Women endangered,says world population report

This report highlights key points from the UN Population Fund's "State of World Population 1997," which focused on women's right to choose in matters relating to reproductive health. The report documents global progress toward achieving reproductive rights for women and recommends more funding for reproductive health care and family planning and increased efforts to promote gender equality and individual rights. International agreements protect: the right to reproductive and sexual health throughout the life cycle; voluntary choice in marriage and childbearing and the means to determine when to have children; equality and equity in all spheres for men and women; and freedom from sexual violence and coercion. When these rights are denied, the result is maternal mortality (a death every minute). There is a lack of access to contraceptive services that affect 350 million women. Unsafe abortions are performed on 20 million women, of whom 70,000 die. There is a lack of access to sex education and services for teenagers that results in HIV infections and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). 1.5 million die from HIV/AIDS related causes, and another 1 million die from reproductive tract infections and STDs. Teenagers represent about 50% of the 333 million new cases of HIV and STDs that occur each year. Female genital mutilation is performed on 120 million girls and women, and 2 million are at risk each year. 2 million girls aged 5-15 years enter the commercial sex trade each year. The report documents the suffering from anemia and malnutrition and complications from pregnancy.     

Table set thinly as Food Summit pledges to halve world hunger in 20 years

By 2030, global population will grow from the current size of 5.7 billion to 8.7 billion. Just maintaining current levels of food availability will require rapid and sustainable production gains, for supplies must be increased by more than 75% without destroying the planet's natural resources. At current levels of food availability, however, 840 million people worldwide are chronically undernourished because they are unable to acquire enough food to meet their body's energy or nutrient requirements. More than 200 million children under age 5 years suffer from basic protein and energy deficiencies, while millions suffer from diseases and retarded development related to diet deficiencies. Each year, almost 13 million children die unnecessarily as a direct or indirect result of hunger and malnutrition. The World Food Summit took place in Rome during November 13-17, 1996. 9863 delegates from 186 countries participated in charting the course toward achieving universal food security by adopting the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the World Food Summit Plan of Action. The documents also pledge efforts to halve the number of hungry in the world no later than 2015.     

By the time you read this one million children infected with HIV will be living in the shadows

Every day, 1000 children become infected with HIV. UNAIDS therefore estimates that by the end of 1997, 1 million children under age 15 years will be living with HIV and experiencing the physical and psychological consequences of infection. Since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 2 million HIV-positive children have been born to HIV-positive mothers, and hundreds of thousands of children have acquired HIV from blood transfusions and through sex or drug use. More than 9 million children are estimated to have had a mother who died due to AIDS. Although AIDS is the most recognized disease in the world, insufficient attention has been given to the impact it is having upon children. Unless the spread of HIV is quickly checked, gains achieved in reducing infant and child death rates will be reversed in many countries. An UNAIDS report estimates that by 2010, AIDS may increase infant mortality by as much as 75% and under-5 child mortality by more than 100% in the worst affected countries in the world. It is clear that AIDS will soon be a major cause of death among children. Since about 90% of children under age 15 years acquire HIV from their mothers, either before or during birth or through breast feeding, reducing the vulnerability of infants to HIV infection means enabling women to prevent themselves from contracting HIV and to procure antiviral drugs which can reduce the risk of mother-to-child HIV transmission.     

Too few nutrients and too many calories: climate change and the double burden of malnutrition in Asia

About half of children age under five worldwide who are classified as undernourished (84 million out of 151 million) or overweight or obese (17.5 million out of 38 million) live in Asia. Tackling malnutrition in Asia is however fairly complex since the nutritional transition, a consequence of rapid economic development and globalisation, made many Asian nations undergo the simultaneous burdens of under- and over-nutrition. The dual burden of malnutrition is characterised by a concurrence of undernutrition along with overweight and obesity within the same individual, household, community, region and/or country. Providing that household food security is closely linked to malnutrition, this raises questions about the implications of climate change on the dual burden of malnutrition. That climate change affects food availability, access, utilisation and stability is evident. Accordingly, households facing food insecurity due to climatic shocks may allocate food differentially. Adult members may receive low-cost high-calorie food inducing obesity, whilst children receive nutrient-poor foods leading to undernutrition. Little is known about the climate impacts on the double burden of malnutrition and how this affects population subgroups differentially. This Editorial discusses the potential impacts of climate change on the double burden of malnutrition and concludes with the recommendation of strategies to tackle the issue.     

