charity Wrap’s best estimate is that supermarket waste accounts for less than 2% of what gets chucked out each year. Part of that is down to advances in supply-chain technology. As you might guess fresh food and short shelf-life products account for a lot of what gets binned. But these days good demand forecasting and inventory-planning software can handle even the trickiest items. Supermarkets have an interest in avoiding waste because margins on fresh produce tend to be quite tight. If you make 25p for every £1 of broccoli sold you have to sell three pieces to make up for the loss from one gone bad. So if you have noticed fewer items with reduced stickers, it’s because they’re getting a grip. [...] The biggest contributor to our food-waste shame is household rubbish, which accounts for almost half the food thrown away in the UK. Of course many of us make bad decisions about food, especially when we’re hungry, over-ordering in restaurants and over-buying in shops. The most primitive parts of our brains, faced with feast, react as though famine were just around the corner. And yet the game seems to be stacked against consumers. Supermarkets may strive to eliminate spoilage while food is in their supply chain, but once you’ve paid for something it’s not their problem. [...] In the developing world only 6 - 15% of food gets thrown out despite poorer infrastructure, less reliable logistics, hotter climates and inferior refrigeration. Indeed weight for weight, in places such as sub-Saharan Africa and south and south-east Asia, people waste only around a tenth of what we do. The overwhelming differentiator seems to be the value that we attach to food. Having a full fridge to cater to our every whim and those of our families seems more important than not having a full bin. Until we truly know what it is like not to have enough (and while too many people in this wealthy country of ours have been finding out, few of us really know what it’s like to go without) we’ll continue to throw away food in obscene quantities. And neither technology nor the sight of people leaving lands of not enough for places of plenty is likely to change that.
Adapted from The Guardian August 2015 (455 words)
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WE MUST NOT RESPOND TO THE REFUGEE CRISIS WITH FEAR AND IGNORANCE
The public debate around the ongoing refugee crisis has fuelled many concerns. One which is currently taking centre stage is about the potential security risk posed by young, predominantly male, refugees. […] Unfortunately, much of this debate lacks a crucial element – namely, an informed understanding of who the people are who are fleeing to Europe's shores in their thousands, what motivates them and why they are here. Each person is an individual, each making human choices as best they can in the face of conflict, destruction and tragedy. […] For years, Mercy Corps has worked in countries including Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey – places in crisis that refugees are fleeing from, or moving through. From Syria alone, four million people have fled the country, and this number is growing. We have particular expertise in working with youth - the group that makes up more than two-thirds of the refugees arriving in Greece. […] We know they are fleeing instability and violence at home. We know that in the short term at least, they will not stop coming. […] With this in mind, short-term barriers like extra border controls risk displacing the issue or making it worse by encouraging even more dangerous journeys. We know that young refugees are mainly motivated by hope, a desire to make a better life for themselves and to make a contribution in a new country. And we know that they have found life to be so unliveable in underfunded and overcrowded refugee camps and host communities in the Middle East. They see no future for themselves there. Finally, we know that this group of people has much to offer their destination countries. They are aspirational and they seek work and education. Indeed, many are already educated and highly-skilled. […] So given what we know, what should we do? Above all, we need a political solution to the Syrian war. In the meantime, we need to find better ways to help the many people who are fleeing. Mercy Corps recommends that three things are needed. First, local and national leaders in countries hosting refugees need to meet the particular needs of youth – helping them to integrate effectively with host communities. […] Second, world leaders should negotiate a comprehensive plan of action for resettling large numbers of refugees from the Middle East and other countries in crisis. […] Third, countries in the Middle East, supported by wealthy nations, including the Gulf States, should improve conditions for refugees in camps and host communities – specifically by allowing them to work and providing more access to education. By providing them with a means for income and dignity, the push factors driving people further afield will be reduced.[…]
Adapted from The Huffington Post October 2015 (460 words)
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WHAT JOBS COULD A 100-YEAR-OLD DO?
