1 Why 10m jobs a year is key to China (Linda Yueh on
BBC) China's move to cut its growth target to 7% in 2015 from 7.5% last year
has grabbed headlines, but the key number is the unchanged job creation target
of 10 million. Premier Li Keqiang set this year's GDP growth target at around
7%, which is the slowest in a quarter of a century. Correspondingly, the
inflation target was lowered from 3.5% in 2014 to 3%.
But the targets that remained unchanged were the
ones related to jobs. China is maintaining its unemployment target of 4.5% and
the aim of creating 10 million jobs per year. Unlike the GDP target, this was
exceeded last year when more than 13 million jobs were created despite the
slowing economy.
Creating jobs for the millions of graduates each
year and ensuring that the new middle class is not suffering from high
unemployment are obvious goals for a system without the safety valve of an
election. So, instead of investment-led expansion of the economy, the now
larger services sector is more labour-intensive. Rather than building more
ghost cities, output expands to provide services to the new middle class.
China recently cut interest rates for the second
time since November. Last month, they also cut the reserve requirements for
banks, which was the first such industry-wide cut since 2012. These moves to
keep the easy money flowing aren't exactly reassuring as they imply China needs
to stimulate the economy to meet the lowest growth target in 25 years.
2 Boko Haram vows allegiance to Isis (San Francisco
Chronicle) Nigeria's home-grown Boko Haram group, newly weakened by a
multinational force that has dislodged it from a score of northeastern towns,
reportedly pledged formal allegiance to the Islamic State group.
The pledge to IS came in an Arabic audio message
with English subtitles alleged to have come from Boko Haram leader Abubakar
Shekau and posted on Twitter, according to the SITE Intelligence monitoring service.
"We announce our allegiance to the Caliph of the Muslims ...” said the
message. IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has declared himself the caliph.
The Boko Haram pledge to IS comes as the Nigerian
militants reportedly are massing in the northeastern town of Gwoza, considered
their headquarters, for a showdown with the Chadian-led multinational force. Though
there was no way to independently verify the message, it comes weeks after Boko
Haram's new Twitter account broadcast that the group's Shura council was
considering whether to swear formal allegiance to IS.
Boko Haram in August followed the lead of IS in
declaring an Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria that grew to cover an area
the size of Belgium. The Islamic State had declared a caliphate in vast swaths
of territory that it controls in Iraq and Syria. The Nigerian group also began
publishing videos of beheadings.
3 Since Delhi rape, things have got worse (Jayati
Ghosh in The Guardian) The day after the Indian government banned the BBC
documentary India’s Daughter, on the horrific gang rape and killing of a
student in Delhi, a 10,000-strong mob broke into a jail in a town in Assam,
dragged out an alleged rapist, beat him to death and hung his body up for
public view.
Does this mean that people in India are now so
outraged by violence against women that they are seeking rough justice of their
own? Sadly, no: the patriarchy and abuse of power that created the conditions
for that appalling act in Delhi are alive and flourishing, and indeed are
expressed in both this lynching and in some of the more aggressive reactions to
the film.
Indeed, the notion of rape as particularly bad
because it affects the “honour” of women, rather than their basic personhood
and physical security, is a leading cause of such reactions. The documentary,
made by a woman who is herself a rape survivor, has surprisingly been
criticised by the government and women’s activists.
The Indian government’s real concerns are less about
the safety of women than the international image of the country. They worry
that the documentary will continue to present India in a bad light rather than
showcase its achievements and new government. (The fact that such achievements
– especially for women – are few and hard to find is not really considered.)
It is certainly true that India is not the only
country where women are routinely denigrated and their rights to personal
safety are implicitly taken as contingent upon their (“good”) behaviour. But we
cannot escape the reality in India that the huge popular movement against that
particular atrocity and the subsequent moves to change the laws to ensure more
protection for women have so far borne little fruit. If anything, things have
probably got worse.
Trying to hide this, or prevent others from knowing
about it, is not a solution. Instead, we have to confront this head on,
precisely because this extreme form of patriarchy is so pervasive. Knowing our
enemy – within and without – means facing all this, no matter how repulsive it
may appear, because only then can we ever hope to change it.
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