‘Dead dads’: memory narratives of war-related fatherlessness in Germany

After the Second World War, there were estimated to be around 20 million half-orphans in Europe. In Germany alone, 5.3 million soldiers killed in action left behind approximately 1.2 million widows, nearly 2.5 million half-orphans and about 100,000 complete orphans. This article examines how men and women from various social strata in western and eastern Germany remember their fathers who died in the war and in what way he has been stored in the family's collective memory. The analysis focuses on 30 life-history interviews with men and women from eastern and western Germany with various social and religious backgrounds, all of whom were born between 1935 and 1945 and had little or no memory of their fathers. The following questions are relevant: what memories did children have of their fathers, and what images of them were related by mothers and relatives? What individual, political, social and memory-cultural factors characterise a child's memory of her or his father? The article also analyses trans-generational transmissions and conflicts of how the father's past is remembered.     

Gender and living arrangements of the elderly in Iran

In 2006, the aging population in Iran had increased to about four million, representing about 7 per cent of the total population. We examined marital status and the living arrangements of this growing population based on a public use sample of the 2006 census and published data from the 1976 census. We observed a gender-based transition in living arrangements of the elderly; men continued to live with a spouse, perhaps through remarriage, continuing to be the head of household. The living pattern for women was noticeably different: about 20 per cent were unmarried and living alone but otherwise living with married children, predominantly sons. This analysis revealed a decline from the traditional pattern of co-residence with married children between 1976 and 2006 and an increase in solitary living among women. However, it raised several questions that need extensive research concerning the social, economic, and health status of the elderly in relation to their living arrangement.     

Tuberculosis: an airborne disease

This article focused on the complications for medical management of airborne diseases, such as tuberculosis. The bacilli that cause tuberculosis were first isolated in 1882, by Robert Koch. It took until 1944 for breakthrough treatment of tuberculosis. In 1998, the World Health Organization (WHO) is waging a new war against the spread of tuberculosis, which has made a comeback after years of quiescence. WHO predicts that 30 million people will die of tuberculosis and 300 million will be infected by 2008. Tuberculosis is transmitted by air in coughing, sneezing, talking, or spitting. A tuberculosis infected person can easily infect an additional 10-20 people in the same year with the same strain. The re-emergence of tuberculosis infections is due to increased migration, international travel and tourism, AIDS, multi-drug resistance, and the weakening of public health care systems in both developed and developing countries. Multi-drug resistance occurs due to people's failure to take prescribed medications for the allotted time period. Treatment takes 6-8 months, but symptoms disappear after 2-3 months. People forget to take their drug regimens over such a long period. Some find costs too high for drugs or doctor visits. Tuberculosis bacilli can mutate and become resistant to new drugs if strains are not eradicated. WHO new management strategies offer a short course of treatment that must be followed up with support from medical staff. The Directly Observed Treatment Strategy (DOTS) eliminates the bacteria from the body and reduces the potential for contagion. DOTS has demonstrated high cure rates and low cost ($11-40/person).     

A long‐wave event. HIV/AIDS,politics, governance and ‘security’: sundering the intergenerational bond?

There is a disharmonious resonance between the lifecycle of the human immunodeficiency virus and that of its human host. In heavily affected countries, many people live long enough to reproduce and then die, leaving behind numerous orphans. This process has implications that we do not understand. While some foresee social disorder arising from legions of poorly socialized and unruly children grown to adulthood, the evidence is far from clear. These arguments and the evidence are reviewed in this article, particularly in relation to the links between premature death and electoral processes in southern Africa.     

Population studies

A number of studies have been published about the population change in New Zealand between 1936 and 1986. During this time an intellectual and demographic revolution also took place simultaneously. From 1961 and 1986 the population increased from 2.4 million to 3.3 million mainly because of Polynesian immigration, and the elderly and females also increased. The Maoris became urban. Mortality stayed stable, but fertility declined to below replacement level in the 1980's. Murray Wilson (1988) analyzed the relationship of fertility and mortality in terms of a post-transitional (developed) society like Australia or the European norm of a 2-children family. In his view the youth culture, television, and female aspirations greatly influenced childrearing. Daniel Noin (1988) examined the current state of geographical research on mortality from a methodological point of view finding wide differences in mortality in Quebec, Brussels, Paris, and London attributable to culture. Mosley and Chen (1984) argued that social, cultural, and economic factors to mortality are mediated by individual, household, and community variables. Jones and Moon (1987) dealt with medical geography in the context of the consumption of health care and disease ecology. Momsen and Townsend (1987) addressed the role of women in developing countries stating that gender is socially created and it examined the worldwide subordination of women. In the 1980's a host of other authors have also touched on the subject of the demography of gender analyzing discrimination against female children, unmarried American women, and single parent families. Yet Fahey (1988) stated that gender was only regarded relevant by Australian geographers as a demographic variable.     