Rohit Talwar, a futurologist, has made headlines by claiming that many of today's 10 or 11year-olds will live to at least 120 and a sizeable proportion will keep working until they reach 100. But how might this work? Scientific advances, such as replacement limbs made by 3D printers, powered exoskeletons and memory-preserving drugs will allow today's children easily to outlive their parents and keep active, Talwar says. "They might not want to continue at quite the same pace after decades in the workplace," he says. "But they will be able to make work fit in with their lifestyles." There will still be lots of roles requiring human beings, in which experience comes at a premium, Talwar argues. With such long working lives, Talwar predicts that workers will adopt a "portfolio" approach to employment, meaning they could have as many as 10 different, shorter careers, including 40 different jobs. People could do more than one job in a day, he says - perhaps driving an Uber cab in the morning and delivering Amazon parcels in the afternoon. There will be a more "sharing economy", where the line is blurred between employment and other moneymaking activities, such as renting out spare bedrooms and driveways using services such as Airbnb, he adds.[...] Demographics are edging towards Talwar's predictions. The UK population is ageing, as is that of its main competitor economies. The number of people over the age of 90 was more than half a million last year. "We are entering a new era of longevity in terms of life expectancy. But it seems we're also entering a transformational time in terms of the way work happens," says the director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing who predicts that most jobs as we know them will no longer exist when today's children reach 100. Besides, robots will work alongside humans, making physically demanding tasks obsolete, while working patterns will be less regimented, instead fitting around lifestyles and family time. But not everyone's as optimistic. "None of the evidence we have shows people being able to go on working until they're 100 years old," says Neil Duncan, national officer for the National Pensioners Convention. "We can keep people alive until then, but that's a completely different argument to saying they should be able to drive a bus. I think the whole idea's a bit sci-fi. To me, it's nonsense." People will have to spend more time in education well into adulthood, Talwar says, as they re-skill to deal with an altering jobs market. "After all, who would ever have thought until recently that you'd need social workers specially trained to deal with the traumas caused by social media?" says Talwar. "Things change."
Adapted from 'BBC News' October 2015 (454 words)
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WHAT MASS INCARCERATION LOOKS LIKE FOR JUVENILES After two decades of researching mass incarceration ‒ and advocating for its demise ‒ I decided in 2005 to take more direct action and accepted a job running corrections departments, in Washington, D.C. It was a rude awakening. The juvenile corrections department in Washington had about 1,000 clients. For the previous 19 years, the department had been under a court order for unconstitutional conditions. Two reports had detailed appalling conditions: Beatings of children in custody were commonplace, inmates stuffed clothing around the toilets to keep out rats, young people were locked up for so long that they often defecated in their cells. Youths who came in clean tested positive for marijuana after 30 days of confinement, suggesting that it was easier to score drugs in my facility than on the streets. My staff and I quickly uncovered more abuses. Staff members were sexually harassing the kids and one another. The female staff members widely complained that, if they didn’t perform sexually for their supervisors, they were threatened with finding themselves alone with inmates in dangerous situations. These abuses are not meted out equally in the United States, with African-Americans and Latinos incarcerated at far higher rates than whites. In my five years running the Washington system, I never saw one white youth in my correctional facility. Cleaning this up was no mean feat. Eventually, we substantially reduced the number of incarcerated youths by creating a network of community-based programs. Many of the hard-line staff members left, either because they were fired or just because they disagreed with our more rehabilitative approach. Two things surprised me about my experiences on the inside. First, horrific institutional conditions are common, not exceptional. Since 1970, systemic violence, abuse and excessive use of isolation and restraints have been documented in juvenile institutions in 39 states. The second major surprise was how much I liked many of my staff members. I charged into my job with an air of moral superiority. Surely, I thought, such conditions could be created only by ethically bankrupt characters. But it was far more complicated. Just about everyone in my Washington facility knew who was beating the kids, having sex with them and selling them drugs. Yet many of the churchgoing people on my staff were very friendly people who, despite their silence, believed they were advancing public safety. They were the good guys, rendered complicit by years in a corrupt system. Thankfully, there are increasing calls from the left and right to end America’s imprisonment binge. From what I witnessed during my decade on the inside, the end of mass incarceration can’t come soon enough; conditions poison staff members and kids alike and harm, rather than improve, public safety. Incarceration should be the backstop, not the backbone, of our crimecontrol efforts. Adapted from The New York Times November 2015 (459 words)
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WHAT'S THE MEANING OF LA MARSEILLAISE?
