1 First time since WW II, conflict drives over 50m from
homes (Johannesburg Times) The number of people driven from their homes by
conflict and crisis has topped 50 million for the first time since World War
II, with Syria hardest hit, the UN refugee agency has said. The UNHCR said
there were 51.2 million forcibly displaced people at the end of 2013, a full
six million higher than the previous year.
The protracted Syria conflict was largely to blame
for the increase. Since the war began in March 2011, a total of 2.5 million
people have fled Syria, with 6.5 million more displaced inside the country. The
Central African Republic and South Sudan crises also sparked new waves of
displacement.
The UNHCR data covers three groups: refugees,
asylum-seekers, and the internally displaced. Refugee numbers reached 16.7
million people worldwide, the highest since 2001. A total of 6.3 million have
been exiled for over five years -- that did not include five million
Palestinians aided by the UN Relief and Works Agency, a separate body.
Overall, the biggest refugee populations under UNHCR
care came from Afghanistan, Syrian and Somalia, who together form over half the
global refugee total. The world's top refugee hosts were Pakistan, Iran and
Lebanon. With most refugees hosted by poorer countries, human rights
campaigners Amnesty International said rich nations must do far more to
shoulder the load.
2 Tide may be turning against Amazon (Juliette
Garside in The Guardian) The list of household names – Blackberry, Nokia, HTC,
Motorola – that have almost bankrupted themselves trying to make a hit
smartphone is long, but this week Amazon became the latest tech company to take
on the challenge.
Jeff Bezos stepped on stage in Seattle to unveil his
Fire Phone, with his mother in the audience. However, few expect it to take
sales away from the two brands that now dominate mobile: Apple and Samsung. "This
sequence of crazy initiatives in areas where they have no competitive advantage
is about sustaining an unsustainable stock price," says Bruce Greenwald,
professor of finance and asset management at Columbia Business School, who is
betting on Amazon shares falling.
In recent years Amazon has moved from media to
general goods retailing. On the west coast of America, it sells fresh food.
Through Amazon web services, it rents out server space. It publishes books, and
is also making TV shows. Bezos is famous for saying you earn a reputation by
doing "hard things well". But there are those who believe Amazon is
now trying to do too many hard things at once.
Today, it is Amazon's business that is being
disrupted. The company that has made Bezos the world's 18th-richest man, with a
personal fortune of $30bn, is now 20 years old and is being threatened by the
very medium from which it evolved – the internet.
3 Apple smart watch launch likely soon (San
Francisco Chronicle) Apple is likely to launch a computerized wristwatch this
fall that includes more than 10 sensors to take health measurements and other
data, according to a report. The Wall Street Journal also said that Apple Inc.
is planning multiple screen sizes for the device, which some people have dubbed
the iWatch.
Samsung, Sony, Qualcomm and others have already
released smartwatches, but the gadgets have mostly functioned as companions to
smartphones, offering email notifications, clock functions and the like.
Samsung's Gear 2 line, released this year, added fitness-related apps and has a
heart rate sensor.
There's been longstanding speculation that Apple has
been working on a smartwatch. Apple has been under pressure to release new
products, as investors question whether the company that popularized the
smartphone and the tablet computer is still able to innovate following the
death of co-founder Steve Jobs. CEO Tim Cook has hinted at new products coming
this year, but the company hasn't provided details. Apple declined comment in
line with its policy of not discussing future products.
4 India’s economic prosperity and patriarchy
(Khaleej Times) Nothing in India appears capable of halting the epidemic of
women being raped. Preventive measures where they exist seem powerless to stop
the abuse, which all too often has led to the assaulted victim being killed. Are
these simply individual crimes or the products of societal malaise? Is India’s
economic growth and the subsequent rise in economic inequality fostering such
extreme behaviour? Are sections of what is a conservative society being subject
to stresses that are rarely spoken of and undocumented?
Beyond such questions is the matter of how Indian
women are perceived and treated in a country whose rapid economic growth can be
construed as the product of a patriarchy. This may help explain the
embarrassing series of absurd and contemptible statements made by regional
Indian politicians in their attempts to explain away cases of rape. These men
have attributed the clothes victims have worn, their morals and attitudes,
their social and economic backgrounds as being cause enough to attract the
attention of violent, rapacious and criminal assaulters.
Such assault and speech may have been curbed
substantially had the criminal justice system in India delivered what it has
promised to victims of rape and sexual assault. After the New Delhi gang-rape
and murder, the government set up 73 ‘fast-track’ courts to try cases of sexual
violence against women. This much-needed judicial reform has worked fitfully. If India’s women are to find again a sense of
security and independence in public and private, swift penalty must accompany
social soul-searching.
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