Troublesome trends: population growth,distribution, migration

The upcoming International Conference on Population and Development and its draft plan of action call for international cooperation in protecting and assisting refugees and displaced persons and in assuring positive consequences in host and origin countries. The draft plan also aims to protect the elderly through enhancing self-reliance and continued work and independent living in their own communities. Social support systems for the elderly must also be strengthened. The document is also concerned with the movement of population to cities and across borders. Recommendations on migration encourage governments to evaluate the impact of economic and environmental policies on population distribution and migration, to promote development of medium-sized urban centers, to encourage rural economic development and placement of industries in rural areas, and to support access to land ownership or use and access to water resources in rural areas. Rural infrastructure and social services need to be improved. Grassroots organizations and cooperatives for establishing credit and marketing products are emphasized. Weak local area management is an obstacle to socioeconomic development, environmental protection, and population distribution. Waste, water, and land management strategies should be adopted. Prevention of the root causes of displacement is particularly important when environmental damage is the consequence or the cause. Women, children, and the elderly who are displaced need protection. Refugee numbers have swelled from 8.5 million in 1985 to 19 million in 1993. Sudden and mass refugee arrivals should be afforded temporary protection until a solution can be found. Conditions must be created for safe and dignified, voluntary repatriation. The social and economic integration of documented, longterm migrants must be assured.     

Being and ‘Non-Being’ in Ambonwari (Papua New Guinea) Ritual

By focusing on children involved in the ritual practices in Ambonwari village, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea, this essay compares two types of ritual: that of healing and that of male initiation. Like other life crisis rituals both deal with two dimensions of the Ambonwari life-world, that is with the living and the dead and, in a broader sense, with people and spirits. Though both are based upon the same cosmology there are fundamental differences between them. First, healers in healing ceremonies treat uninitiated children as ‘non-beings’. From the perspective of Ambonwari ‘selves’ or ‘beings’, children belong to this domain. They exist as extensions of their parents or carers, from whom they cannot be separated conceptually. Second, by examining the Ambonwari concepts of negation I show that healers do not approach the domain of cosmological non-existence: they are not concerned with the cosmogony of the Ambonwari life-world. The male initiation rituals do just the opposite, however. It is only in the male initiation ritual, seen as a cosmogonic event, that young boys are cut off from their parents and ‘thrown’ abruptly into a state of becoming. Unlike the healing rites, these rituals treat young boys as both Ambonwari beginnings and Ambonwari beings. I argue that Ambonwari initiation rituals are not concerned with symbolic death followed by rebirth, but with states of being. Initiation means that death becomes possible for a child. The initiated boy will now be able to die as an Ambonwari being.     

Reproductive rights,family planning: a cornerstone of control

The main objective of the action plan for the International Conference on Population and Development is to assure access to high quality information and reproductive health care services in a manner that is affordable, acceptable, and convenient. Informed choice should be voluntary for childbearing and fertility control decisions. Services must be sensitive to the cultural, economic, and demographic diversity of local communities. The target date for countries to implement family planning (FP) and reproductive health programs that are available to all is 2015. Programs must involve women in all phases of planning, management, and delivery of services; outreach programs must be developed to involve men. Public and private FP programs should be directed to removing all obstacles to method use by the year 2005 by redesigning and expanding information and services. IEC (information, education, and communication) should also focus on sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS. Programs should provide high quality condoms from stock on hand. About 55% of couples in developing countries use some form of contraception. The increase in contraceptive use has contributed to the decline in total fertility from 6.1 children per woman in the 1950s to 3.7 in the 1990s. At least 350 million couples still lack access to modern FP methods. The draft plan emphasizes that couples must be given the freedom and responsibility to decide on the number and spacing of their children.     

Gender and sexual violence,forced marriages,and primitive accumulation during the Cambodian genocide, 1975–1979

Abstract

Between 1975 and 1979 approximately two million men, women, and children died during the Cambodian genocide. These deaths are attributed to specific administrative policies and practices initiated by the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), all of which were geared toward the basic objective of increasing agricultural production as a means of building socialism. A crucial question regarding these practices was whether the CPK implemented policies designed specifically to destroy the traditional family structure of Cambodia. Drawing on the work of Silvia Federici, this article argues that policies and practices forwarded by the CPK constitute a variation of primitive accumulation; and that transformations of the traditional family structure were conditioned by the overall social organization of production initiated by the CPK. However, a more pressing form of gendered violence is apparent – a mode that pivots on the social ordering of the CPK’s political economy.     