France's national anthem will be sung by English as well as French fans when the two nations' football teams meet at Wembley. What's the story behind the rousing song? It's the ultimate anthem of defiance. In 1792 Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle, a captain in the French army, composed the song after Austrian and Prussian troops invaded France in an attempt to quell the revolution. The mayor of Strasbourg asked Rouget de Lisle to write a song that would rally troops to "defend their homeland that is under threat". While its lyrics declare that the children of the Fatherland's day of glory has arrived, they also issue a blood-curdling warning - "ferocious soldiers" are coming under the "bloody banner" of tyranny to "cut the throats of your sons, your women". Citizens - not subjects - are urged to take up arms and "Marchons! Marchons!" - let's march, let's march. It was sung by troops from Marseilles as they approached Paris, leading to its nickname. It was made France's anthem in 1795 but lost its status under Napoleon I and was suppressed during the Bourbon restoration. La Marseillaise became the national anthem again during France's third republic - the era from 1870 when the modern idea of what France means was laid down, according to a professor of French at the University of Sheffield. Most people don't pay all that much attention to the "fairly bloodthirsty" lyrics, he says. Most important, he believes, is that unlike God Save the Queen, La Marseillaise is "not an aristocratic song. It's about the people, it's about being a citizen". What's more, "it's a rousing anthem and people can sing it with gusto". Not everyone likes its martial theme. Valery Giscard d'Estaing, a former president of France, slowed the rhythm because he considered it too warlike. The line "may impure blood water our fields" has been cited by critics who consider the anthem racist. But its message of defiance and resistance have proved incredibly potent at key moments in France's history - invasion during World War One, and occupation during World War Two. France cyclists hummed it as they rode the Tour de France through German-ruled Alsace between 1906 and 1910. In one of Casablanca's most memorable scenes, resistance leader Victor Laszlo orders a band to play it in order to drown out singing by Nazi troops. Hence its resonance in the wake of the Paris attacks, which the Islamic State militant group said it carried out. La Marseillaise is "the great example of courage and solidarity when facing danger", a historian told the BBC. "That's why it's so invigorating. That's why it really is the greatest national anthem in the world, ever."
Adapted from The BBC November 2015
(453 words)
Texte 100
WHY THE UNITED STATES LEAVES DEADLY CHEMICALS ON THE MARKET Scientists are trained to express themselves rationally. They avoid personal attacks when they disagree. But some scientific arguments become so polarized that tempers fray. There may even be shouting. Such is the current state of affairs between two camps of scientists: health effects researchers and regulatory toxicologists. Both groups study the effects of chemical exposures in humans. Both groups have publicly used terms like “irrelevant,” “arbitrary,” “unfounded” and “contrary to all accumulated physiological understanding” to describe the other’s work. Privately, the language becomes even harsher, with phrases such as “pseudoscience,” “a religion” and “rigged.” The rift centers around the best way to measure the health effects of chemical exposures. The regulatory toxicologists typically rely on computer simulations called “physiologically based pharmacokinetic” (PBPK) modeling. The health effects researchers ‒ endocrinologists, developmental biologists and epidemiologists, among others ‒ draw their conclusions from direct observations of how chemicals actually affect living things. The debate may sound arcane, but the outcome could directly affect your health. It will shape how government agencies regulate chemicals for decades to come: how toxic waste sites are cleaned up, how pesticides are regulated, how workers are protected from toxic exposure and what chemicals are permitted in household items... The link from certain chemicals to these health effects is real. In a paper published earlier this year, a group