Shale gas shifts global power balance; Economic change and masculinity crisis; How austerity kills; India unveils cheap diarrhoea vaccine; Dubai airport is world's busiest

1 Shale gas shifts global power balance (BBC) A steeper-than-expected rise in US shale oil reserves is about to change the global balance of power between new and existing producers, a report says. Over the next five years, the US will account for a third of new oil supplies, according to the International Energy Agency. The US will change from the world's leading importer of oil to a net exporter.

"North America has set off a supply shock that is sending ripples throughout the world," said IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven. The IEA said it expected the US to overtake Russia as the world's biggest gas producer by 2015 and to become "all but self-sufficient" in its energy needs by about 2035.

US production is set to grow by 3.9 million barrels of oil per day (bpd) from 2012 to 2018, accounting for some two-thirds of the predicted growth in traditional non-Opec production, according to the IEA. The sharp rise in US oil production is largely thanks to shale oil, a product many have hailed as the saviour of the US energy market. Fracking, the process of blasting water at high pressure into shale rock to release oil (or gas) held within it, has become widespread in the US.

But critics of shale oil point to environmental concerns such as high water use and possible water contamination, the release of methane and, to a lesser extent, earth tremors caused by drilling. The process has been banned in France, while the UK recently lifted a moratorium on drilling for shale gas.

2 Economic change and masculinity crisis (Rajeev Syal in The Guardian) Britain is facing a "crisis of masculinity", with rapid economic change warping male identity and encouraging machismo and misogyny, Labour MP Diane Abbott will claim on Thursday. The shadow public health minister will say in her speech that unemployment and the economic downturn risks creating a generation of disaffected young men, fuelling homophobia, machismo and misogyny.

She will also say men are failing to discuss the problems they face. "It's all become a bit like the film Fight Club – the first rule of being a man in modern Britain is that you're not allowed to talk about it." The government must put the aim of full employment at its heart if these problems are to be solved, she believes.

Speaking to the thinktank Demos, Abbott will argue that boys are becoming increasingly isolated from their parents and friends, while grown men are working longer hours, dying of preventable cancers, and taking their own lives. "This generation no longer asks itself what it means to be a man," she will say.

Consumerism has replaced earning, providing and belonging for many men, according to the MP, giving rise to a culture of "hypermasculinity" – a culture that exaggerates what are perceived as manly qualities in the face of perceived threats. Pornography has also had a damaging affect upon men, Abbott claims, which has added to the growth of a "Viagra and Jack Daniels" culture.

Far from yesterday's role models of soldier, miners and farmers, male youths, says Abbott, are part of a "transit generation" left working in services industries they are uncomfortable with, or not working at all. "Look at many of our young men graduating from university this year," her speech says. "Faced with mass unemployment and often unable to fly the nest they can find themselves locked into a transitional phase at home, or find themselves voluntarily creating an extended adolescence, sometimes resentful of family life."

3 How austerity kills (David Stuckler & Sanjay Basu in The New York Times) Countries that slashed health and social protection budgets, like Greece, Italy and Spain, have seen starkly worse health outcomes than nations like Germany, Iceland and Sweden, which maintained their social safety nets and opted for stimulus over austerity. (Germany preaches the virtues of austerity — for others.)

As scholars of public health and political economy, we have watched aghast as politicians endlessly debate debts and deficits with little regard for the human costs of their decisions. Over the past decade, we mined huge data sets from across the globe to understand how economic shocks — from the Great Depression to the end of the Soviet Union to the Asian financial crisis to the Great Recession — affect our health. What we’ve found is that people do not inevitably get sick or die because the economy has faltered. Fiscal policy, it turns out, can be a matter of life or death. 

At one extreme is Greece, which is in the middle of a public health disaster. The national health budget has been cut by 40% since 2008, partly to meet deficit-reduction targets set by the so-called troika —  the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank — as part of a 2010 austerity package. Some 35,000 doctors, nurses and other health workers have lost their jobs. Hospital admissions have soared after Greeks avoided getting routine and preventive treatment because of long wait times and rising drug costs. Infant mortality rose by 40%. 

In contrast, instead of bailing out the banks and slashing budgets, as the I.M.F. demanded, Iceland’s politicians took a radical step: they put austerity to a vote. In two referendums, in 2010 and 2011, Icelanders voted overwhelmingly to pay off foreign creditors gradually, rather than all at once through austerity. Iceland’s economy has largely recovered, while Greece’s teeters on collapse. No one lost health care coverage or access to medication, even as the price of imported drugs rose. There was no significant increase in suicide. Last year, the first U.N. World Happiness Report ranked Iceland as one of the world’s happiest nations.

Skeptics will point to structural differences between Greece and Iceland. Greece’s membership in the euro zone made currency devaluation impossible, and it had less political room to reject I.M.F. calls for austerity. But the contrast supports our thesis that an economic crisis does not necessarily have to involve a public health crisis. 

4 India unveils cheap diarrhoea vaccine (BBC) Scientists in India have unveiled a new low-cost vaccine against a deadly virus that kills about half a million children around the world each year.

Rotavirus causes dehydration and severe diarrhoea and spreads through contaminated hands and surfaces and is rampant in Asia and Africa. India says clinical trials show the new vaccine, Rotavac, can save the lives of thousands of children annually. An Indian manufacturer said the vaccine would cost 54 rupees ($1). International pharmaceutical companies GlaxoSmithKline and Merck produce similar vaccines but each dose costs around 1,000 rupees ($18).

"This is an important scientific breakthrough against rotavirus infections, the most severe and lethal cause of childhood diarrhoea, responsible for approximately 100,000 deaths of small children in India each year," India's Department of Biotechnology official K Vijay Raghavan said.  Rotavac will be made by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech. The company said it could mass-produce tens of millions of doses after clearance is given, expected in eight or nine months.

5 Dubai airport is world’s busiest (Abdul Basit in Khaleej Times) Dubai International Airport has won the crown of being the world’s busiest airport for international traffic for the first time. Previously, London Heathrow was enjoying that title. Dubai was on top when the latest figures published by Airports Council International were released last month. ACI released January figures that showed Dubai recorded 5.53 million passengers, while London Heathrow witnessed 4.86 million during the same period.

Dubai International and London Heathrow have published their first-quarter results on their respective websites, showing that Dubai is leading with 16.5 million passengers while Heathrow reported 16 million for the same period. On a longer term level the fact remains that Dubai International is on track not just to surpass the 65-million passenger target set for 2013, but it will also displace Heathrow as the world’s most busiest international airport with full-year results.

6 ‘Life’s like that cartoon’ in Khaleej Times 

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/cartoongall.asp?next=0&file=data/photogallery/cartoon/cartoon.xml&section=cartoon