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Benjamin McKeown

'China's Worst Policy Mistake'? by Nicholas D. Kristof | The New York Review of Books - 0 views

www.nybooks.com/...chinas-worst-policy-mistake

population one child policy

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 10 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • n China and abroad, that those adopted babies, mostly girls, were unwanted in a male chauvinist society and abandoned by their parents. Many of those children, some of them now young adults, should know that it’s far more complicated than that. They are the products not of unloving parents, not so much of a misogynist tradition, but of a government policy that sundered families.
  • All fertile married women in their region were obliged to pee into a cup for a pregnancy test every three months; a positive result could lead to a mandatory abortion. Any couple that somehow evaded the controls risked a fine, the demolition of the family home, and forced sterilization.
  • Officials now had their salaries docked if there were babies born without permission in their localities, and the village leader had lost half his salary for that reason.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The local official in charge of family planning promised a $380 reward, presented anonymously, to anyone who informed on an unauthorized baby. Someone reported on Victory,
  • The one-child policy, unlike many Chinese missteps, was not a product of Chairman Mao’s zeal or ideology; in fact, China was extricating itself from Maoism when it adopted the one-child policy.
  • “One child isn’t too few, two are just fine, three are too many.” And within about a decade it managed without coercion to reduce the average number of births per woman from six to three, a remarkable achievement. It’s rarely acknowledged that the biggest drop in Chinese fertility came not from the one-child policy, but earlier during this voluntary birth control campaign.
  • If it had continued, China’s birth rates would have continued to drop, as they have for the rest of the region (Malaysia today averages just under two births per woman; Bangladesh averages 2.2).
  • In retrospect, Western sympathizers were right about the need to curb population growth in China—and blind to the brutality of China’s policy. Partly that’s because China covered up the abuses and pretended that the policy was essentially voluntary, backed by fines but not by force.
  • Internationally, the most visible legacy of the one-child policy is the large number of Chinese-born children who have been adopted in the West
  • because an unauthorized birth would lead her husband to be fired from his job as well as to a large fine and her forced sterilization.
Benjamin McKeown

The End of China's One-Child Policy Isn't Enough | TIME - 0 views

time.com/...china-one-child-policy-rights

population one child policy natalist policies

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 10 Nov 15 - No Cached
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margin-top: -.5em; position: absolute; right: 60%; font-family: time-icons; top: 20px; } .SB_2 .ob_amelia{ background: url('http://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12.png') no-repeat center top; width: 67px; height: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; } .ob_what.ob-hover {display: block;} .SB_2:hover .ob_what .ob_amelia{background-position:center bottom;} .SB_2:hover .ob_what a{text-decoration: underline;} RECOMMENDED FOR YOU Barack and Michelle Obama Both Top TIME 100 Reader Poll **TIME - Video http://traffic.outbrain.com/network/redir?p=vJ6za24LEnWtc9FEU-KR9ZodNHZDseUPh7aHw6-mHuJSCdW6zzwQ-LOUpJZYaDhK8ic6kuXhdZrj6fyp3NqWa_qSkl_XnmerI3B5wdRMkEK37AnD3wsJSF5A1DGisfwOZADIyZFHQ7bBpR1NlhsHD937QOW0bLqAy2lix2DHoh4bv31J17EmJwZQY
  • Such practices have historically harmed poor women and women of color disproportionately around the world.
  • Is this any better? Not if you choose to have three children.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Until China promotes a fully rights-based, voluntary family planning program, it is supporting the continued oppression of Chinese families through coercive reproductive policies.
  • This is true whether the state is trying to limit family size, deny a woman access to birth control, or force her to keep a pregnancy she wishes to end.
  • When women have access to quality health care, they lead more empowered and fulfilling lives. The advantages of a fully voluntary approach to family planning, where individuals and couples make free and informed decisions on how often to have children, are well documented. Studies show, for example, that when a woman is able to voluntarily decide if and when to have children, and how many, she tends to go further in school, and is more adaptable and resilient during times of hardship.
  • advance women’s rights over their own bodie
Benjamin McKeown

China to end one-child policy and allow two - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-asia-34665539

china one child policy

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 02 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • as demographers and sociologists raised concerns about rising social costs and falling worker numbers.
  • "to improve the balanced development of population'' and to deal with an aging population, according to the statement from the Community Party's Central Committee carried by the official Xinhua News Agency (in Chinese) on Thursday.
  • about 30% of China's population is over the age of 50. The total population of the country is around 1.36 billion.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The Communist Party began formally relaxing national rules two years ago, allowing couples in which at least one of the pair is an only child to have a second child.
  • Critics say that even a two-child policy will not boost the birth rate enough, the BBC's John Sudworth reports.
  • that despite the relaxation of the rules, many couples may opt to only have one child, as one-child families have become the social norm.
  • And for those women who want more than two children, nor will it end the state's insistence on the right to control their fertility, he adds.
  • "As long as the quotas and system of surveillance remains, women still do not enjoy reproductive rights,"
Benjamin McKeown

