Our weekly round-up of must-read stories you might have missed: Zahra’s paradise: the Iranian woman running for president, Water: the Connecting Link to Climate Change Adaptation, Ten million children work as domestic servants, DNA code sheds light on world-ranging alga and Alexis Okeowo asks: China in Africa: The New Imperialists?
Zahra’s paradise: the Iranian woman running for president – June 11, 2013
Zahra is the protagonist of a web graphic novel called Zahra’s Paradise. She’s also a virtual candidate for Iran’s elections this year. Amir and Khalil, the two authors of Zahra’s Paradise, launched the virtual campaign as a creative way to challenge power and involve people from across the world. They have a Facebook page and a webpage where people can virtually vote for Zahra, take photos of themselves with her posters, but also send postcards and buy trinkets. The novel deals with the struggle of a mother who lost her son in the protests in Iran in 2009 and was first launched online. “The internet combined with a graphic novel allows us to break down all the barriers of time and space,” says Amir…
Water: the Connecting Link to Climate Change Adaptation – June 11, 2013
“An integrated approach to managing and developing the world’s water resources is vital for not only driving world economies, ensuring human well-being and security from hunger, but can also serve as an essential building block for enhancing coherence on adaptation,” said Dr. Ursula Schaefer-Preuss, Chair of GWP at a side event at the Bonn climate change negotiations. “Water is the connecting link because climate impacts are largely felt through the medium of water,” she said. This was one of the main messages at a side event on Monday, June 10, 2013, “The connecting link: Water Security and Adaptation.”…
Ten million children work as domestic servants: ILO – June 12, 2013
As many as 10.5 million children worldwide work as domestic servants, in what can be hazardous and even slave-like conditions, the International Labour Organization said Wednesday. The UN labour agency said almost three quarters of such youngsters are girls, and that 6.5 million child servants are between five and 14 years old. The reality on the ground flies in the face of international efforts to halt such exploitation, said Constance Thomas, director of the ILO’s global programme to eliminate child labour. “The situation of many child domestic workers not only constitutes a serious violation of child rights, but remains an obstacle to the achievement of many national and international development objectives,” she said…
DNA code sheds light on world-ranging alga – June 12, 2013
It’s just a tiny thing — a single-celled organism visible only under a microscope — yet it is one of the most successful life forms on the planet. So say scientists who on Wednesday published the DNA code of an ocean alga called Emiliania huxleyi, whose astonishing adaptability enables it to thrive in waters from the equator to the sub-Arctic. Known under the more useful moniker of “Ehux,” the alga has a thin, hard, chalky shell of calcium carbonate. Condensed piles of billions of long-dead Ehuxes comprise, for instance, the White Cliffs of Dover. In the ocean, “blooms” of Ehux algae can cover thousands of square kilometres (square miles), and their milky reflected light can be seen from space…
China in Africa: The New Imperialists? – June 12, 2013
It happened in Zambia like it could happen elsewhere in Africa. Chinese investors made deals with the government to mine its natural resources, filling federal coffers with billions of dollars. Chinese immigrants moved into cities and rural towns. They started construction companies; opened copper, coal, and gem mines; and built hotels and restaurants, all providing new jobs. They set up schools and hospitals. But then instances of corruption, labor abuse, and criminal coverups began to set the relationship between the Chinese and the Africans aflame. The Chinese have managed to accomplish at least one impressive thing in Africa—they have made everyone else uncomfortable…
