1 Global jobless to rise (Katie Allen in The
Guardian) The global jobs market will continue to deteriorate in the coming
years, while rising income inequality and high youth unemployment will stoke
more social unrest, a new report warns. The International Labour Organization
(ILO) says a slowdown in economic growth means more jobs will be lost this year
with young people again bearing the brunt of the financial crisis and its
aftermath.
ILO said the challenge of bringing unemployment back
to pre-crisis levels “now appears as daunting a task as ever”. ILO director
general Guy Ryder said: “More than 61 million jobs have been lost since the
start of the global crisis in 2008 and our projections show that unemployment
will continue to rise until the end of the decade.”
By 2019, more than 212 million people will be out of
work, up from 201 million now, according to the ILO’s report, World Employment
and Social Outlook – Trends 2015. The ILO has previously forecast a global
unemployment rate of 5.9% this year and next, compared with 5.5% before the global
financial crisis in 2007.
The ILO predicts income inequality will continue to
widen and that already the richest 10% earn 30-40% of total income while the
poorest 10% earn around 2% of total income. It warns that if low wages lead
people to consume less, and investment remains subdued, growth rates will
suffer. The organisation also warns of rising social unrest as rising
inequality undermines trust in government and young people are left frustrated
as pay trends fail to match a general improvement in educational attainment.
The report highlights that young people, especially
young women, continue to be disproportionately affected by unemployment across
all regions of the world. Almost 74 million young people, aged 15–24, were
looking for work in 2014 and the youth unemployment rate “is practically three
times higher” than for their adult counterparts, the ILO found.
2 Europe ‘faces political earthquake’ (Mike
Wooldridge on BBC) Political earthquakes could be in store for Europe in 2015,
according to research by the Economist Intelligence Unit. It says the rising
appeal of populist parties could see some winning elections and mainstream
parties forced into previously unthinkable alliances.
Europe's "crisis of democracy" is a gap
between elites and voters, EIU says. There is "a gaping hole at the heart
of European politics where big ideas should be", it adds. Low turnouts at the
polls and sharp falls in the membership of traditional parties are key factors
in the phenomenon.
The UK - going to the polls in May - is "on the
cusp of a potentially prolonged period of political instability", according
to the Economist researchers. They say there is a much higher than usual chance
that the election will produce an unstable government - predicting that the
populist UK Independence Party (UKIP) will take votes from both the
Conservatives and Labour.
But the most immediate political challenge - and
test of how far the growing populism translates into success at the polls - is
in Greece. Opinion polls suggest that the far left, populist Syriza could
emerge as the strongest party. If it did and was able to form a government, the
EIU says this would send shock waves through the European Union and act as a
catalyst for political upheaval elsewhere.
Other examples of European elections with potential
for unpredictable results cited by EIU include polls in Denmark, Finland,
Spain, France, Sweden, Germany and Ireland. "There is a common denominator
in these countries: the rise of populist parties," the EIU says, "Anti-establishment
sentiment has surged across the eurozone (and the larger EU) and the risk of
political disruption and potential crises is high."
3 Islam is not what terrorists make of it (Mohammed
Hassan Almarzooqi in Khaleej Times) Whenever a terrorist shows up and goes on
to commit a heinous crime, we immediately and deniably signal him out saying:
‘He is not a Muslim’? Whenever an enlightened writer is criticised or lashed
out at dictums of hatred venomously spewed by the radical clerics, we disown
them, saying? ‘That is not Islam’.
Islam is not really as was disgracefully portrayed.
It is not Osama bin Laden, Al Zarqawi, Al Baghdadi or Hasan Nasrallah. It is
not Al Qaeda or Daesh, Boko Haram or Hezbollah. Islam is not Juhiman Al Otaibi,
who raided the sanctity of the Holy Mosque in Makkah, nor are the idiots who
blasted and razed to the ground the Twin Trade Centers in New York. It is not
the nuts who blasted London Metro tubes, or the criminals who slain the
innocent in France as revenge for a Paris-based weekly, Charlie Hebdo, for
publishing an offensive cartoon.
Supporters of terms like ‘those are not from us’ is
a behaviour of burying heads like an ostrich in the sand. If those are really
not from us, then from where did they come? We have for decades provided
opportunities to those perverts, who before perversion, were part of us, so as
to incline towards the humanitarian instinct, and later, we discovered that
generations of Muslims grew up and seek someone to follow as example, but they
found nothing except he who tell them music is a taboo, and all arts of all
forms are prohibited.
Fight against terrorism should begin, at first by
admitting that those (terrorists) are those whom we have made, and then
continue the phase of remedy. We can rectify and make what went wrong
right!
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