Wednesday, June 20, 2012

27m in slavery; Asia, not North America, has most millionaires; Young, social and paperless; Fairfax Media to cut 1,900 jobs; G20 gets indigestion; Forget Europe, it's submerging

1 27m in slavery (Straits Times) Up to 27 million people are living in slavery around the world, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton estimated on Tuesday as the US unveiled its annual report into human trafficking. But the report showed that as governments become more aware of the issue, instigating tough new laws and programmes to help victims, progress is being made in wiping out what it called the 'scourge of trafficking.' 'The end of legal slavery in the United States and in other countries around the world has not, unfortunately, meant the end of slavery,' said Mrs Clinton.

'Today it is estimated as many as 27 million people around the world are victims of modern slavery, what we sometimes call trafficking in persons,' she said at the unveiling of the report at the State Department. 'Those victims of modern slavery are women and men, girls and boys, and their stories remind us of the kind of inhumane treatment we are capable of as human beings,' said Mrs Clinton.

2 Asia, not North America, has most millionaires (San Francisco Chronicle) The number of millionaires in the Asia-Pacific region touched 3.37 million last year, exceeding those in North America for the first time. The roster of the rich in Asia climbed 1.6% as the number of millionaires in China, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia increased, according to Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management. The number of millionaires in North America dropped 1.1% to 3.35 million. North America remained the richest region with $11.4 trillion in high-net-worth assets.

3 Asian American immigrants outpace Latinos (San Francisco Chronicle) As the presidential candidates battle over US-Mexico immigration policy, a sweeping new survey shows that Asian Americans have overtaken Latinos nationally as the largest group of new immigrants arriving each year in the United States - a development with profound political and economic implications. Not only are Asian Americans the fastest-growing racial group in the country, but they have the highest incomes, are the best-educated and are happier with their lot in life compared with other groups, according to "The Rise of Asian Americans," a comprehensive new Pew Research Center survey and report.

"It is a reversal of fortune for Asian Americans," said David Lee, a longtime community organizer in San Francisco's Asian American neighborhoods who teaches political science at San Francisco State University. "One hundred years ago, they were the poorest of the poor," Lee said. "Today, they are the best-paid, best-educated, most-in-demand workers in the country." Socially, Asian Americans place a higher value on marriage and parenthood. And while many don't like the "Tiger Mom" image of pushy, demanding Asian American parents, 62% think American parents are too soft on their kids.

The Pew study is based on census data and surveys of 3,511 Asian Americans, including representative samples of the six largest Asian American country-of-origin groups - Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Filipino and Vietnamese - which comprise more than 80% of all Asian Americans.

4 To stay on schedule, take a break (The New York Times) Want to be more productive? Keep your nose to the grindstone, or your fingers on the keyboard and your eyes on the screen. Because the more time you put in, the more you’ll get done, right? Wrong. A growing body of evidence shows that taking regular breaks from mental tasks improves productivity and creativity — and that skipping breaks can lead to stress and exhaustion.

Mental concentration is similar to a muscle, says John P. Trougakos, an assistant management professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough and the Rotman School of Management. It becomes fatigued after sustained use and needs a rest period before it can recover, he explains — much as a weight lifter needs rest before doing a second round of repetitions at the gym. Breaks can induce guilt because they’re "this little oasis of personal time that we get while we’re selling ourselves to someone else," Professor Trougakos says. But that’s just the point. Employees generally need to detach from their work and their work space to recharge their internal resources, he says. Options include walking, reading a book in another room or taking the all-important lunch break, which provides both nutritional and cognitive recharging.

5 Young, social and paperless (The New York Times) The children of the baby-boom generation are the first generation that never knew life before the Internet. And because they are a growing portion of the work force, the companies that employ them, as well as the hotels, airlines and other travel-related businesses that serve them, are having to change the way they talk to them, work with them and sell to them.

