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sammyshrestha

A Top Chinese Official (Not Xi Jinping) Will Visit North Korea - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...na-north-korea-xi-jinping.html

chinese north korea

shared by sammyshrestha on 05 Sep 18 - No Cached
  • sammyshrestha on 05 Sep 18
     
    A member of the Politburo Standing Committee, Li Zhanshu, will visit Pyongyang this week to participate in national celebrations. President Xi is likely not participating to avoid tension with the US.
Catherine Binder

Russia Wants to Formalize Relation With E.U. - 3 views

www.nytimes.com/...18iht-germany.html

Russia

shared by Catherine Binder on 22 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Catherine Binder on 22 Oct 10
     
    Seeing as how we just finished our discussions on the EU, this article is about Russia's request to formally participate in an EU committee. Russia wants to have more of a say in Europe, and Germany seems open to the idea (note that Germany is a major European ally for Russia). Medvedev, Merkel, and Sarkozy will soon meet up to discuss the idea. Germany carries a lot of influence in the EU, but I'm curious as to how the other member states truly feel about it.
  • ...3 more comments...
  • Samantha Bishop on 22 Oct 10
     
    This article is fascinating because I had no idea that Russia wants to join the EU. It seems like there are both many countries who want Russia to join but also many countries who don't. If Russia joined the EU, what would this mean economically? Would the EU become a stronger power? I am still not sure of many advantages and disadvantages of them joining, but I think that it is very interesting that a meeting will be taking place in Deauville about it.
  • anonymous on 22 Oct 10
     
    I, too, did not know that Russia wants to join the EU. I would like to know more about why Russia wants to join (any reasons other than influence?), and how countries aside from Germany feel about Russia joining. Something I find interesting: most of Russia is in Asia, yet they associate with the west.
  • larkin smith on 22 Oct 10
     
    Its interesting to me that Russia is not asking to actually join the EU, but only wants to be part of a certain section of it-the security portion. I wonder if Russia does want to join the EU, but simply doesn't think that its a viable option at this point.
  • Catherine Binder on 22 Oct 10
     
    Sorry, but I just have to make the distinction (with Larkin) that Russia isn't trying to join the EU, but rather requesting to participate in an EU committee. The summit that is occurring between the 3 leaders is about strengthening the EU-Russia relationship. The NY Times article I posted was about Russia trying to join the EU political and security committee. Now that the summit has occurred, here are some more recent articles about it. Hopefully they're more clear. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/world/europe/19iht-summit.html?src=twrhp http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-10/20/c_13565527.htm
  • Gregory Freiberg on 22 Oct 10
     
    To Larkin's comment: Yes, that is very interesting, as we learned in class some countries join the EU for the fiscal benefits or the security benefits; however, they must join the entire EU and that is when we said the benefits that a niation get from the EU should outweight the things that the EU will make the country take part in that they may not want to. It's sort of funny that Russia would try to avoid the EU only in some areas.
ejeffs

Fact sheet on Somalia's 2016 Elector Process - 2 views

reliefweb.int/...ctoral-process-10-october-2016

somalia failed state elections 2016 africa

shared by ejeffs on 14 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • ejeffs on 14 Oct 16
     
    Stateless Somalia is attempting to re-legitimize itself by creating a new electoral process for the 2016 election. Somalia's next president will be elected on November 30th. Some interesting aspects to note is that this election is not universal, but putting a process in place is the country's first step to developing universal elections by 2020 and creating more political participation.
  • madeirat on 14 Oct 16
     
    I think it is especially interesting how hard they are trying to get female representation (1 of ever 3 seats in the House of the People will be contested by only women, 30% of seats in the upper house reserved for women, 16 of 51 delegates required to be women, registration to be a candidate is half as much for women compared to men). I appreciate that they are trying to get diverse representation, but did they go so far as to be a little patronizing? I don't know enough about Somalia to answer, but I'm curious what you think.
Kay Bradley

