Skip to main content

Home/ Geopolitics Weekly/ Group items tagged Urban Planning

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Larry Keiler

Surprise: Big Old New York City Is the Cutting Edge for Urban Transportation and a Visi... - 1 views

www.alternet.org/...ision_for_a_sustainable_future

Transportation Urban Planning

shared by Larry Keiler on 16 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Larry Keiler on 16 Feb 11
     
    An excellent profile of NYC's transportation commissioner and the innovative changes happening there.
Pedro Gonçalves

China thinktank urges end of one-child policy | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...ank-abolition-one-child-policy

China Society

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 31 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • A Chinese government thinktank is urging the country's leaders to start phasing out its one-child policy immediately and allow two children for every family by 2015, a daring proposal to do away with the unpopular policy.
  • Some demographers view the timeline put forward by the China Development Research Foundation as a bold move by a body close to the central leadership. Others warn that the gradual approach, if implemented, would still be insufficient to help correct the problems that China's strict birth limits have created.
  • The official Xinhua News Agency said the foundation recommends a two-child policy in some provinces from this year and a nationwide two-child policy by 2015. It proposes all birth limits be dropped by 2020, Xinhua reported.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • "China has paid a huge political and social cost for the policy, as it has resulted in social conflict, high administrative costs and led indirectly to a long-term gender imbalance at birth," Xinhua said, citing the report.
  • But it remains unclear whether Chinese leaders are ready to take up the recommendations. China's National Population and Family Planning Commission had no immediate comment on the report on Tuesday.
  • The government limits most urban couples to one child, and allows two children for rural families if their first-born is a girl. There are numerous other exceptions as well, including looser rules for minority families and a two-child limit for parents who are themselves both singletons.
  • The government recognises those problems and has tried to address them by boosting social services for the elderly. It has also banned sex-selective abortion and rewarded rural families whose only child is a girl.
  • the one-child policy – introduced in 1980 as a temporary measure to curb the surging population
  • Though the government credits the policy with preventing hundreds of millions of births and helping lift countless families out of poverty, it is reviled by many ordinary people. The strict limits have led to forced abortions and sterilisations, even though such measures are illegal. Couples who flout the rules face hefty fines, seizure of their property and loss of their jobs.
  • Many demographers argue the policy has worsened the country's aging crisis by limiting the size of the young labour pool that must support the large baby boom generation as it retires. They say it has contributed to the imbalanced sex ratio by encouraging families to abort baby girls, preferring to try for a male heir.
  • Cai said the transition could keep population reform on the backburner or changes may be rushed through to help burnish the reputations of outgoing President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao.
  • leaders have so far expressed a desire to maintain the status quo. President Hu said last year that China would keep its strict family planning policy to keep the birth rate low and other officials have said that no changes are expected until at least 2015.
Argos Media

Hillary Clinton pledges to keep troops in Iraq if violence escalates | World news | The... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...linton-iraq-us-army-withdrawal

Iraq US Hillary Clinton

shared by Argos Media on 26 Apr 09 - Cached
  • The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, made a surprise visit to Baghdad yesterday to reassure Iraqi leaders that the Obama White House would refrain from withdrawing its troops from urban areas if renewed violence continued to worsen.Clinton's visit, her first since being appointed in January, followed a sharp surge in attacks over the past three days that left as many as 155 dead and prompted fears that recent security gains could unravel.
  • The attacks, which have mostly taken place in and around Baghdad, have sparked concern that the planned US drawback in July could destabilise areas which the withdrawal was meant to consolidate.
  • "I think that these suicide bombings are, unfortunately in a tragic way, a signal that the rejectionists fear Iraq is going in the right direction," she told reporters travelling with her. "I think in Iraq there will always be political conflicts, there will always be, as in any society, sides drawn between different factions, but I really believe Iraq as a whole is on the right track."
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • On Friday, Odierno's predecessor, General David Petraeus, told the US Congress that, despite spasms of deadly violence, attacks across Iraq were down from 160 a day during the peak of the sectarian chaos three years ago to 10 to 15 a day now.
  • He also claimed that four recent suicide bombings had been carried out by Tunisian insurgents who had infiltrated Iraq. The claim marks the first acknowledgment for many months that foreign fighters continue to travel to Iraq. Both Iraqi and US officials had recently maintained that attacks were being carried out by homegrown extremists.
  • Ahead of her visit, Clinton echoed Maliki's concerns that the make-up of Iraq's new security forces was still sectarian. She said she would press for creation of a non-sectarian force.
1 - 3 of 3
Showing 20▼ items per page