Netherlands is country with most plentiful, healthy food |
- Netherlands is country with most plentiful, healthy food
- Scientist drafts urban nuclear shelter guide
- Man who brought creme brulee to US masses given lifetime award (VIDEO)
- Mainstreaming transgender
- Myanmar still using rape as weapon of war, says women’s group
| Netherlands is country with most plentiful, healthy food Posted: 14 Jan 2014 05:15 PM PST
Chad came in last on the list of 125 nations, behind Ethiopia and Angola, in the food index from the international relief and development organization. "The Netherlands have created a good market that enables people to get enough to eat. Prices are relatively low and stable and the type of food people are eating is balanced," Deborah Hardoon, a senior researcher at Oxfam who compiled the results, said in an interview. "They've got the fundamentals right and in a way that is better than most other countries all over the world." Oxfam ranked the nations on the availability, quality and affordability of food and dietary health. It also looked at the percentage of underweight children, food diversity and access to clean water, as well as negative health outcomes such as obesity and diabetes. European countries dominated the top of the ranking but Australia squeezed into the top 12, tying with Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Luxembourg at No. 8. The United Kingdom failed to make the top 10, tying for the 13th spot, because of the volatility of its food prices compared to other goods, which Oxfam said is on a level with Peru (51), Malta (33) and Kyrgyzstan (65). African nations, along with Laos (112), Bangladesh (102), Pakistan (97) and India (97), were predominant in the bottom 30 countries. Although the United States has the most affordable and good quality food, high levels of obesity and diabetes pushed the nation into 21st place in the ranking, tying with Japan, which scored poorly on the relative price of food compared to other goods. The Netherlands got top marks for its low food prices and diabetes levels, while Chad had the worst score for the cost of food in the country and the number of underweight children - 34 per cent. The only countries where food is more expensive are Guinea and the Gambia, which were both at the lower end of the ranking. Burundi (119), Yemen (121), Madagascar (122) and India have the worst rates of nutrition and the most underweight children, according to Oxfam. PEOPLE GOING HUNGRY Oxfam said the latest figures show 840 million people go hungry every day, despite there being enough food for the hungry. It called for changes in the way food is produced and distributed around the world. The causes of hunger, it added, include a lack of investment in infrastructure in developing nations and in small-scale agriculture, security, prohibitive trading agreements, biofuel targets that divert crops from food to fuel and the impact of climate change. Research suggests that climate change could raise the number of people at risk of hunger by 20 to 50 per cent by 2050, according to the group. "This index quite clearly indicates that despite the fact of there being enough food in the world we are still not able to feed everybody in all the countries around the world," said Hardoon. "If we had a more equal distribution of wealth and resources, and particularly food, this wouldn't be a problem," she added. Oxfam compiled the data between October and December 2013 using the latest information from the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Foundation, the International Labour Organization and other international organisations. The index provides a snapshot based on the relative differences in various countries based on the number of factors. But Hardoon said it is not the comprehensive picture of any one nation. — Reuters  |
| Scientist drafts urban nuclear shelter guide Posted: 14 Jan 2014 05:10 PM PST
Taking cover in existing buildings is widely accepted as a critical first action after a nuclear blast in a major city. But how long people should stay there before moving to better shelter is a more complex question. Buildings that are lightweight or lack a basement are more easily penetrated by radioactive dust. Writing in a British scientific journal, Michael Dillon of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, has now come up with a mathematical model for the "optimal shelter exit time" to minimise radiation risk. Based on his calculations, if adequate shelter is 15 minutes away, individuals should remain in their initial, poor-quality shelter no longer than 30 minutes after detonation. If, however, the better shelter is only five minutes away, individuals should move there immediately and forego the closer but unsafe buildings altogether, he wrote. Reaching adequate shelter rapidly could save between 10,000 and 100,000 individuals from fatal exposure in the event of a single, low-yield detonation, said the study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A. "These methods are intended to assist emergency planning officials in the development of an optimal low-yield nuclear detonation response strategy," wrote Dillon. A low-yield blast is described as 0.1-10 kilotonnes. One kilotonne (kT) is an explosive force equivalent to that of 1,000 metric tonnes of TNT. The US bomb that killed more than 200,000 people in Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945 was about 15 kT. More than a fifth of American households lack basements or are considered too lightweight to offer shelter in the fallout phase of the emergency, the study said. — AFP |
