1 Joblessness seen surging across Gulf (Babu Das
Augustine in Gulf News) Unemployment across the oil exporting countries in the
region including the GCC is expected to surge as governments are poised to cut
spending to cope with rising fiscal deficits, according to the IMF’s regional
economic outlook.
In the GCC, excluding the UAE, more than 2 million
nationals are expected to join the workforce by 2020. If private sector job
growth were to follow past trends, and public sector employment growth is
consistent with the current fiscal projections, more than half a million job
market entrants will end up being unemployed, in addition to the 1 million who
are already out of work.
“The aggregate GCC unemployment rate would increase
from 12 per cent to 16 per cent. Clearly, if more fiscal adjustment were to
take place, with some of it in the form of reined-in public sector hiring,
unemployment rates would be even higher,” said Masoud Ahmad, the IMF’s regional
director for Middle East and Central Asia.
In the non-GCC region, about 8 million people will
enter the labour force over the next five years. Under current growth
projections, and using historical growth — employment elasticities, the average
unemployment rate would increase from 14 per cent to 15.5 per cent. In
practice, the increase could be much higher, because cash-strapped governments
will not be able to maintain the pace of public sector hiring.
Clearly, the private sector will have to take over
from the public sector as the main source of job creation. However, the
expansion of the private sector and the diversification away from oil that are
needed to absorb the growing workforce have so far proven elusive. Though some
progress has been made, most economies in the region are still deeply dependent
on the capital-intensive hydrocarbon sector, which generates limited direct
employment.
2 Nike’s self-lacing sneakers (Emily Price in San
Francisco Chronicle) Marty McFly famously visited Oct. 21, 2015 in “Back to the
Future II.” Now in the real 2015, we may not have a hoverboard just yet, but
today Nike is bringing one of the technologies shown off in the film into
reality: self-lacing shoes.
The shoes have a responsive system that senses the
wearer’s motion and adjusts accordingly for on-demand comfort and support. Nike
says that the models it is showing off today are merely the shoe’s first
iteration. The technology involved in the shoes will likely make its way to
other footwear down the line.
“Although the project started as science fiction,
we’re now proud to turn that fiction into fact,” Nike design Tinker Hatfield
said in a note sent to Michael J Fox, who played McFly in the films. Fox posted
a picture of the note on Twitter: Fox was the first person to receive a pair of
the sneakers, and subsequently posted a video of himself trying them on.
The company ultimately plans on testing the tech in
shoes designed for athletes in a number of different sports. “We started
creating something for fiction and we turned it into fact, inventing a new
technology that will benefit all athletes,” Mark Parker, president and CEO of
Nike, said in a post officially announcing the shoes.
3 Why girls wear make-up (Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett in
The Guardian) From the soot-rimmed eyes of the ancient Egyptians to the lead
paint worn by the Elizabethans, women and girls have experimented with
cosmetics throughout history. Ask a group of women why they wear makeup and
you’ll receive myriad responses.
“After 20 years working as a makeup artist I can say
quite confidently that women wear makeup for themselves,” Lisa Eldridge, the
author of Face Paint: The Story of Makeup, tells me. “There are many different
roles makeup can play in a woman’s life. There’s the playful and creative
aspect – who doesn’t enjoy swirling a brush in a palette of colour? Then
there’s the confidence-building aspect – why not cover a huge red blemish on
your nose, if you can? Finally, there is an element of war paint and tribalism.
Makeup can make you feel more powerful and ready to face any situation.”
But just as there are women and girls who wear
makeup completely for themselves, there are those who wear makeup for the
perceived benefit of others, or who feel as though they are unacceptable
without it. Makeup can be a mask you hide behind that gets you ready to face
the world, or something you deploy as a weapon – to attract a partner, to
intimidate, shock and amaze.
Makeup is so ubiquitous in our society that for a
woman to go without it has become, in some cases, a statement – the “no makeup
selfie” being a case in point. Perhaps, then, the more useful question to ask
is not “Why do women wear makeup?” but “Why do women wear makeup when most men
don’t?”
For some feminists, the question can be answered by
simply muttering “patriarchy” and dusting off their hands before heading to the
bar. Evolutionary psychologists have it that, as with so many things, makeup
comes down to sex. Women tend to have darker eyes and lips than men, and makeup
enhances those sex differences.
Cosmetics companies often rely on women’s
insecurities – inculcated through years of exposure to images of physical
perfection in mainstream media – in order to sell products, operating on the
basis of “maybe she’s born with it, but probably not, so buy this concealer”.
Perhaps, then, when it comes to makeup, we are our
own worst enemies, believing that the world wants to see us in a certain way
when in actual fact we’re fine the way we are. Why do women wear makeup? You
could say it’s a pinch of patriarchy, a dusting of sex, a smattering of fun,
and a whole, caked-on layer of misplaced insecurity.
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