Poverty bigger challenge than HIV; Who's left? What's right?; Nikkei at highest level since 2008

1 Poverty bigger challenge than HIV (Larry Elliott in The Guardian) The World Bank president has warned that ending the worst of global poverty within a generation would prove a tougher challenge than tackling Aids, as he urged direct action to help more than a billion people benefit from growth. Jim Yong Kim, the former health activist chosen by Barack Obama to lead the Washington-based institution, said the goal of reducing the number of people living on less than $1.25 a day from 21% to 3% by 2030 was achievable but "extraordinarily difficult".

Kim said that rapid growth in China had been the most important factor in lifting people above the global breadline in recent years. "Most of the low-hanging fruit has been picked," Kim said, following suggestions that the World Bank had set itself too easy a target. The proportion of people living in extreme poverty would fall to 6% if the recent trend continued, but Kim, who spearheaded a global campaign to provide blanket treatment for Aids, said this was not realistic. He added: "This is the hardest goal I have ever tackled, harder than Aids. The curve is going to flatten out."

Kim said the target would only be met if there was progress in India, sub-Saharan Africa and states torn apart by conflict. "I hope those who say it is going to be easy are right. But everything I have seen tells me that it is not going to be easy." He said the fact that 1.2 billion people were on less than $1.25 a day was "a stain on our conscience", and said he wanted to restore the anti-poverty focus the institution had under the presidency of Jim Wolfensohn, who ended his term in 2005.

2 Who’s left? What’s right? (Jonathan Power in Khaleej Times) Are political views, whether left or right, influenced by different personality constellations? Karl Marx and V I Lenin were natural authoritarians. Menshevik leader Julius Martov (and we could have added Frederick Engels) were not. So this effort at political classification doesn’t work.

But how does one describe the political leanings of Manmohan Singh, the prime minister of India, who has presided over both a big build up of anti-poverty programs but also of a big increase in the acquisition of expensive armaments, or the president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari or Goodluck Jonathan, president of Nigeria?

Thinkers can also have their problems of identity. As Harvard sociologist, Daniel Bell once pointed out, Noam Chomsky has been hoisted by the Marxist petard. “Some years ago he was accused by a Canadian Maoist revolutionary periodical of being an “agent of American imperialism”. It stood to reason. Chomsky’s theories that language capacities are innate, and that mankind generates rules through the properties of mind, were characterised, quite correctly, as philosophical idealism.

As every Marxist knows, idealism is the reactionary philosophy of the bourgeoisie, as opposed to revolutionary materialism. More than that Chomsky had mentioned that the publication of his early research had been financed by the Office of Naval Research. Why should the American military finance such research if it did not realise that idealistic philosophy would serve to confuse the masses?!” Who’s left? What’s right?

3 Nikkei at highest level since 2008 (BBC) Japan's stock market has hit its highest level in almost five years, after a central bank stimulus plan raised hope of economic revival. The main Nikkei 225 stock index climbed as much as 4.7% to 13,225.62, its highest since August 2008.

The Bank of Japan said it would double the country's money supply to spur growth and halt falling prices. The step was much bigger than expected and signalled a more aggressive approach towards driving growth. Analysts said that the moves by the central bank had got the attention of investors both at home and abroad.

Pakistan youth favour Sharia over democracy; South Africa business confidence at 13-year low; Samoa Air's pay-by-weight pricing; The mobile phone is 40

1 Pakistan youth favour Sharia over democracy (Annabel Symington in The Wall Street Journal) More young people in Pakistan believe in military rule and Islamic Sharia law than in democracy, according to the findings of a new survey released by the British Council. The nationally representative survey polled 5,271 people between the ages of 18 and 29 from across Pakistan. The results of the survey suggest that the political parties have a hard battle ahead of them if they want to restore hope to Pakistan’s disillusioned, disenfranchised and fairly conservative youth.