Telling Americans to Vote, or Else - NYTimes.com - 2 views

www.nytimes.com/...americans-to-vote-or-else.html

voter turnout elections nytimes

shared by Kay Bradley on 06 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Thirty-one countries have some form of mandatory voting
  • Australia adopted mandatory voting in 1924, backed by small fines (roughly the size of traffic tickets) for nonvoting, rising with repeated acts of nonparticipation.
  • The results were remarkable. In the 1925 election, the first held under the new law, turnout soared to 91 percent. In recent elections, it has hovered around 95 percent. The law also changed civic norms. Australians are more likely than before to see voting as an obligation. The negative side effects many feared did not materialize. For example, the percentage of ballots intentionally spoiled or completed randomly as acts of resistance remained on the order of 2 to 3 percent.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • A democracy can’t be strong if its citizenship is weak. And right now American citizenship is attenuated — strong on rights, weak on responsibilities
  • three reasons in favor of mandatory votin
  • The second argument for mandatory voting is democratic
  • if some regularly vote while others don’t, officials are likely to give greater weight to participants
  • This might not matter much if nonparticipants were evenly distributed through the population. But political scientists have long known that they aren’t. People with lower levels of income and education are less likely to vote, as are young adults and recent first-generation immigrants
  • Changes in our political system have magnified these disparities.
  • Kay Bradley on 06 Nov 11
     
    Mandatory voting proposal. Compares to Australia, which has had mandatory voting since 1924.
Kako Ito

Public insurance and the least well-off | Lane Kenworthy - 6 views

lanekenworthy.net/surance-and-the-least-well-off

public insurance economics welfare poor nordic model universalism targeting redistribution income inequality

shared by Kako Ito on 27 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Public insurance also boosts the living standards of the poor. It increases their income, and it provides them with services for which they bear relatively little of the cost.
  • Critics charge that public social programs tend to hurt the poor in the long run by reducing employment and economic growth. Are they correct?
  • Does public insurance erode self-reliance? Is a large private safety net as helpful to the least well-off as a large public one? Are universal programs more effective than targeted ones? Are income transfers the key, or are services important too?
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • Once again we see no indication that public insurance generosity has had a damaging effect
  • Note also that the employment rate increased in nearly all of the countries during this period. On average, it rose by nine percentage points between 1979 and 2013. That’s not what we would expect to see if generous public insurance programs were inducing large numbers of able adults to withdraw from the labor market
  • What we see in the chart is that countries with more generous public insurance programs tend to have less material deprivation.
  • With globalization, the advance of computers and robots, increased pressure from shareholders for short-run profit maximization, union weakening, and other shifts, wages have been under pressure. Couple this with the fact that many people at the low end of the income ladder have labor market disadvantages — disability, family constraint, geographic vulnerability to structural unemployment — and we have a recipe for stagnation in the market incomes of the poor.
  • here’s a good reason for these shifts: government provision offers economies of scale and scope, which reduces the cost of a good or service and thereby makes it available to many people who couldn’t or wouldn’t get it on their own.
  • Government provides more insurance now than it used to. All of us, not just some, are dependent on it. And life for almost everyone is better because of it
  • hese expenditures are encouraged by government tax advantages.22 But they do little to help people on the bottom of the ladder, who often work for employers that don’t provide retirement or health benefits.
  • To make them more affordable, the government claws back some of the benefit by taxing it as though it were regular income. All countries do this, including the United States, but the Nordic countries do it more extensively. Does that hurt their poor? Not much. The tax rates increase with household income, so much of the tax clawback hits middle- and upper-income households.
  • Another difference is that public services such as schooling, childcare, medical care, housing, and transportation are more plentiful and of better quality for the poor in the Nordic countries. Public services reduce deprivation and free up income to be spent on other needs. It’s difficult to measure the impact of services on living standards, but one indirect way is to look at indicators of material deprivation,
  • Targeted transfers are directed (sometimes disproportionately, sometimes exclusively) to those with low incomes and assets, whereas universal transfers are provided to most or all citizens.
  • Targeted programs are more efficient at reducing poverty; each dollar or euro or kroner transferred is more likely to go to the least well-off. Increased targeting therefore could be an effective way to maintain or enhance public insurance in the face of diminished resources.
  • “the more we target benefits to the poor … the less likely we are to reduce poverty and inequality.”
  • Korpi and Palme found that the pattern across eleven affluent nations supported the hypothesis that greater use of targeting in transfers yields less redistribution
  • The hypothesis that targeting in social policy reduces political support and thereby lessens redistributive effort is a sensible one. Yet the experience of the rich countries in recent decades suggests reason to question it. Targeting has drawbacks relative to universalism: more stigma for recipients, lower take-up rates, and possibly less social trust.44 But targeting is less expensive. As pressures to contain government expenditures mount, policy makers may therefore turn to greater use of targeting. That may not be a bad thing.
  • Public insurance programs boost the incomes of the least well-off and improve their material well-being. If such programs are too generous, this benefit could be offset by reduced employment or economic growth, but the comparative evidence suggests that the world’s rich nations haven’t reached or exceeded the tipping point.
  • Spending lots of money on social protection is not in and of itself helpful to the poor. Total social expenditures in the United States are greater than in Denmark and Sweden, because the US has a large private welfare state. But relatively little of America’s private social spending reaches the poor.
  • Public services are an important antipoverty tool. Their benefit doesn’t show up in income data, but they appear to play a key role in reducing material hardship. Services expand the sphere of consumption for which the cost is zero or minimal. And they help to boost the earnings and capabilities of the poor by enhancing human capital, assisting with job search and placement, and facilitating work-family balance.
  • Kako Ito on 27 Sep 15
     