BASIC TRENDS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FOREST INDUSTRY ALONG THE BAYKAL-AMUR MAINLINE

The zone served by the Baykal-Amur Mainline is expected ultimately to contribute roughly one-tenth of the Soviet Union's timber products, which would represent one-fourth to one-third of the freight traffic of the railroad in some segments. Total removals of roundwood are now roughly 15 million m³ in the zone to be served by the BAM, including 11 million in the inner zone (total Soviet roundwood removals now run 380–390 million m³ a year). In the foreseeable future, removals in the BAM zone are expected to reach 30 to 35 million m³, including 20 million in the inner zone. Projections for 10 logging districts suggest that most of the logging activities will be concentrated at the two extremities of the BAM—the Upper Lena district (34% of projected removals) and the Komsomol'sk district (39%). Timber processing complexes will also be concentrated in these two areas.     

Urbanization Processes in North Vietnam

The pattern of urbanization of North Vietnam is traced from 1945 through 1960 to 1970. The average contribution of the in-migration component to urban growth was 40 percent from 1945 to 1965, but a slight net out-migration from cities marked the period of American bombings of North Vietnam after 1965. As a result urban population declined from 1.9 million in 1965 to 1.84 million in 1970, while total population of North Vietnam rose from 17.5 to 20 million. Urban growth has been distinguished by rapid rates of growth in large cities, low rates in middle-size cities, and no growth or even decline of population in the small urban places.     

Treatment or Placebo: Are State Programs Decreasing the Proportion of Uninsured?

Currently there are over 45 million Americans without health insurance. Recent growth in Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) enrollment of children has filled in the sizable gap created by decreased employer‐sponsored insurance since 2000. While the share of children who are uninsured actually decreased between 2000 and 2003, little progress was made in expanding public insurance to adults. As a result, advocates and policymakers at the federal and state level are searching for approaches to deal with the growing number of the uninsured. Conservatives advocate encouraging individuals to buy private insurance while liberals advocate the provision of health coverage through publicly financed health care. Using a 50‐state multilevel individual growth model, this study estimates the net effect of two state approaches in terms of reducing the uninsured: tax incentives (the conservative approach) and direct‐coverage programs (the liberal approach). The results suggest that these approaches have not achieved the results that many advocates had suggested. In the case of tax incentives, the results suggest that states with tax incentives experience increases in the rate of the uninsured. In the case of direct‐coverage programs, results suggest that states receive no relief in the number of uninsured individuals. Finally, the analysis suggests that the efforts originating at the federal level are most successful. These programs are a continuation of the incremental approach policymakers in America have taken to address the problem of the uninsured, rather than taking steps toward a truly comprehensive solution.     

论旅游危机的生命周期与后评价研究

为了全面认识突发事件及其对旅游发展的影响,界定了由突发事件引起的旅游危机,将其划分为背景外源型和区域内生型;提出了旅游危机生命周期的概念,将其从生成到解除划分为5个阶段;分析了相邻年比较法在危机评价中的不足,提出了基于本底趋势线的旅游危机后评价理论。最后,以陕西秦始皇兵马俑对3次旅游危机响应为例,建立了入境旅游、国内旅游和旅游收入3条本底趋势线,完成了对1989年北京6.4事件、1998年亚洲金融危机和2003年"非典"三个突发事件旅游危机的后评价研究,揭示了其客流量损失、旅游收入损失及冲击的时间表,为旅游危机后评价研究提供了案例。     

河谷型城市兰州中心城区人口规模初步研究

人口容量规模是城市发展的战略性议题,尤其河谷型城市。基于用地空间、水资源及生态环境三个主要影响因素,对河谷型城市人口容量规模的测算途径和方法进行了探讨和总结。以典型河谷型城市兰州中心城区为例,估算了其在该三个因素下的各自适宜人口规模和最大人口规模,进而反映出河谷用地空间对中心城区人口规模的限制作用较水资源及生态环境更为强烈,并根据木桶原理最短边,得出现有条件下适宜人口规模为230.56万、最大人口规模为342.17万的基本结论。     

The Republic of Korea's Foreign Direct Investments in Australia: The Chaebols Down Under

The objective is to explain why the total value of foreign direct investment (FDI) from the Republic of Korea (hereafter ‘Korea’) remains small in Australia. Internationalisation of Korean production has proceeded rapidly since 1987 following changes in both the domestic and international business environments. Total outgoing FDI increased from US$ 356 million in 1987 to US$ 1,600 million in 1990. Australia, in comparison, received a cumulative FDI of only US$ 128 million in 1990. In terms of Korean FDI, Australia is a marginal location. Low FDI from Korea occurred despite being given priority status by Austrade in 1990 as a source for overseas capital and both countries being in each others top ten export destinations since 1989. Australia as a host nation for Korean corporations (chaebols) is discussed within Edgington's (1988) and Porters (1985) theoretical frameworks which consider overseas investment strategies.