THE FIRST thing that visitors to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg see is a wall of identity cards—the pieces of paper that determined where people could live and work and whom they could love. From the outset, the apartheid regime’s ability to discriminate against “nie-blankes” (non-whites) depended on having a robust system of identifying people. The opposite problem confronts most other countries in Africa today. Governments have little idea who their citizens are. Around the world, about one billion people lack official proof of their identities, reckons the World Bank. Such citizens cannot, in many cases, get services such as health care, welfare and education. They also struggle to exercise their rights to vote or live in their home countries. States need this information, too. Without it, governments have no idea whom to tax, conscript and protect, or where to allocate resources. Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch … [Read more...] about African countries are struggling to build robust identity systems
Needs country kennel
Vietnamese man visits 50 countries, and counting, on motorbike
A Vietnamese man from southern Vietnam is living his dream, or everyone’s dream: traveling the world by motorbike. On the 794th day of his journey, Tran Dang Dang Khoa reached Sydney - the two-third mark on his seven-continent motorbike journey. “Suddenly I opened my eyes and I saw Sydney, an important milestone which marks two-thirds of my world journey on ‘The Memo’ and over two years since my departure,” Khoa shared with his 237,500 Facebook followers on August 3. A picture capturing nature in a rural area in Australia taken by Khoa has received positive feedback from his Facebook followers. “The Memo” is the name of the motorbike he has used for the trip, which began in June 2017, and the vehicle has so far taken him through around 50 countries. After Australia, the Tien Giang Province native expects to travel to Africa and the South Pole before heading home to Asia. In the middle of his journey, Khoa met with a Tuoi Tre News … [Read more...] about Vietnamese man visits 50 countries, and counting, on motorbike
Not new laws, but change in mindset needed to curb atrocities on women, says Venkaiah
More than the introduction of new laws, the pressing need of the hour was to collectively create a mindset that denounced and condemned atrocities against women, said Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday while remarking that a perceptible erosion of values had taken place in all walks of life, including politics, the legislature and the judiciary.Without explicitly naming it, the Vice-President alluded to the recent horrific rape and murder of a young veterinarian in Hyderabad by remarking that what had “happened in the recent days in a certain part of the country” was “really shameful” and posed “a challenge” to youngsters to uphold Indian culture and tradition.He further remarked that the programmes announced rolled out by the Centre — be they the Swachh Bharat mission, the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao project or the ‘Fit India’ movement — were not to be viewed from a political angle as they were not Prime Minister Narendra … [Read more...] about Not new laws, but change in mindset needed to curb atrocities on women, says Venkaiah
‘The clock is ticking’: Less talk, more action needed in the race against climate change
It's been over a year since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned global warming needed to be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius, so what has been done in that time to address the rising risk of climate change? Brittney Deguara reports. Around the world, more people are talking about climate change than ever before. But in crucial ways, conversation hasn't led to change. It's time to "get on with the action", says Victoria University climate scientist Professor James Renwick. "This is an emergency. This is not a joke, not a drill. Every year that passes, even every month that passes without action just makes the problem that much harder. "The clock is ticking," he told Stuff. * Read more from Because Journalism, our campaign focused on the valuable role our quality, local journalism plays in society. More than a year has passed since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its special report and outlined the importance of … [Read more...] about ‘The clock is ticking’: Less talk, more action needed in the race against climate change
In wake of Shutterstock’s Chinese censorship, American companies need to relearn American values
It’s among the most iconic images of the last few decades — a picture of an unknown man standing before a line of tanks during the protests in 1989 in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. In just one shot, the photographer, Jeff Widener, managed to convey a society struggling between the freedoms of individual citizens and the heavy hand of the Chinese militarized state. It’s also an image that few within China’s “great firewall” have access to, let alone see. For those who have read 1984, it can almost seem as if “Tank Man” was dropped into a memory hole, erased from the collective memory of more than a billion people. By now, it’s well-known that China’s search engines like Baidu censor such political photography. Regardless of the individual morality of their decisions, it’s at least understandable that Chinese companies with mostly Chinese revenues would carefully hew to the law as set forth by the Chinese Communist … [Read more...] about In wake of Shutterstock’s Chinese censorship, American companies need to relearn American values
China needs people to have more children. So why punish those who do?
TO MARK THE 70th anniversary in October of the People’s Republic of China, a giant parade trundled through Tiananmen Square filled with symbols of what President Xi Jinping, the country’s leader, calls the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”. The two most important ones, Chaguan would argue, were a squadron of nuclear-missile launchers and a float showing a model family in their apartment, comprising two parents and two daughters winsomely playing pat-a-cake. Nearly four years after China scrapped its one-child policy, the harshly enforced system that between 1980 and 2016 limited most urban families to a single child, and many rural folk to two, Communist Party bosses are assiduously promoting two-child families as an ideal. From Liaoning to Hubei, provinces are discussing subsidies and services to support babymaking. It is not working. China’s fertility rate is among the world’s lowest, and far below what is needed to maintain a stable … [Read more...] about China needs people to have more children. So why punish those who do?