    Through this article I have gained a deeper insight in how public expenditures and public goods promote wealth equality in a society. "Public services are an important antipoverty tool."
  • ...2 more comments...
  • olivialum on 29 Sep 15
     
    This article really helped me deepen my understanding of redistributing wealth downwards. I never thought about it, but things like social security, affirmative action programs, and public education are actually insurances that attempt to provide everybody with more equality when it comes to living standards as well as basic human rights.
  • samoshay on 29 Sep 15
     
    Yeah, it is a very common argument to say that social expenditures disincentives workers; interesting analysis on how wealthy countries haven't reached the "tipping point." I am curious to see what happens to labor force participation and employment in the next decades as robots further divorce economic growth from labor supply/demand.
  • charlesleesohn on 29 Sep 15
     
    Cool theory in regards to "the tipping point". Interesting, and solid criticism of large social expenditures. Wonder how socialists view this, as opposed to free-market economists.
  • smowat on 29 Sep 15
     
    "Public services are an important antipoverty tool. Their benefit doesn't show up in income data, but they appear to play a key role in reducing material hardship." INteresting to see the statistics and how social expenditures help reduce poverty and the wealth gap.
Heather Anderson

Chevron Toxic Waste Pit in Ecuador: Designed to Pollute - 2 views

chevrontoxico.com/?utm_source=Amazon+Watch+Newsletter+and+Updates&utm_campaign=a49a3acb83-Chevron_Oct_15_2010&utm_medium=email

Chevron Less Developed World:

shared by Heather Anderson on 16 Oct 10 - No Cached
Kay Bradley liked it
  • Heather Anderson on 16 Oct 10
     
    This is video evidence on the toxic pollution caused by Texaco, bought by Chevron, which now refuses to take responsibility to clean it up. A family friend used to be a geologist and work examining soil quality. The company she worked at got most of their business from (I think) Chevron. Chevron (or some other company) would finish with well sites and then neglect to clean them up/ make them safe. When environmental agencies requested that Chevron examine and clean up their left over sites, Chevron made our friend's company file a report saying that they were "monitoring" the site to see what happens. Basically, instead of working to help the environment, they were helping a big petroleum company squirm out of taking responsibility. She eventually quit her job because 1) it wasn't what she had hoped it would be, and 2) there was nothing to do all day, since one of their only jobs was to report that sites were being "monitored" and meanwhile do nothing. NOTE: take this story with a grain of salt, because I don't remember the conversation perfectly, nor do I know the details of her job, the company, the situation, etc... this is just my general recollection.
  • ...2 more comments...
  • Kay Bradley on 17 Oct 10
     
