Invasive species, illegal fishing practices and Mozambique’s difficulty in translating its rapid economic growth into jobs are squeezing the country’s small-scale fishing sector – a vital contributor to food security.
Author: WHES
Low wage workers have far more education than they did in in 1968, but they make far less
The minimum wage is 23 percent less than its peak inflation-adjusted value in 1968. This is despite productivity (how much output can be produced in an average hour of work in the economy) more than doubling in that time period. The low-wage workforce has surely contributed to this rise in economy-wide productivity, since as a group they have far more education now than they did then. For the workforce overall, 37 percent in 1968 had not completed high school (or received a GED), which was true for only 9 percent in 2012 (the latest year with comparable data). We can drill down to examine low-wage workers, which we are defining for this analysis as those earning in the bottom fifth of the wage distribution.
Economic mobility hasn’t changed in a half-century in America, economists declare
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The U.S. has caused more global warming than any other country. Here is how the Earth will get its revenge.
Last year, we learned what is probably the worst global warming news yet — that we may have irrevocably destabilized the massive ice sheet of West Antarctica, which contains the equivalent of nearly 11 feet of sea level rise. The rate of West Antarctic ice loss has been ominously increasing, and there are fears that if too much goes, the slow and long-term process of ice sheet disintegration could accelerate.
For South Korea’s old, a return to poverty as Confucian filial piety weakens
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Climate-induced migration creates perils, possibilities
For Pacific islands like Palau, Tuvalu and Kiribati, the implications of climate change are clear – and devastating. Already, these governments have begun to plan for a future in which entire populations have to relocate as their islands vanish under the rising sea. But climate change also threatens ways of life in subtler ways, leaving families around the world to work out for themselves how to cope.
Africa’s billions that the poor won’t touch
NAIROBI/HARARE, Jan 17 2014 (IPS) – With its two-trillion-dollar economy, recent discoveries of billions of dollars worth of minerals and oil, and the number of investment opportunities it has to offer global players, Africa is slowly shedding its image as a development burden.
Mexicali has become Mexico’s city of the deported as US dumps more people there
MEXICALI, Mexico — In this fertilizer-scented city opposite the alfalfa fields of California’s Imperial Valley, the deported sleep in parks, abandoned buildings and along the train tracks that run through town.
UN says lag in confronting climate woes will be costly
Nations have so dragged their feet in battling climate change that the situation has grown critical and the risk of severe economic disruption is rising, according to a draft United Nations report. Another 15 years of failure to limit carbon emissions could make the problem virtually impossible to solve with current technologies, experts found.
Dead broke, not deadbeat: Baltimore rethinks welfare policy
BALTIMORE — When Darnell met his sister’s friend Charlotte after his release from prison in 1997, he was sure God had sent her. While locked up, he’d often prayed for divine help.