| Man who brought creme brulee to US masses given lifetime award (VIDEO) Posted: 14 Jan 2014 05:08 PM PST
Restaurateur and New York personality Sirio Maccioni joins Cecilia Chiang, Wolfgang Puck, Jacques Pépin and Alice Waters as the latest lifetime achievement recipient, whose body of work is deemed to have had a positive, long-lasting impact on the way Americans eat and think about food. "Charming guests and indulging their palates for nearly half a century, Sirio has not only set a precedent for fine dining but helped launch the careers of some of the country's most talented chefs," said Susan Ungaro, president of the James Beard Foundation. Indeed, Maccioni's list of protegés span some of today's hottest chefs, including Daniel Boulud, David Bouley, Jacques Torres and Geoffrey Zakarian. But for the regular New York diner, perhaps his greatest contribution is bringing the classic French dessert of creme brulee to American palates and creating a dish that's now ubiquitous on many Italian menus but remains Le Cirque's signature dish ― pasta primavera, prepared tableside. Though the dish isn't on the menu, the restaurant will serve it upon request. After 40 years, Le Cirque remains a dining destination for tourists and has expanded globally with outposts in the Dominican Republic and India. This year, the family plans to open their first restaurants in the Middle East with Circo at the InterContintental Abu Dhabi and Le Cirque at the Ritz-Carlton, Dubai International Financial Centre. Maccioni will be honoured at the Lincoln Center in New York on May 5. Finalists of the James Beard Foundation Awards will be announced March 18. ― AFP-Relaxnews |
| Posted: 14 Jan 2014 05:06 PM PST
It's depressing, but we live in a society with people who still look at lesbians, gays, bisexuals, or transgenders (LGBT) with contempt and hatred. These people are discriminated against every day on the basis of physical, social, even cultural characteristics, and this bigotry is, to be very clear, quite wrong. For instance, in India, 700,000 transgenders get little or no schooling, their families often reject them, and they end up doing sex work or ritualised begging. Furthermore, no legislation has been passed in countries like India, Indonesia, Malaysia and many others to eliminate such terrible discrimination. Worse, in many African countries where homosexuality is already illegal, more draconian anti-gay laws are being passed and violence against LGBT people is increasing. Seen sceptically, the legislation that many Americans are cheering for can become another hurdle that LGBT job seekers will have to jump over in order to find employment. In such complex issues, laws should be carefully designed and the Yogyakarta Principles can navigate a way for the policy makers. The link between governance and human rights can be organised around three areas: Democracy, service delivery and rule of law. In order to achieve inclusive growth and to be able to make a fair society, these areas should be addressed tout de suite. While trying to address these issues, one needs to understand that marginalised communities like LGBT are very akin to systems theory. It's interactive, complex and dynamic. When the community becomes the system, the dynamics of time plays out in maintaining its boundary. Based on identity, the dimensions of identity and its interaction become vital in time and space. One's skin, one's appearance or even one's love gives us dynamism of endless possibilities. And to solve this, one cannot apply the same solution everywhere. One is forced to synthesise the logic of collective action within the system. In short, to synthesise the system, governments need to start tackling the issue from two ways. First, through citizenship status and second by enabling them to access educational benefits. One of the countries where LGBT rights are justly recognised is Canada. It has enforced their recognition through Constitutional framework. Outstandingly, it has even allowed gays and lesbians to serve openly in military forces too, where else, in countries like India, where transgender people are easily visible in public places, they are hardly recognized as citizens by the government. Public goods available to them are limited. However, on the brighter side, Aadhaar—a national identification number assigned to residents of India—which tries to bridge the gap between effective public service delivery and citizenship, has upheld some success in this case. Talking about educational benefits, the Massachusetts Transgender Equal Rights Bill was passed in Boston in 2011. It made for non-discrimination against transgender on the basis of gender identity for educational attainments. This law forced all the schools in the state of Massachusetts to practise recommendations concerning equal and fair treatment, rights and safety of transgender and gender non-conforming youths in K-12 schools. Such policies are needed in developing countries like India, Brazil, China where a huge number of LGBT population resides. In other words, empowerment is needed to elevate transgenders from destitution and provide them a decent lifestyle with entitlements. One needs to understand that communities like LGBT command recognition of pluralistic expression in gender that encompasses identities that find space beyond the established binaries of gender. Space in economic, political, social and cultural rights are fundamental for strengthening their freedom. When the Yogyakarta Principles can be articulated in a non-LGBT friendly country like Indonesia, policymakers need to diagnose that systems are capable of producing results, which are optimal in terms of efficiency. * This is the personal opinion of the columnist. |
