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Benjamin McKeown

Why Ebola is terrifying and dangerous: It preys on family, caregiving, and human bonds. - 0 views

www.slate.com/..._on_family_caregiving_and.html

health disease

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 22 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • 75 percent of Ebola victims are women, people who do much of the care work throughout Africa and the rest of the world. In short, Ebola parasitizes our humanity.
  • Its kill rate: In this particular outbreak, a running tabulation suggests that 54 percent of the infected die, though adjusted numbers suggest that the rate is much higher. Its exponential growth: At this point, the number of people infected is doubling approximately every three weeks, leading some epidemiologists to project between 77,000 and 277,000 cases by the end of 2014. The gruesomeness with which it kills: by hijacking cells and migrating throughout the body to affect all organs, causing victims to bleed profusely. The ease with which it is transmitted: through contact with bodily fluids, including sweat, tears, saliva, blood, urine, semen, etc., including objects that have come in contact with bodily fluids (such as bed sheets, clothing, and needles) and corpses. The threat of mutation: Prominent figures have expressed serious concerns that this disease will go airborne, and there are many other mechanisms through which mutation might make it much more transmissible.
Benjamin McKeown

1st case of contracting Ebola outside of Africa - CNN.com - 0 views

edition.cnn.com/...index.html

ebola disease africa

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 07 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • urse's assistant in Spain is the first person known to have contracted Ebo
  • treat a Spanish missionary and a Spanish priest, both of whom had contracted Ebola in West Africa. Both died after returning to Spain.
  • have had contact with while contagious. So far, there are n
Benjamin McKeown

Fact Sheet: Attaining the Demographic Dividend - 0 views

www.prb.org/...raphic-dividend-factsheet.aspx

population dividend

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 06 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • The demographic dividend is the accelerated economic growth that may result from a decline in a country's birth and death rates and the subsequent change in the age structure of the population. With fewer births each year, a country's young dependent population declines in relation to the working-age population. With fewer people to support, a country has a window of opportunity for rapid economic growth if the right social and economic policies are developed and investments made.
  • The first step, in fact, is a transition from high birth and death rates to low birth rates and child death rates—a process referred to as the "demographic transition."
  • While child survival has greatly improved in developing countries, birth rates remain high in many of them. To achieve the economic benefits of the demographic dividend, developing countries must substantially lower both birth and child death rates.
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  • One in four women in developing countries wants to avoid becoming pregnant or delay or space their births but is not using a modern family planning method.
  • sub-Saharan Africa, women in the region today have on average 5.1 children
  • Investment in voluntary family planning helped Thailand accelerate economic growth and provides a model for sub-Saharan African countries.
  • his shifted the age structure of Thailand's population, providing a critical first step toward achieving the economic benefits of a demographic dividend.
  • Rwanda is one of several countries in eastern and southern Africa where investments in voluntary family planning and child survival have led to significantly lower fertility.
  • If the impressive progress continues, Rwanda will, by 2030, have achieved the demographic conditions necessary for accelerated economic growth.
  • While family planning is necessary for establishing the conditions for a demographic dividend, investments in child health, education, and gender equality are critical additional steps that contribute to family planning use and economic growth.
Benjamin McKeown