    Wow. That's quite a story, Heather. Two years ago in Ethics we did a case study on this--a Head-Royce Alum who is a biologist and photographer participated in the making of a documentary about this story called "Crude."
  • anonymous on 18 Oct 10
     
    Quite the video, too. It's sad how people get so upset over the BP oil spill, but when I bring up the chevron issue (and talk about what we studied toward the end of last year) to my friends, they typically have no idea this went on (and still is, since it seems the old sites are only being "monitored").
  • Gregory Freiberg on 18 Oct 10
     
    Yeah I sort of feel ignorant right now because i honestly had no idea that that was going on. I am shocked at how blatant that is. When i first saw the oil on the ground i was like wow that horrible but then i was even further horrified with i realized that it was so blatant they even put a pipe connecting it to the rest of the forest for drainage purposes. It is unbelievable what huge corporations do to the world and make a huge profit by polluting someone else's backyard. :( awesome video though Heather. Thank you for educating me
  • Amara Plaza-Jennings on 19 Oct 10
     
    Last year Latino Club went to see "Crude" (Heather, I think you went too) and it only built off of what you see in this video here. The rivers that he was saying would get contaminated are used by different villages and many people developed cancer and other health problems from the oil in their water. It's appalling what Chevron did and, as you all said, how few people know about it.
ellie davis

Notes pages 10-13 - 1 views

Proportional representation (PR)=Multimember districts (MMD) Single-member districts (SMD)=1 representative for each constituency personal dictatorship=based on power of an individual military regi...

started by ellie davis on 08 Sep 11 no follow-up yet
Annie Wanless

Wall Street Protesters Speak - Video Library - The New York Times - 1 views

video.nytimes.com/...l-street-protesters-speak.html

wall street

shared by Annie Wanless on 09 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Annie Wanless on 09 Oct 11
     
    Video interviewing some of the people occupying wall street. Mentions how they don't really have common goals yet. It's interesting to see the type - and diversity - of people involved in the movement.
  • ellie davis on 16 Oct 11
     
    This is an important video to watch because it hits all of the complaints people have about this movement. It is also directly from those participating, as opposed to opinions that have been misconstrued and taken out of context by the media.
miriambachman

Ebola Drug Could Save a Few Lives. But Whose? - 5 views

www.nytimes.com/...uld-get-experimental-drug.html

Ebola

shared by miriambachman on 02 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • miriambachman on 02 Sep 14
     
    This article not only touches upon the dangerous and negative effects of the Ebola outbreak, but calls into questions an ethical controversy regarding preferential treatment when it comes to medical care. As the need for a cure escalates, the time allotted for the testing and developing of an anti-Ebola drug diminishes. Thus, medicine that has not been thoroughly tested has been distributed to two white Americans infected with the virus. This begs the question: Why these two? Does it have to do with their race or anti-African biases? And once the drug is fully developed, who will receive the treatment first? Who will be prioritized? Additionally, this contentious matter has added to the already distrustful African view of Western pharmaceuticals and relief efforts.
  • ...2 more comments...
  • Karan Rai on 04 Sep 14
     
    I think this article really shows how the US can't really win in the eyes of other countries. If they had tested people from Africa before treating the American citzens who had been infected, then America would have been accused of using the Africans as guinea pigs. Instead, the CDC is now being accused of racism and valuing the lives of Americans over Africans.
  • bonnie_ko on 04 Sep 14
     
    Fascinating article! Like Karan mentioned, countries developing vaccines are in a bit of a Catch-22 bind. I personally think that offering the drugs to those it could benefit most would be the most helpful to both research and those it could save, but the hesitance on the companies part is understandable. I think interesting questions to ask is "Where is the line between justified and unjustified fear?", and "are possible lives saved worth the risk that it may end some?" I certainly am in the boat that all participants should be warned outright of negative side effects and possible failure as a part of experimental treatment. But the most fascinating part of this article is how it never mentions polling the people of the affected countries. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only people whose opinion is really concerned is country heads and ethicists. What do the people think of getting a fighting chance?
  • dredd15 on 04 Sep 14
     