Although this group — classified as those under 32 years old and known as millennials — makes up about 20% of the adult population and 13% of the business travel hotel bookings, their business travel numbers were up more than 40% in 2011 from a year earlier, according to data from the travel research firm DK Shifflet & Associates. This is what Maria Chevalier, a corporate travel manager at Hewlett-Packard, found after completing a six-month study about her company’s roughly 100,000 business travelers. "With these younger generations, you have to communicate more frequently, but shorter. You have to use different forms of communication," she said.

Darren Osleger, a consultant, said his best and most indispensable traveling partner is his iPhone. It has apps that let him simply enter a flight confirmation code and avoid having to print a boarding pass. "All of my tickets can go on my phone," he said. "I scan it at the TSA and scan it at the gate. There’s no reason to print out airline tickets again."

6 Fairfax Media to cut 1,900 jobs (The New York Times) Fairfax Media, publisher of some of the leading newspapers in Australia, will restructure its management and cut almost one-fifth of its staff, the beginning of a widespread shake-up of country’s media sector. Fairfax, which publishes The Sydney Morning Herald; the Australian Financial Review; and The Age, in Melbourne; said it would cut 1,900 jobs over three years from its staff of 10,000, shut down two printing plants and reduce broadsheet newspapers to tabloid formats.

In a conference call with analysts, Fairfax said its options included a digital-only future if revenues continued to slide. Fairfax’s classified advertisements were once considered "rivers of gold," but revenues have collapsed as Web sites have taken over markets for real estate, job and car ads. Fairfax’s announcement is expected to be followed shortly by news of a restructuring at its larger rival, News Ltd., the Australian unit of the News Corp., which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch. News Ltd. is preparing to announce job cuts of as many as 1,500 staff members as it restructures its work force of 8,000.

7 Costa Coffee to create 3,500 jobs (The Guardian) British leisure group Whitbread reported solid growth in first-quarter sales, boosted by a strong performance from its coffee shop chain Costa Coffee, and unveiled plans to create thousands of jobs. Whitbread, which also owns budget hotel chain Premier Inn, said underlying sales rose 4.5% in the 13 weeks to 31 May. "Our plans for profitable growth are well established, supported by our strong balance sheet, and we plan to open 4,200 Premier Inn rooms, eight joint site restaurants and 350 new Costa stores this financial year, creating an additional 3,500 UK jobs," said Whitebread's chief executive, Andy Harrison.

8 G20 gets indigestion (The Daily Telegraph) It's Wednesday, so it must be time for another international summit. Gathered in the Mexican seaside resort of Los Cabos, G20 leaders will already be wondering why they have made the trip. Nothing is promised from this latest piece of international junketing, other than a little Mexican levity and a nasty bout of indigestion, courtesy of the spicy food. Let's hope leaders have brought their anti-reflux medication with them; in more ways than one, they are going to need it.

Few G20 meetings are anything other than a waste of space, but this one more so than most, because the latest slowdown in the world economy can be dealt with convincingly only by Europe. And as we already know, Europe is seemingly incapable of sorting out the hopeless muddle it has inflicted on itself.

For examples of the abject failure of international cooperation to find solutions, look no further than the G20 itself. A great concept in theory, which seeks to engage the developing world in the idea of global governance, the G20 has turned out to be a hopeless organisation, capable of deciding little and implementing even less. In Los Gabos on Monday, British Prime Minister David Cameron claimed the G20 had at least stopped a slide to protectionism. It has not. The latest analysis by Global Trade Alert shows that protectionist measures are once again strongly on the rise as the global economy weakens, the bulk of it among G20 nations.

9 Forget Europe, it's submerging (Kenneth Lambden in Business Standard) Indian investors should only look at emerging markets. Invest in emerging markets and forget about Europe. You have got a choice; to look at emerging or look at submerging. Why do you want to look at the submerging countries? It is going to take five to 10 years for the US and Europe to dig out. Indian investors are very domestic focused and it’s appropriate to internationalise the emerging and not internationalise the submerging.

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