Advertising and Global Culture | Cultural Survival - 0 views

www.culturalsurvival.org/...advertising-and-global-culture

culture HL TNC

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 26 Feb 19 - No Cached
  • of
  • Author Janus Noreen No one can travel to Africa, Asia, or Latin America and not be struck by the Western elements of urban life. The symbols of transnational culture - automobiles, advertising, supermarkets, shopping centers, hotels, fast food chains, credit cards, and Hollywood movies - give the, feeling of being at home. Behind these tangible symbols are a corresponding set of values and attitudes about time, consumption, work relations, etc. Some believe global culture has resulted from gradual spontaneous processes that depended solely on technological innovations - increased international trade, global mass communications, jet travel. Recent studies show that the processes are anything but spontaneous; that they are the result of tremendous investments of time, energy and money by transnational corporations. This "transnational culture" is a direct outcome of the internationalization of production and accumulation promoted through standardized development models and cultural forms.
  • The common theme of transnational culture is consumption. Advertising expresses this ideology of consumption in its most synthetic and visual form.
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  • Advertisers rely on few themes: happiness, youth, success, status, luxury, fashion, and beauty. In advertising, social contradictions and class differences are masked and workplace conflicts are not shown. Advertising campaigns suggest that solutions to human problems are to be found in individual consumption, presented as an ideal outlet for mass energies...a socially acceptable form of action and participation which can be used to defuse potential political unrest. "Consumer democracy" is held out to the poor around the world as a substitute for political democracy.
  • Transnational advertising is one of the major reasons both for the spread of transnational culture and the breakdown of traditional cultures.
  • Transnational culture strives to eliminate local cultural variations. Barnett and Muller discuss the social impact of this process:
  • What are the long range social effects of advertising on people who earn less than $200 a year? (Peasants, domestic workers, and laborers) learn of the outside world through the images and slogans of advertising. One message that comes through clearly is that happiness, achievement, and being white have something to do with one another
  • In mestizo countries (sic) such as Mexico and Venezuela where most of the population still bear strong traces of their Indian origin, billboards depicting the good life for sale invariably feature blond, blue-eyed American-looking men and women. One effect of such "white is beautiful" advertising is to reinforce feelings of inferiority which are the essence of a politically immobilizing colonial mentality...The subtle message of the global advertiser in poor countries is "Neither you nor what you create are worth very much, we will sell you a civilization (emphasis added).
  • Transnational firms and global advertising agencies are clearly aware of the role of advertising in the creation of a new consumer culture in Third World countries
  • Television antennas are gradually taking the plac
  • tom-tom drums across the vast stretches of Africa. Catchy jingles are replacing tribal calls in the Andes of Latin America. Spic-and-span supermarkets stand, on the grounds where colorful wares of an Oriental Bazaar were once spread throughout Asia. Across vast continents hundreds of millions of people are awakening to the beat of modern times.
  • Increasingly advertising campaigns are aimed at the vast numbers of poor in Third World countries
  • As one U.S. advertising executive observes about the Mexican consumer market, even poor families, when living together and pooling their incomes, can add up to a household income of more than $10,000 per year
  • The use of television to spread transnational culture is especially effective with illiterates
  • By consuming Coca-Cola, Nestle products, Marlboro, Maggi, Colgate or Revlon, Ivorians are not only fulfilling unnecessary needs but also progressively relinquishing their authentic world outlook in favor of the transnational way of life.
  • In trying to be as white as possible, that is to say, in becoming ashamed of their traditional being, the Ivorians are at the same time relinquishing one of the most powerful weapons at their disposal for safeguarding their dignity as human beings: their racial identify. And advertising is not neutral in such a state of affairs.
  • Yet, the advertising of Coca-Cola and Heinekens portrays drinking as an individual act rather than a collective one.
  • Santoro concluded that these stereotypes held by children were largely the same ones to be found in typical Venezuelan television and advertising contents.
  • These results, while very tentative, suggest that the impact of transnational culture is greater among the poor - the very people who cannot afford to buy the lifestyle it represents. The poor are more likely to associate consumption with happiness and feel that industrialized products are better than the locally made ones. But at the same time they are painfully aware that only the rich have access to the lifestyle portrayed.
  • Virtually every child showed an acute awareness of the different access to these products by class.
  • Again, poor children more often answered that Nescafe is coffee, and Tang is orange juice
  • poorer children were significantly more likely to associate the luxury possessions with happiness than the rich children.
  • What political impact does the spread of transnational culture have on the poor for whom luxury lifestyles are not possible? How do they deal with the daily contradictions that this awareness implies? How much will they accept and how much will they reject? How can they maintain their own identities in the face of transnational culture
  • Benjamin McKeown on 26 Feb 19
     
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Benjamin McKeown

BBC News - Halving of malaria deaths 'tremendous achievement' - 1 views

www.bbc.com/health-30375202

disease malaria

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 09 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Global efforts have halved the number of people dying from malaria -
  • In 2004, 3% of those at risk had access to mosquito nets, but now 50% do.
  • scaling up of diagnostic testing, and more people now are able to receive medicines to treat the parasitic infection, which is spread by the bites of infected mosquitoes.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • An increasing number of countries are moving towards malaria elimination.
  • 2013, two countries - Azerbaijan and Sri Lanka - reported zero indigenous cases for the first time, and 11 others (Argentina, Armenia, Egypt, Georgia, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Oman, Paraguay, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) succeeded in maintaining zero cases
  • Africa, where 90% of all malaria deaths occur, infections have decreased significantly.
  • Here, the number of people infected has fallen by a quarter
  • despite a 43% increase in the African population
  • "These tremendous achievements are the result of improved tools, increased political commitment, the burgeoning of regional initiatives, and a major increase in international and domestic financing.
  • Most malaria-endemic countries are still far from achieving universal coverage with life-saving malaria interventions
  • Emerging drug- and insecticide-resistance continued to pose a major threat, and if left unaddressed, could trigger an upsurge in deaths,
  • There are also fears that the ongoing Ebola crisis in West Africa may set back the malaria fight.
Benjamin McKeown

Global M&A: Shifting the global chemical industry balance | KPMG | GLOBAL - 0 views

www.kpmg.com/...-global-chemical-industry.aspx

HL pollution

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 19 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • This assessment certainly holds true for the chemical industry. Many chemical companies now have strong balance sheets as the result of increased sales in 2010 and lower overhead due to cost-cutting measures taken during the recession. With volumes still below 2008 levels, further sales growth is expected in 2011.
  • In addition, political instability in the Middle East and North Africa have the potential of generating a significant and long-term impact on oil prices and hence the global economy. As a result, many chemical companies are adopting a wait-and-see attitude for deal making in the region.
  • BICME countries (Brazil, India, China, Middle East) will increasingly dominate chemical industry M&A activity in the years ahead, supported by growth in end markets, government policies and access to funding. Already, M&A in BICME countries have increased from 5 percent of deal value and 17 percent of deal volume in 2007 to 30 percent of deal value and 28 percent of deal volume in 2010.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Recent KPMG research suggests that over US$100 billion in deals could be transacted for global chemicals in the next two years. Much of this activity will have a deeply transformative effect on the industry.
  • Possible new majors by 2020
  • The world's chemical producing regions are starting from different positions in the race to capture this downstream demand. The established companies in the West will continue to leverage their traditional strengths in technology and expertise. Asian and Middle Eastern companies will take advantage of their relatively strong cash positions, government funding and proximity to feedstocks and high-growth markets. At the same time, competition between emerging market companies is likely to increase as players in both areas seek to acquire the same assets.
  • Benjamin McKeown on 19 Mar 13
     
    "Global M&A: Shifting the global chemical industry balance"
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