“I am a bit surprised by the results that indicate that the young populations have a preference for Shariah law,” says Rasul Bakhash Rais, a professor of political science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, who was part of the research team for the very. “But I am not surprised by the disgust in the government or the general conservative attitude of the youth,” he added.

Pakistan’s youth are likely to play a pivotal role in the upcoming election. Next month, 13 million first-time voters will head to the polls and 25 million registered voters are between the ages of 18 and 29 years of age. When the British Council first set out to survey Pakistan’s youth in 2007, just over half of respondents thought the country was heading in the wrong direction. Today that figure stands at 86%.

2 South Africa business confidence at 13-year low (Mariam Isa in Johannesburg Times) Business confidence plunged to a 13-year low in March, despite the fact that the economy is officially in an upswing, the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Sacci) said. Its business confidence index (BCI) fell to 90.4 from 93 in February, largely due to a deterioration of factors that reflected the financial environment. That was its lowest level since April 2000, when the BCI measured 89.1.

A separate survey from the Bureau of Economic Research (BER) and Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) showed business confidence improved in the first quarter of this year, but not strongly enough to suggest the start of an upward trend. "Economic growth looks set to again disappoint this year as the economy struggles to exceed last year’s 2.5% real expansion," it added.

The decline in the Sacci index was broad-based with component indices on inflation, the rand’s exchange rate, share prices, precious metal prices and private-sector borrowing all negative. The indices for retail sales, vehicle sales and imports were also negative.

3 Samoa Air’s pay-by-weight pricing (The Sowetan) Samoa Air will start pricing its first international flights based on the weight of its passengers and their bags. Depending on the flight, each kilogram (2.2 pounds) costs 93 cents to $1.06. That means the average American man weighing 195 pounds with a 35-pound bag would pay $97 to go one-way between Apia, Samoa, and Pago Pago, American Samoa. Competitors typically charge $130 to $140 roundtrip for similar routes.

The weight-based pricing is not new to the airline, which launched in June. It has been using the pricing model since November, but in January the US Department of Transportation approved its international route between American Samoa and Samoa. The airline's chief executive, Chris Langton, said "planes are run by weight and not by seat, and travelers should be educated on this important issue. The plane can only carry a certain amount of weight and that weight needs to be paid. There is no other way."

The new pricing system would make Samoa Air the first to charge strictly by weight, a change that Vaeafe said is, "in many ways... a fair concept for passengers. For example, a 12- or 13-year-old passenger, who is small in size and weight, won't have to pay an adult fare, based on airline fares that anyone 12 years and older does pay the adult fare," he said.

Islands in the Pacific have the highest rates of obesity in the world. According to a 2011 report by the World Health Organization, 86% of Samoans are overweight, the fourth worst among all nations. Only Samoa's Pacific neighbors Nauru, the Cook Islands and Tonga rank worse. In comparison, the same study found that 69% of Americans are overweight, 61% of Australians, and 22% of Japanese. Samoa ranked just as poorly in statistics measuring those who are obese, or severely overweight.

4 The mobile phone is 40 (BBC) The first mobile phone call was made 40 years ago, on 3 April 1973. Martin Cooper, a senior engineer at Motorola, called a rival colleague at another telecoms company and announced he was speaking from "a 'real' cellular telephone". In 2012 a report carried out by the International Telecommunication Union found that there were six billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide. At the time the global population was seven billion.

"In 40 years we've moved rapidly from the mobile phone as a businessman's tool, through consumerisation and internet access to everything being connected," Dr Mike Short CBE, former president of the Institute of Engineering and Technology and Vice President of Telefonica Europe, told the BBC.

"In the future we will see a much wider range of devices - many of which will be wearable. Wearables, in terms of (smartphone) watches, are coming. We'll also see health measurement body vests that can communicate with your phone and then your doctor," said Dr Short.

Martin Cooper, now aged 85, is renowned as the "father" of the mobile phone. In a previous interview he admitted he thought the initial cost of the devices (in 1983 the first models cost $3,500) might be prohibitive to the mobile phone becoming a mass-market product, but he did recognise that the hefty handsets would probably shrink.