    I found it interesting that not only did the article touch on the ethical questions of who to give the first available drugs to, from a standpoint of where it would be most effective rather than just where it would be most convenient. The part of the article where acceptance of the drug came into question was another touchy matter. The attempt to administer the drug as a solution to the Ebola break out is difficult because of the nature of the illness and the apprehension towards Western Medicine. Even though the medicine is available there's no telling if this quick fix will actually contain and solve the crisis just as Arthur Kaplan says at the end of the article.
  • aaron_godinez on 04 Sep 14
     
    The article brings to light interesting conflicts between African countries and the western industries of medicine. I feel like it would be effective to offer medical education to the local inhabitants in the infected african countries. That way their knowledge can help them avoid getting the disease. Furthermore, they would have more knowledge to help them decide whether or not they would like to take the drug that is possibly a functioning vaccination, rather than just not giving the sick African patients the option. The complexity of this problem is interesting because it deals with issues of ethics and trust.
samoshay

Four Solutions to the US Social Security Problem - 0 views

www.newyorkfed.org/...sr505.pdf

shared by samoshay on 07 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • samoshay on 07 Dec 15
     
    In addition to proposing four possible solutions to the United States's Social Security problems, this staff report also gives insight into the problems a newly designed system would need to foresee, such as the upcoming demographic shift, the dropping labor force participation rate amongst younger individuals, increased consumption, potentially stagnant economic growth, etc. The proposed solutions are to "1) increase payroll taxes by 6 percentage points, 2) reduce the replacement rates of the benefit formula by one-third, 3) raise the normal retirement age from sixty-six to seventy-three, or 4) means-test the benefits and reduce them one-to-one with income." Means-testing, already used in Medicaid, is the process by which the government assessing the income and assets of individuals and families to see if they could live without the government's help. In this case, only the poorest would receive benefits. The solution was first proposed by Ross Perot; however, it could lead to a social stigma around accepting pension benefits. Furthermore, each solution has its own repercussions and political obstacles. Maybe it is possible to look overseas to find more palatable solutions.
Kay Bradley

Petition · Berkeley City Council: Protect Goldfish and Other Animals Used as ... - 1 views

www.change.org/...68622935

government civic culture participation local community political groups

shared by Kay Bradley on 18 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • simonets on 18 Sep 17
     
    Hello everyone, if you support my initiative to ban the use of goldfish as prizes, please sign this petition! It is vitally important to its success!
Kay Bradley