of leading endocrinologists concluded with 99 percent certainty that environmental exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals causes health problems. They estimate that this costs the European Union healthcare system about $175 billion a year. Closer to home, Americans are routinely sickened by toxic chemicals whose health effects have been long known. To cite one infamous example, people exposed to the known carcinogen formaldehyde in FEMA trailers after Hurricane Katrina suffered headaches, nosebleeds and difficulty breathing. Dozens of cancer cases were later reported. Then there are workplace exposures, which federal government estimates link to as many as 20,000 cancer deaths a year... “We are drowning our world in untested and unsafe chemicals, and the price we are paying in terms of our reproductive health is of serious concern,” wrote the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics in a statement released on October 1. Yet chemical regulation in the United States has proceeded at a glacial pace. And corporate profit is at the heart of the story. That the chemical industry exerts political influence is well documented. What our investigation reveals is that, 30 years ago, corporate interests began to control not just the political process but the science itself. Industry not only funds research to cast doubt on known environmental health hazards; it has also shaped an entire field of science ‒ regulatory toxicology ‒ to downplay the risk of toxic chemicals. Adapted from In These Times, November, 2015 (457 Words)
Texte 101
WILL MACHINES EVENTUALLY TAKE ON EVERY JOB?
Dire warnings are frequently issued. As machines, software and robots become more sophisticated, some fear that we stand to lose millions of jobs. According to one unpublished study, the coming wave of technological breakthroughs endangers up to 47% of total employment in the US. In the past, as some jobs have disappeared, others have risen in their wake. Artisanal skills were replaced by factory work when industrial-scale manufacturing took over in the 19th Century. But by the 1980s, many of the Industrial Revolution-era assembly-line jobs had themselves fallen into the figurative hands of machines. Compared to the past, however, what is different about today is the pace at which market transformations are taking place. Never before have we seen such rapid rates of societal and workforce change. While it is too early to say for sure, data indicate that the employment market is not necessarily evolving fast enough to keep up with this change: the ratio of employment to the overall population has been falling in developed countries. “My reading of the evidence is that the digital economy hasn’t created many jobs directly,” says Carl Frey, co-director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment at the University of Oxford. “And the jobs it has created tend to be concentrated in cities like London, San Francisco, New York and Stockholm, which drives up prices, creates inequality and makes it difficult for people to live in, or move to, places where new jobs are emerging.” Demand is steeply growing for highly skilled, highly educated workers, but precipitously declining for those with low to moderate education. This means that a large chunk of the population that could have maintained a middle-class lifestyle in past decades can no longer do so. Coming years will likely only see this problem intensify, as jobs that involve any kind of routine or repetitive work – mental or physical – are increasingly at risk of being ousted by automation. […] Some countries, industries and companies are responding to these changes better than others. On one end of the spectrum, regulatory regimes can prevent innovation, as France is doing with the recent ban on Uber. On the other hand, some places are aggressively pursuing innovation. In Germany, 1.5 million people enroll in paid apprenticeships annually, emerging from the programmes as highly skilled technical workers. […] Letting the machines take over to some extent is not necessarily all bad, especially as it is virtually guaranteed to lead to an increase in overall wealth and well being. Thanks to oil, Norway, for example, enjoys one of the highest GDPs in the world and one of the shortest average workweeks: just 33 hours.