| Myanmar still using rape as weapon of war, says women’s group Posted: 14 Jan 2014 04:59 PM PST
The Thailand-based Women's League of Burma said in a report made available to Reuters on Monday that 47 of the cases documented were gang rapes and 28 of the women were either killed or had died of their injuries. It said several victims were as young as eight. The report was dated January. The group said the issue showed the need for legal reform in Myanmar, also known as Burma, and for changes to a 2008 constitution to ensure that the military is placed under civilian control. Myanmar's government denied rape was used as a means of war. "It's not the policy of our Tatmadaw (military) to use rapes as weapons," presidential spokesman Ye Htut told Reuters. "If there are rape cases committed by individual members, we try to expose them and take effective action against the offenders. It would be very helpful in taking action against the offenders if those who prepared that report could send us the details of the cases," he said. The report from the women's group comes less than a month after a bipartisan group of prominent US senators, Bob Menendez, Marco Rubio, Ben Cardin and Bob Corker, introduced a bill that said the Myanmar government should not receive any funds made available to the Pentagon in 2014 until there is reform and rights abuses are addressed. The bill, which makes an exception for human rights and disaster response training for the military, also calls on the Pentagon and the US State Department to present a report on US strategy for military-to-military ties with Myanmar, including an assessment of the Myanmar military's rights record and the link between a deepening of such ties and reform. The US State Department said it was aware of the report and urged the Myanmar government to investigate all the allegations. "Despite tremendous progress in Burma over the past three years, significant challenges remain, including further improving the country's overall human rights situation," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said. "These violations highlight the need for professionalisation of the Burmese military, especially to promote understanding of and respect for human rights." The women's group said most of the rape cases it and its member organizations had documented were linked to offensives by the Myanmar military in the northeast of the country against ethnic minority Kachin and Shan insurgents. It said that in the past three years, the Kachin Women's Association Thailand had documented 59 cases of sexual violence by Myanmar government soldiers. The Shan Women's Action Network had reported another 30 cases involving 35 women and girls. "Widespread, systematic" The women's league said the attacks were more than random isolated acts by rogue soldiers. "Their widespread and systematic nature indicates a structural pattern: rape is still used as an instrument of war and oppression." The league said more than 38 different army battalions were implicated in the cases it had documented. It said the incidents took place in at least 35 different townships and that it believed the reported cases were only the "tip of the iceberg" as many cases went unreported. "The use of sexual violence in conflict is a strategy and an act of warfare that has political and economic dimensions that go beyond individual cases," the report said. "Sexual violence is used as a tool by the Burmese military to demoralise and destroy ethnic communities." The group said the abuses were potential war crimes and crimes against humanity and called for a thorough independent investigation. The report highlighted one case in which an 8-year-old girl living with her grandparents was raped by a soldier in Hsipaw Township in northern Shan State, on April 14, 2013. In another case, soldiers raped three women and a 12-year-old girl in Shan State's Ke See township on July 5, 2011. It said the girl was raped in front of her mother and one of the women was nine months pregnant. The 2012 State Department human rights report on Myanmar referred to rapes by both government forces and ethnic minority insurgent groups in Shan and Kachin states. It said that when government soldiers committed rape in ethnic minority areas, the army rarely took action to punish those responsible. The January 2013 Human Rights Watch report on Myanmar said sexual violence by the military remained a serious problem. In October, 133 civil society organisations representing ethnic groups in Myanmar, including the women's league, wrote to US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to express concern about their military engagement with Myanmar. — Reuters |
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