Methodology 2019 | Freedom House - 0 views

freedomhouse.org/...methodology-freedom-world-2019

freedom research ranking world rank democracy

shared by Kay Bradley on 12 Sep 19 - No Cached
  • three-tiered system consisting of scores, ratings, and status.
  • tables for converting scores to ratings and ratings to status, appear at the end of this essay.
  • 0 to 4 points for each of 10 political rights
  • ...27 more annotations...
  • 15 civil liberties indicators
  • 4 the greatest degree of freedom
  • The political rights questions are grouped into three subcategories: Electoral Process (3 questions), Political Pluralism and Participation (4), and Functioning of Government (3).
  • The civil liberties questions are grouped into four subcategories: Freedom of Expression and Belief (4 questions), Associational and Organizational Rights (3), Rule of Law (4), and Personal Autonomy and Individual Rights (4).
  • For the discretionary question, a score of 1 to 4 may be subtracted, as applicable (the worse the situation, the more points may be subtracted).
  • The highest overall score that can be awarded for political rights is 40 (or a score of 4 for each of the 10 questions). T
  • highest overall score that can be awarded for civil liberties is 60 (or a score of 4 for each of the 15 questions).
  • ach rating of 1 to 7, with 1 representing the greatest degree of freedom and 7 the smallest degree of freedom, corresponds to a specific range of total scores (see tables 1 and 2).
  • A country or territory is assigned two ratings
  • The average of a country or territory’s political rights and civil liberties ratings is called the Freedom Rating
  • upward or downward trend arrow
  • A trend arrow must be linked to a specific change or changes in score, and cannot be assigned if the country had no net change in score
  • Most score changes do not warrant trend arrows.
  • Electoral Democracy
  • designation “electoral democracy” to countries that have met certain minimum standards for political rights and civil liberties;
  • an electoral democracy designation requires a score of 7 or better in the Electoral Process subcategory, an overall political rights score of 20 or better, and an overall civil liberties score of 30 or better.
  • Countries and territories with a rating of 6 have very restricted political rights. They are ruled by authoritarian regimes, often with leaders or parties that originally took power by force and have been in office for decades.
  • hey may hold tightly controlled elections and grant a few political rights, such as some representation or autonomy for minority groups.
  • few or no political rights because of severe government oppression
  • While some are draconian police states, others may lack an authoritative and functioning central government and suffer from extreme violence or rule by regional warlords.
  • limits on media independence
  • estrictions on trade union activities
  • discrimination against minority groups and women.
  • strongly limit the rights of expression
  • frequently hold political prisoners
  • virtually no freedom of expression or association, do not protect the rights of detainees and prisoners, and often control most economic activity.
  • The gap between a country or territory’s political rights and civil liberties ratings is rarely more than two points. Politically oppressive states typically do not allow a well-developed civil society, for example, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to maintain political freedoms in the absence of civil liberties like press freedom and the rule of law.
Kay Bradley

Opinion | Choose a Gift That Changes Lives - The New York Times - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...itable-holiday-gift-guide.html

shared by Kay Bradley on 23 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Educate a girl. My grand prize winner is Camfed (originally called the Campaign for Female Education), which helps girls in African countries get an education.
  • Send a young person to college. Another prize winner is OneGoal, which mentors low-income students in the United States, helping them graduate from high school and succeed in college. OneGoal ensures that Black lives matter: 96 percent of participants are students of color, and it provides a bridge for them to complete high school and get a solid start in college.
  • Restore a person’s sight. My final prize winner is the Himalayan Cataract Project, also known as Cure Blindness, which fights blindness in Asia and Africa. This, too, is a bargain: The surgery can cost as little as $25 per person, or $50 for both eyes.The Himalayan Cataract Project was founded by Dr. Sanduk Ruit, a Nepali ophthalmologist who helped develop a cataract microsurgery technique (the “Nepal method”), and Dr. Geoff Tabin of Stanford University Medical School
  • Kay Bradley on 23 Nov 20
     
    "Educate a girl. Send a young person to college. Restore a person's sight. By Nicholas Kristof Opinion Columnist"
Kay Bradley

I've Protested for Racial Justice. Do I Have to Post on Social Media? - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...e-to-post-on-social-media.html

shared by Kay Bradley on 27 Aug 20 - No Cached
  • forms of moral argument that are motivated by the vanity of self-presentation
  • People engaged in moral grandstanding, they believe, will tend to “pile on,” repeating a widely shared criticism
  • “trump up,” depicting an innocent act as a major offense
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • ramp up,” making ever stronger and more polarizing claims in order to outdo the moral claims of others.
  • For Kant, it was of great importance that we not only do the right thing but do it for the right reason. The notion of virtue signaling, which was coined as a term of reproach, has precisely this Kantian valence.
  • But virtue signaling isn’t necessarily a vice. Let’s grant that it can have unfortunate aspects
  • When it comes to uncontested moral values, we can prize the unadvertised, anonymous good deed.
  • Yet the moral revolutions I’ve researched involve what political scientists have called “norm cascades,”
  • and the social dimension of position-taking plays a critical role here.
  • In the words of another philosopher, Neil Levy: “Signaling is a central function of public moral discourse, with an important role to play in enabling cooperation.” That’s why bumper stickers and slogans posted on walls, whether digital or physical, can be meaningful.
  • The malign effects of grandstanding are real, but typically happen when an important instrument for moral progress is put in service of bad goals rather than good ones
  • “Piling on” can mean that people have collectively decided to renounce a previously tolerated evil: It mattered that a great many law-enforcement officials and even some police-union representatives piled on against the callous killing of George Floyd
  • In moments of moral change, people shift from merely recognizing a wrong to wanting to do something about it. And what drives that shift is, in part, a sense that those who don’t contribute to change aren’t just not doing something good; they’re forfeiting their entitlement to the respect of those around them
  • Not participating becomes dishonorable.
  • To move a majority of people to live and act in new ways, you have to get them to feel that
  • doing the right thing is now required for social respect
mayas2021