Adapted from bbc.com August 2015 (448 words)
Texte 102
WORLD’S ENERGY SYSTEMS AT RISK FROM GLOBAL WARMING
Energy systems, including fossil fuel power stations, distribution grids, and the networks that reach to people’s homes, are all at risk from effects such as flooding, severe storms and sea level rises, according to a new report from the World Energy Council, which brings together energy companies, academics and public sector agencies. When energy systems fail, the knock-on effects on other aspects of modern infrastructure from water and sewage to transport and health - can be catastrophic. Experts point to the effects of Hurricane Sandy in New York to show that these effects are not limited to the developing world, where most of the serious consequences of climate change are expected to wreak havoc, but will be felt even in the most modern of cities. Christoph Frei, secretary-general of the World Energy Council, warned that the question of the resilience of modern energy systems under the threat of imminent disaster must be treated as one of great urgency. The warning comes ahead of a UN climate summit in Paris later this year where developed and developing countries are expected to agree a deal on how to mitigate and adapt to global warming’s impacts. Adaptation to the effects of global warming will be a key theme of the conference, with the EU in particular promoting the issue as one in which developed countries must provide finance to the poor to enable them to deal with extreme weather. Even if the most optimistic estimates in terms of emissions cuts are reached, a level of built-in global warming could result in dire problems across the world, as governments and companies struggle to adapt infrastructure that was built for calmer times. The World Energy Council warned that the number of extreme weather events globally had risen by a factor of more than four in the past three decades, from about 38 events - such as major storms, heat waves and flooding - to 174 events in 2014. The insurance industry has struggled to keep up, with global insured losses from natural catastrophes and man-made disasters reaching $35bn last year, with the losses of the uninsured exceeding $130bn. The amount of financing that developed countries are prepared to commit to poorer nations from the end of this decade, to help them cope with the ravages of global warming, is a major unknown at the Paris conference, and could still derail the talks. With the quadrupling of extreme weather events over the past 30 years, the resilience challenge will impact crucial energy infrastructure and investments in all countries. Therefore the negotiations in Paris will have to create a new international climate agreement to fight against the effects of climate change.
Adapted from The Guardian October, 2015 (453 words)
Texte 103
YALE’S HALLOWEEN ADVICE STOKES A RACIALLY CHARGED DEBATE Weeks of simmering racial tension at Yale University boiled over in recent days into a heated debate about whether the administration was sensitive enough to concerns about Halloween costumes seen as culturally offensive, students and administrators said. The debate over Halloween costumes began late last month when the university’s Intercultural Affairs Committee sent an email to the student body asking students to avoid wearing “culturally unaware and insensitive” costumes that could offend minority students. It specifically advised them to steer clear of outfits that included elements like feathered headdresses, turbans or blackface. In response, Erika Christakis, a faculty member and an administrator at a student residence, wrote an email to students living in her residence hall on behalf of those she described as “frustrated” by the official advice on Halloween costumes. Students should be able to wear whatever they want, she wrote, even if they end up offending people. “Is there no room anymore for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious… a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive?” she wrote. Ms. Christakis’s email touched on a long-running debate over the balance between upholding free speech and protecting students from hurt feelings or personal offense. It also provoked a firestorm of condemnation from Yale students, hundreds of whom signed an open letter criticizing her argument that “free speech and the ability to tolerate offence” should take precedence over other considerations. The debate over Halloween costumes comes at a time of escalating racial tension at college campuses across the United States. Last month, the president of the University of Louisville apologized to students after he and over a dozen friends were pictured wearing ponchos, sombreros and bushy mustaches with maracas in their hands as part of Mexican-themed Halloween costumes. And on Sunday, dozens of black football players at the University of Missouri vowed to boycott school athletic activities over the university’s handling of racial incidents unless its president resigned. The debate has erupted against an increasingly tense racial background at Yale. The campus has seen a long-running debate over a residential college named in honor of John C. Calhoun, a 19th-century South Carolina politician, outspoken white supremacist and member of the Yale class of 1804. His name continues to adorn its graceful Gothic halls. And one week ago a black undergraduate accused a fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, of denying her entrance to a “white girls only” party on the basis of her race, an allegation that the fraternity denies. Jonathan Holloway, the dean of Yale College, said that his office took the accusation seriously and was investigating.