Blaming natural disasters on climate change will backfire. - 0 views

www.slate.com/...mate_change_will_backfire.html

climate change poverty disparity

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 30 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • Thus, the migration in response to the severe and prolonged drought exacerbated a number of the factors often cited as contributing to the unrest, which include unemployment, corruption, and rampant inequality. The conflict literature supports the idea that rapid demographic change encourages instability. Whether it was a primary or substantial factor is impossible to know, but drought can lead to devastating consequences when coupled with preexisting acute vulnerability, caused by poor policies and unsustainable land use practices in Syria’s case and perpetuated by the slow and ineffective response of the Assad regime [emphasis added].
  • suggests that an unprecedented drought accentuated frustration with the Assad regime and led to migration from rural to urban areas.
  • While climate change will probably increase the number and intensity of heavy showers, leading to more frequent landslides, intensive logging and government negligence in permitting new construction in these areas cause the real disasters.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • While global warming probably accentuated the torrential rains, it was actually policy failures that allowed heavy rains to cause the flood and human suffering: Over the past two decades, the city government has systematically disregarded basic principles of ecology and urban planning by building structures in flood plains and marshlands.
  • Climate change is often going to be the domino that falls. But that does not mean we can ignore the rest of the dominos in the row.
Benjamin McKeown

Some Isolated Tribes in the Amazon Are Initiating Contact - 0 views

news.nationalgeographic.com/...cted-amazon-tribes-peru-brazil

amazon uncontacted HL

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 21 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • “controlled contact”
  • “I believe we’re going to see a succession of first contacts in the coming ten years.”
  • Tourists and locals have made videos of themselves embracing the Indians, handing them clothing and bottles of soda pop. But some of the encounters have also been deadly. In May the tribesmen killed a 22-year-old man in his village with an arrow-shot to the heart for reasons that remain unclear.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • ncludes controlling access to the upper reaches of the river that the Indians are known to frequent, educating nearby communities about the dangers of interaction with the Mashco-Piro, an inoculation campaign in settlements to minimize the chances of disease transmission, and fact-finding patrols
  • Peru’s official policy of “no contact,” adopted in 2006,
  • no contact” policy is modeled on the approach pioneered in the 1980s by Brazil, which harbors at least 27, and perhaps as many as 70, isolated indigenous communities,
  • Both Peru and Brazil have created networks of forest reserves and parklands to shield these tribes from the exploitation and devastating illnesses that often accompany the arrival of Western civilization
  • They believe the Indians are simply seeking more of the goods they have come to know through raids on settlements and encounters with strangers.
  • If they are seeking contact, we must welcome them in the best manner possible. We must take care of their health, block out the boundaries of their territory, give them some time to adjust to the madness of our world.
  • he violence and attendant exhaustion they suffered cleared the way for contact.”
Benjamin McKeown

The U.S. Immigration Debate - Council on Foreign Relations - 0 views

www.cfr.org/...p11149

HL magration response anti-globalization

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 17 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • President Barack Obama's immigration policies have drawn ire from immigration advocates and opponents alike. Though he pledged to tackle comprehensive immigration reform in his first year in office, Obama did not make the issue a priority until his second term. His administration has deported more than two million undocumented immigrants, more than former President George W. Bush did in his two terms, though some of this reflects the rise in border arrests of migrants from countries other than Mexico,
  • Obama has tried to grant a reprieve to as many as five million undocumented immigrants in the United States
  • the majority of Americans support various elements that would comprise comprehensive immigration reform, including creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants (88 percent), requiring employers to check immigration status of workers (84 percent), tightening border security (83 percent), and expanding short-term visas for skilled workers (76 percent).
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Many tech-industry leaders have become prominent supporters of immigration reform,
  • They argue that if skilled workers—many of whom are educated in U.S. universities—are not permitted to work in the United States, some tech companies may be forced to move their operations offshore.
  • early one third of undocumented immigrants in the United States are the parents of U.S.-born children, according to the Pew Research Center.
  • "[The United States' undocumented immigrant] population is not growing—it's more settled,"
  • Increasingly, people who are coming are Central Americans fleeing violence and seeking asylum—not Mexicans seeking work—and that's a very different policy problem. But I don’t think Congress has caught up with that. The debate and the approaches still reflect the world of a decade ago."
  • Obama won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote in the 2012 presidential elections and many Republican strategists said that their party would need to strike a more conciliatory tone on migration following the party's loss that year.
  • Comprehensive immigration reform refers to proposed legislation that would change U.S. immigration laws to address demand for high-skilled and low-skilled labor, legalize most undocumented immigrants already in the country, and toughen border and interior enforcement.
  • Immigration Innovation Act: A bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate in January 2015 that would nearly double the number of visas for temporary high-skilled workers, from 65,000 to 115,000, and eliminate annual per-country limits for employment-based green cards. Start-Up Act: A bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate in January 2015 (three prior versions had been introduced) that proposed creating an entrepreneurs’ visa for immigrants and a STEM visa for U.S.-educated workers with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics, and eliminating per-country caps on employment-based immigration visas. Secure Our Borders First Act: A Republican bill that threatens penalties against senior Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials whose departments fail to intercept a targeted number of crossings. The proposal would allow the Border Patrol to operate on all federal lands, provide funding for the National Guard to participate in securing the border, and authorize expanded use of surveillance drones along the border.
  • Obama's immigration announcement emphasized his administration's efforts to secure the U.S. border, and in FY 2014, nearly twenty thousand U.S. Border Patrol agents (PDF) operated along the southwestern border—the largest deployment in U.S. history.
Benjamin McKeown