Why Does the Coronavirus Hit Men Harder? A New Clue - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...coronavirus-men-immune.html

#coronavirus

shared by mayas2021 on 27 Aug 20 - No Cached
  • mayas2021 on 27 Aug 20
     
    Researchers have found that men produce weaker immune responses to the corona virus than women, and that men over 60 may need to depend of a vaccine more than others. These findings suggest that vaccine dosing may vary depending on the sex of the patient, and the FDA has asked companies pursuing vaccines to release data analyzed by participants' sex.
  • theos2022 on 29 Aug 20
     
    This was very interesting. A closer look suggests that older men have a much weaker activation of T cells which directly correlates to their poor responses to the disease. Even very old women aged 90 years old have a "decent immune response".
  • sashajlu on 01 Sep 20
     
    Hi Maya! This is such an interesting topic. I had always just assumed that everyone would get the same amount of vaccines. I am concerned how this will impact minorities. In the past, doctors and researchers have mostly examined only how sex (not race, ability, ect) plays a role in dosage (which has caused problems for minority populations). I am curious if researchers will examine how these other factors play a role in dosage rather than just sex.
samueld2022

Russia goes to the polls amid crackdown on political dissent - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

Russia

shared by samueld2022 on 18 Sep 21 - No Cached
  • samueld2022 on 18 Sep 21
     
    Russians head to the polls in what is expected to be an easy victory for the ruling United Russia Party. The power of the opposition parties has been significantly reduced thanks to crackdowns on political dissent by Putin and his government. It is interesting to watch Russia fall into authoritarianism while many lesser developed countries are moving towards democracy.
  • samuelws on 18 Sep 21
     
    I wonder what it will take for Eastern European "democracies" to hold relatively fair elections (thinking of Belarus here as an example). Based on the corruption detailed in the article, it seems that dictator presidents kind of filled the vacuum left by the fall of the USSR and people haven't been able to break their iron hold since.
  • Kay Bradley on 27 Sep 21
     
    Yes, lots of corruption. Yet the 2004-05 orange revolution in Ukraine led to a time of high participation democracy. It's a mixed bag of mostly corrupt regimes, some more so than others, Russia the worst.
juliam814

Desperate Haitians suffocate under growing power of gangs - 0 views

apnews.com/...93b917718e5f67f27317e765c410aa

Haiti economy economics

shared by juliam814 on 01 Nov 21 - No Cached
  • Gang violence waxes and wanes depending on the state of Haiti’s economy, its political situation and, at one point, the presence of United Nations peacekeepers.
  • Experts believe much of this activity is driven by extreme poverty in a country where 60% of the population makes less than $2 a day and millions of people go hungry.
  • The country’s GDP dropped to -3.3% last year, the biggest decrease since the -5.7 drop that followed a devastating 2010 earthquake. In addition, the Haitian gourde depreciated more than 50% in the past year, and inflation remains above 10%, which has reduced purchasing power, said Haitian economist Enomy Germain.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Gangs also choke Haiti’s economy by blocking gas distribution terminals and major transportation routes — moves that prevent goods from flowing through the country. Many gas stations now remain closed for days at a time.
  • juliam814 on 01 Nov 21
     
    Haitians resort to participating in gangs due to extreme poverty.
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