Eurozone jobless rate at record 12%; Extreme poverty 'could be eradicated'; Why first names are just for friends

1 Eurozone jobless rate at record 12% (BBC) The rate of unemployment in the eurozone has hit a record high of 12%, official figures have shown. The number of people unemployed in the 17 member states rose by 33,000 during February, to hit 19.07 million, the statistics agency Eurostat said. The highest jobless rates were 26.4% in Greece, although this figure was from December, and 26.3% in Spain.

The lowest unemployment rates recorded by Eurostat were in Austria (4.8%) and Germany (5.4%), both unchanged from January. The overall unemployment rate for the eurozone in January was revised up from 11.9% to 12%. The fresh high in the unemployment rate "is further confirmation of the underlying weakness of the economy", said Jennifer McKeown at Capital Economics. "The rise in unemployment was the 22nd in a row, making this labour market downturn the most prolonged since the early 1990s."

Youth unemployment remains an area of particular concern, with 188,000 people aged under 25 joining the ranks of the unemployed in February. More than half the workforce in this age group are now out work in Spain and Greece, and almost a quarter out of a job across the eurozone as a whole. There was further gloomy news from the eurozone's manufacturing sector, as a survey indicated that manufacturing activity fell to a three-month low in March.

2 Extreme poverty ‘could be eradicated’ (Dan Roberts in The Guardian) Extreme global poverty could be eradicated by the end of the next decade under optimistic new targets unveiled by the World Bank that have divided development experts. The bank's president, Jim Yong Kim, claimed signs of recovery in the global economy meant there was now an "opportunity to create a world free from the stain of poverty" by 2030.

"We are at an auspicious moment in history, when the successes of past decades and an increasingly favourable economic outlook combine to give developing countries a chance – for the first time ever – to end extreme poverty within a generation," he said in a speech in Washington.

The World Bank’s upbeat projections, defining extreme poverty as the 1.3 billion people living on less than $1.25 per day, come as governments and international institutions prepare to set new targets to update the 15-year Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations in 2000.

Faster-than-expected growth in China and some developing economies has helped the UN meet parts of its existing target for halving poverty ahead of time, but the approaching deadline for setting new priorities has sparked a fierce debate in the development community. Critics accused the World Bank of being "very unambitious" and obsessed with economic growth rather than tackling inequality after the leak of planning documents in March that were heavily focused on free market orthodoxy as the primary solution to global poverty.

3 Why first names are just for friends (Katharine Whitehorn in The Guardian) OK, we all sling first names around more than they did in the past, but we still have surnames for strangers and first names for friends. So it's no wonder we're always irritated by someone from a call-centre presuming to sound like a friend. Waiters think they are being winningly friendly if they greet you at breakfast by name, and Starbucks staff, who put your name on your cup , are trying to do the same; but do they really think we're touched by their friendliness?

In fact, it's more likely to be the opposite. In the book You Just Don’t Understand, linguist Deborah Tannen showed that actually, when a doctor calls you Mary but expects you to call him Doctor, he may think he's just being friendly, but actually he's assuming his superiority, just as an august uncle who calls a child Jimmy does not expect to get "Thanks Johnny" in reply.

I always feel patronised when somebody's junior employee – especially if male – uses my first name; it always has a ring of "Now little lady" about it; and if I've been called out of my bath by some stranger who is trying to sell me something, his impertinent use of my Christian name makes me hate his blasted product more than ever. You might think I'd welcome people using Katharine, since I go by two surnames, my married name and the one I was born with. But actually, friends call me – no, I'm not saying, just in case.

Malta could be next Cyprus; Stockton is most populous bankrupt US city; Britain, the world and end of free lunch?