Adapted from www.nytimes.com November 2015 (444 words)
Texte 104
YEARNING TO BREATHE FREE
For much of its history, America has been generous to refugees and asylum-seekers from all over the world. After the second world war the country took in more than 650,000 displaced Europeans. After the fall of Saigon in 1975 it welcomed hundreds of thousands of Indo-Chinese refugees. Since the passage of the Refugee Act in 1980 America has taken in another 3m refugees, more than any other country. It is the biggest contributor to both the World Food Programme and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. In the current refugee crisis, though, America is on the sidelines. In recent years it has taken in just under 70,000 refugees a year on average. This pales in comparison with the 1.5m asylumseekers expected in Germany this year. The White House recently promised to increase the intake of refugees to 85,000 in the next fiscal year [and] even this modest increase has been contested. Two factors are responsible for the change of heart. Refugees and asylum-seekers have become ensnared in a partisan fight in Congress over immigration. And the 9/11 terrorist attacks have changed the perception of refugees from vulnerable to threatening. Refugees apply for resettlement at American embassies or through the United Nations. If they pass that first hurdle […] they undergo investigations of their biography and identity; FBI biometric checks and photographs, medical screenings… The process may take as long as three years. No other person entering America is subjected to such a level of scrutiny. […] Asylum-seekers have to navigate through a similar bureaucratic tangle. The decision to grant asylum is made by a Citizenship and Immigration Services officer. If that officer finds that the applicant did not make his case convincingly, he receives a “Notice of Intent to Deny” (NOID). If the applicant’s immigration status is not valid, he is placed in deportation proceedings before an immigration court. The decisions that this system churns out often have little to do with the merit of individual cases. In theory, as a signatory of the UN convention of 1951, America has a legal obligation to protect refugees. In practice the public is not willing to accept the boundless consequences of this commitment, so the federal government limits the overall number by presenting refugees and asylum-seekers with an overwhelming show of bureaucratic kludge. “We have a history of openness to immigrants and refugees, which has been good for us, and made the DNA of our country” says Richard Haass, head of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Haass argues that it is in America’s interest to help Germany, one of its staunchest allies, with the seemingly never-ending stream of asylum-seekers pouring into the country. Unfortunately, most contenders for the presidency do not agree.
Adapted from The Economist October 2015 (456 words)
Texte 105
YOUNG PEOPLE ARE NOT APATHETIC ABOUT POLITICS, THEY JUST NEED A HELPING HAND
I remember very clearly my first encounter with politics. It was the 2010 general election and I sat up to watch the results. I didn’t know what a swingometer was, I’d never heard of any of the leaders of the parties and I definitely hadn’t considered what politics really meant for me. But I was captivated by the energy and the buzz. Five years on, I’ve dropped out of university and built a company from scratch, helping to create the largest ever digital platform for a general election in this country, and the only one with a profile of every candidate, from each party, all in one place. As with millions around the country, my story started at the dinner table. Our family used to sit and discuss what should be taught in school, how expensive trains were, why we were at war in a different country and why it was compulsory for me to run round a sports field in winter. I vaguely understood that these questions had something to do with “politics”, but I still didn’t really understand the relevance it had for my life. But on that night in May 2010 the truth suddenly hit me. After that, I started doing what I could to find out more. I learned that politics is a vehicle for getting ideas (or policy) from A to B. It is about getting things done. When I realised that many of my fellow students had no plans to vote in any election, I felt I had to do something about it. I wanted to create a platform that would make it easy for people to get involved in active democracy. And so I took to the internet. […] I got together with a couple of my friends and in May 2014, using the money my nanny left me when she died, we built TickBox for the European election. The objective was relatively simple. From our dorm rooms in Exeter University, we would build a website with profiles of every party in the election and allow users to compare their views. We launched two weeks before the election and, at one point, had 40,000 users in 24 hours. With countless tweets from people thanking us for allowing them “to vote for the first time”, we realised we were on to something. People think young people aren’t interested in politics, but I don’t believe that’s true. We just think that traditional politics seems really old-fashioned. What we want to know is: are we going to be able to get a job or buy a house? But if you don’t engage with politics, you can’t blame politicians for not representing your views.
Adapted from The Guardian April 2015 (460 words)
