International

New York – A lack of job opportunities, inadequate education, vulnerable working conditions and insufficient government investment are some of the main concerns of young people around the world, according to a United Nations report on youth published yesterday.

Filmmaker and environmentalist Josh Fox is to appear in court on 15 February on a charge of “unlawful entry” following his arrest in Congress on 1 February, when he was prevented from filming a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment on the grounds that he lacked press credentials.

Bad news, very bad news, for the survival of planet earth. On the one hand, politicians attempt to gain votes by claiming a kind to and iron-and-steel, unwavering commitment commitment to save humankind, reduce destructive greenhouse gas emissions and produce “green energy”. On the other, governments spend 1.4 billion dollars… per day… to destabilize climate.

Russia and China vetoed on Saturday a draft resolution on the crisis in Syria led by the Western powers who advocate regime change in that country. The resolution was approved by the other 13 members of the body (United States, France, Britain, Germany, Portugal, India, Colombia, Guatemala, Morocco, Pakistan, South Africa, Togo and Azerbaijan).

Criminal gangs are becoming a threat to the world’s glaciers, which are already receding as a result of climate change, the UN reported, citing a case in Chile where police are investigating the theft of some 5,000 kilograms of millennia-old ice from the Jorge Montt glacier.

Finally, there is some argumentation in the West supportive of a nuclear free zone for the Middle East. Such thinking is still treated as politically marginal, and hardly audible above the beat of the war drums.

The deaths caused by the U.S. in Iraq are “untold” by the media, writes Danny Lucia.

Over a million Iraqis are dead from America’s war.

That sentence is a cognitive litmus test. Some people’s immediate reaction is, “That can’t be right,” because the United States couldn’t do that. Or because crimes on that scale don’t still happen.

Banks are lending very little to help the real economy – businesses and mortgages – but there are no shortages of bonuses for top executives. Huge payments to lobbying firms at home and in the US (whose activities are not covered by the Freedom of Information Act) have been used to influence policies that may curtail the financial sector’s licence to cream.

We had a chance to talk with the humanist national leader of the Teachers’ Association, in an interview carried out in “Umbral”, in the neighbourhood of Bellavista, in which we asked him to evaluate this year’s most compelling demonstrations in Chile for a high quality and not-for-profit education, also attempting to make a projection of what may happen in the future.

For innovative young folks, angels are by no means mythical beings or messengers of God as depicted in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles and the Quran. They are flesh-and-blood source of equity capital at the seed and early stage of company formation, particularly when banks are reluctant to lend.

Article by Ramesh Jaura