1 Malta could be next Cyprus (Guy Verhoftstadt in Khaleej Times) Now that the crisis in Cyprus has been temporarily resolved, the unspoken question is: Who’s next? Perhaps Malta, which has an even bigger banking sector than Cyprus relative to GDP, much of it highly reliant on offshore depositors. Or maybe Latvia, fast becoming the destination of choice for Russian funds flowing out of Cyprus and now on course to join the eurozone. Even Spain or Italy could be vulnerable to a similar bailout, now that the Dutch finance minister, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who is president of the Euro Group of finance ministers, has hinted that Cyprus could provide a model for the resolution of future banking crises.

And while eurozone leaders eventually backed down from targeting depositors with less than 100,000 euros, a dangerous precedent has been set. The rights spelled out in the European Union’s deposit guarantee laws should never have been put into doubt, and the specter of future runs on banks looms large across the periphery of the eurozone. The inconvenient truth for eurozone leaders is that we will never emerge from this state of crisis until a fully functioning banking union is put into place. For this to work, there must be a European banking resolution mechanism to recapitalise banks and provide a backstop for a eurozone-wide deposit guarantee scheme.

We are no longer simply facing a debt crisis, concerned only with market confidence or the views of credit rating agencies. At stake is the trust of ordinary EU citizens in the European project as a whole. Unless steps are taken to restore this trust, we risk seeing the disintegration of the eurozone and the European Union as we know it.

2 Stockton is most populous bankrupt US city (BBC) A judge has approved the California city of Stockton's bankruptcy filing, making it the most populous US city ever to enter bankruptcy protection. A federal judge said without bankruptcy protection, Stockton would be unable to provide basic government services. The city of 290,000, 90 miles east of San Francisco, saw its tax base plummet in the US housing market crash. The ruling grants Stockton protection from creditors - who opposed the filing - while it negotiates debt repayment.

Stockton's creditors - bond holders and insurers who had financed the city's debt - argued the city had not cut spending enough nor sought a tax increase to avoid bankruptcy. With the city now in bankruptcy, they may not be repaid their full principals. But lawyers for the city said it had slashed its budget to the bone after a 70% decline in the city's tax base.

3 Britain, the world and end of free lunch? (Stephanie Flanders on BBC) They say there's no such thing as a free lunch. But for many years, Britain has been enjoying something similar when it comes to its international investments. Year after year, as a country we have somehow made a lot more on our investments abroad than the rest of the world has earned on its investments in the UK, even though - in cash terms - foreigners have more invested in us than we have invested in them.

But not last year. More than any other factor, it is the collapse in our foreign investment earnings in 2012 that explains why today's balance of payments figures show Britain's current account deficit last year was an eye-popping £58bn, up from £20bn in 2011. In case you were wondering, £58bn is a big number. It means the gap between what we earned in the global economy last year, and what we spent, was 3.7% of GDP. That's the highest since 1989 and only the fourth time since 1948 that our current account deficit has been greater than 3% of GDP.

Everyone knows that the growth in our manufacturing exports has been deeply disappointing. But just as important has been the sharp fall in exports in the area we traditionally run a large surplus - namely services. Even larger is the collapse in foreign investment earnings. Last year, we only earned £1.56bn more on our investments abroad than foreigners earned on their UK holdings. In 2011 that investment surplus was nearly £26bn. What's driving all this? The honest answer is no-one is really sure.

Our global investment earnings have defied gravity since the start of the century - and helped to make up for the fact that large parts of our economy were no longer paying their way. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that they have come down to earth. But it would be a serious blow to our international economic hopes if this turns out to be a permanent shift. The coalition came in promising to put an end to Britain's "something for nothing" culture. But this is definitely one area where they would have liked it to continue.

Patent defeat in India is key win for generic drugs; Hyperactiviy diagnosis on rise in US; South Africa not quite a Bric

1 Patent defeat in India is key win for generic drugs (Gardiner Harris in The New York Times) The Indian Supreme Court rejected a Swiss drug maker’s patent application for a major cancer drug in a landmark ruling that will allow poor patients continued access to many of the world’s best drugs, at least for a while. The ruling allows Indian makers of generic drugs to continue making copycat versions of the Novartis drug Gleevec — spelled Glivec in some markets, like Europe — which can have a seemingly miraculous effect on some forms of leukemia.

