Headlines for Oct. 31, 2011
Tim Harper: The Occupy Movement enters its What Now? phase
It was a beautiful weekend for an occupation.
Sun splashed over St. James Park, the air was crisp and fresh.
But the nights are getting cold, winter is bearing down, cities across North America are starting to dismantle Occupy encampments and more are issuing ultimatums.
The occupation pioneers in New York have already had to take shelter from a snowstorm.
Faced with freezing weather and impatient civic governments, the Occupy movement is fast approaching its What Now? moment.
Libya’s Islamist stripes are no surprise
As shop owners like to say, if you break it, you own it – or, rather, you’re stuck with it. So it is with Libya.
For at least six months, the country was bombed on a near-daily basis after the Western powers, under the impetuous guidance of France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, decided to side with a group of rebels from Benghazi who wanted to overthrow Moammar Gadhafi’s regime but couldn’t manage to do it themselves.
What began under a United Nations Security Council mandate as a series of air strikes exclusively aimed at protecting the rebels from Col. Gadhafi’s wrath soon evolved into a full-fledged regime-change operation marked by blatant attempts to assassinate the Gadhafi family. The Western coalition, including Canada, foolishly intervened in a civil war pitting the eastern part of the country against other regions without even considering, given Libya’s tribal and fractious nature, whether the majority wanted to be ruled by the Benghazi rebels.
Making Sense of 7 Billion People
What does it mean?
In itself, not much: Seven billion is just a one-digit flicker from 6,999,999,999. But the number carries a deep existential weight, symbolizing themes central to humanity’s relationship with the rest of life on Earth.
For context, let’s consider a few other numbers. The first: 10,000. That’s approximately how many Homo sapiens existed 200,000 years ago, the date at which scientists mark the divergence of our species from the rest of Homo genus, of which we are the sole survivors.
From those humble origins, humans — thanks to our smarts, long-distance running skills, verbal ability and skill with plants — proliferated at an almost inconceivable rate.
Leaders must act now to prepare for challenges of a surging population
Today, while kids in Canada are just getting up, or maybe by the time they’re putting on their Halloween costumes, somewhere in the world the 7 billionth citizen will be born.
That milestone was announced last week when the United Nations released its annual State of the World’s Population and forecast that by the end of the century, the population could be 10 billion or even 15 billion.
The good news is that even though the population has more than doubled since 1975, worldwide the average family now has only 2.5 children (which is still higher than the replacement rate of 2.1), the infant mortality rate has dropped to 46 in 1,000 and life expectancy has risen to 68 years.
The repeated last words of Steve Jobs
On his deathbed, Apple founder Steve Jobs stared into the future as he had so many times in life and uttered these final words, “Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow.”
His finals moments were captured by the late Apple CEO’s sister Mona Simpson in her eulogy that was provided to the New York Times.
No one will know for sure if Jobs has suddenly had another great idea as he passed on or was commenting on where he was about to go.
Palestinians get Unesco seat as 107 vote in favour
The UN cultural organisation has voted strongly in favour of membership for the Palestinians – a move opposed by Israel and the United States.
Of 173 countries voting, 107 were in favour, 14 opposed and 52 abstained.
Under US law, Washington can now withdraw funding to Unesco. This would deprive the agency of some $70m (£43.7m) – more than 20% of its budget.
The UN Security Council will vote next month on whether to grant the Palestinians full UN membership.
China invokes Waco siege in denouncing Dalai Lama
Chinese state media denounced the Dalai Lama on Monday for his views on reincarnation, saying that the exiled Buddhist monk was trying to revise history, compounding his crimes as a separatist.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Tibetan spiritual leader in September said he or other Tibetan leaders should be the ones to decide on his reincarnation, not Beijing.
“The Dalai Lama not only is attempting to bury long established historical tenets of Tibetan Buddhism with him when he dies, but is adding another criminal charge to his teachings of separatism, which damages Tibet and Buddhism,” the People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, said in a commentary.