The most important thing about the new NAFTA deal is that it exists - 0 views

slate.com/...ta-deal-is-that-it-exists.html

NAFTA HL Globalization free trade

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 01 Oct 18 - No Cached
  • da has agreed to give United States farmers more access to its heavily regulated dairy market—thus assuaging Trump’s single most frequent complaint about Canada’s trade policies. Canada also signed on to stronger intellectual property protections sought by U.S. industries, and increased the dollar limit on the amount of merchandise Canadians can buy across the border before duties kick in (alas, we won’t be hearing about shoe smuggling any longer). However, the Trump administration gave Canada a win by dropping its demand to scrap a dispute-resolution system in which countries can challenge each others’ anti-dumping tariffs outside of each others’ courts. Overall, the changes are more than cosmetic, but perhaps a bit less than Trump promised when he vowed to renegotiate what he’s often called “the worst trade deal in history.” The deal is designed to benefit U.S. auto-workers by requiring that more of each vehicle be produced within North America to qualify for tariff-free treatment, and that a certain percentage of each car be built by employees making $16 an hour. It curtails the use of controversial investor-state dispute settlement panels. The IP protections are a boost—perhaps unfortunately—to copyright-holders and prescription drug companies. But progressive groups are already complaining that the agreement still lacks mechanisms to enforce labor standards in Mexico, among other issues. But more than the details, the most important thing about this deal is that it exists at all. One of the major questions about Trump’s approach to economic policy and globalization was whether he would simply light trade deals on fire, or use his sometimes unhinged rhetoric as a means to obtain some reforms. In the case of NAFTA, we have a solid answer. Whether you like it or not, it’s spelled USMCA. One more thing If you think Slate’s work matters, become a Slate Plus member. You’ll get exclusive members-only content and a suite of great benefits—and you’ll help secure Slate’s future. Join Slate Plus Join Slate Plus Tweet Share Comment Canada Donald Trump Mexico Trade
Benjamin McKeown

Japan's population problem | The Japan Times - 1 views

www.japantimes.co.jp/...japans-population-problem

population ageing japan

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 19 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has urged business firms to employ more women and promote them to more senior positions, but he has had only limited success so far. The basic problem lies in the traditional attitudes of a male-dominated society that developed in a land where fighting was venerated and regarded as heroic. Confucian ethics emphasized the dominance of the male. That the mythological founder of Japan, Amaterasu, was a goddess was conveniently overlooked.
  • “Womenomics,” as the policy of employing more women has come to be called, requires the provision of more day care centers, but the provision of facilities will not solve the problem posed by the adherence of mothers-in-law in Japan to the concept that looking after one’s own children is the sine qua non of motherhood.
  • decline in Japanese fertility
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • disapproval of children born to unmarried mothers
  • the decline in the number of young Japanese people has implications for high schools and universities as well as for industry and commerce. It also means that it will become more and more difficult to fund pensions for old people and to find carers for them.
  • One way of coping with the declining number of young workers is to increase imports of finished goods from countries where wages are relatively low. Japan’s balance of payments is likely to allow this for some time to come.Another way to deal with the likely shortage of labor is by increased use of robots. This is already happening and will certainly lead to a phasing out of certain white- and blue-collar jobs although the prognostications of SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son on this score seem overblown.
  • Ultimately, Japan will only survive and prosper if it alters its deep-seated prejudice against immigration
  • he Korean and Chinese minorities have been painted over, as have regional cultures such as those of the Ryukyu Islands and Hokkaido. It also ignores the existence of the Japanese diaspora in North and South America.
  • Does any Japanese leader have the courage to start arguing publicly and loudly for a relaxation of Japan’s at best illiberal immigration policies that are damaging to the nation’s economic and ultimately national interests? Some nurses have been admitted from the Philippines, but the stringent language tests have been a deterrent and Japan’s welcome mat for such necessary workers is restricted.
  • Japan has shamefully taken very few refugees despite the huge numbers living on a pittance in refugee camps throughout the world.
  • For Japan the immediate requirement is to confront vigorously Japanese male and ethnic chauvinism and traditional prejudices.
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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