But the ruling’s effect will be felt well beyond the limited number of patients in India who need Gleevec, because it will help maintain India’s role as the world’s most important provider of inexpensive medicines, which is critical in the global fight against HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Gleevec can cost as much as $70,000 per year, while Indian generic versions cost about $2,500 year.

“The judgment in the Novartis case is a victory for patients both in India and around the world,” Dr. Yusuf K. Hamied, chairman of Cipla, an Indian generic drug giant, wrote in an e-mail. “India, being the pharmacy capital of the world, can continue to produce affordable, high-quality medicines without the threat of patents for minor modifications of known medicines.” 

The ruling is a landmark in one of the most important economic battles of the 21st century, in which rich nations that increasingly rely on the creation of idea-based products like computer programs and medicines try to compel mostly poor countries that make physical things like clothing and toys to pay for their ideas. 

While the goods made by poor countries cannot easily be shared or stolen, the ideas that power the economies of rich countries can be. So rich countries have insisted that poor countries give some of the world’s most profitable companies government-sanctioned monopolies for what the rich nations see as innovative ideas. But a few of these poorer countries — particularly India, Brazil and China — have begun to question the price they must pay for these idea-based products and whether paying such prices does them any good. India exports about $10 billion worth of generic medicine every year, more than any other country. Its home drug market is dominated almost entirely by generics. 

2 Hyperactivity diagnosis on rise in US (Alan Schwarz & Sarah Cohen in The New York Times) Nearly one in five high school age boys in the US and 11% of school-age children over all have received a medical diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to new data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These rates reflect a marked rise over the last decade and could fuel growing concern among many doctors that the A.D.H.D. diagnosis and its medication are overused in American children. 

The figures showed that an estimated 6.4 million children ages 4 through 17 had received an A.D.H.D. diagnosis at some point in their lives, a 16% increase since 2007 and a 53% rise in the past decade. “Those are astronomical numbers. I’m floored,” said Dr. William Graf, a pediatric neurologist. He added, “Mild symptoms are being diagnosed so readily, which goes well beyond the disorder and beyond the zone of ambiguity to pure enhancement of children who are otherwise healthy.” 

A.D.H.D. has historically been estimated to affect 3-7% of children. The disorder has no definitive test and is determined only by speaking extensively with patients, parents and teachers, and ruling out other possible causes — a subjective process that is often skipped under time constraints and pressure from parents. It is considered a chronic condition that is often carried into adulthood. 

3 South Africa not quite a Bric? (David Smith in The Guardian) The "big five" of the developing world, China, Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa, flag-bearers of a new world order known as the Brics, met recently on African soil for the first time, but doubts linger over whether the host is quite deserving of its place at the top table. South Africa is the newest and smallest member of what used to be the Bric. Its population is 50 million compared to China's more than 1 billion, and its GDP ranked only 28th in the world. By contrast China is 2nd, Brazil 6th, Russia 9th and India 10th. South Africa accounts for just 2.5% of the Brics' GDP, according to Standard Bank research.

Even within Africa, South Africa's growth – wracked by high unemployment and industrial unrest – is sluggish compared to many of its neighbours, and its crown as the continent's biggest economy is under threat from Nigeria. A year ago Jim O'Neill, the global chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management who coined the term "Bric", said: "It's just wrong. South Africa doesn’t belong in Brics. South Africa has too small an economy. There are not many similarities with the other four countries in terms of the numbers. In fact, South Africa's inclusion has somewhat weakened the group's power."

He added: "South Africa has to stop feeling sorry for itself and be doers instead of talkers. When your country first introduced inflation targeting about 15 years ago and I sat with some of the policymakers, I was big on South Africa. I'm not now. Over the past few years South Africa has lost its focus."