Tag: world

7 billion

Sometime soon (or already?) the world population will hit 7 billion.  CNN prepared some aids to help us visualize how large of a number that is.  They have some great examples, but I still don’t think people can actually visualize that.

— Seven billion ants, at an average size of 3 milligrams each, would weigh at least 23 tons (46,297 pounds).

I don’t think one can transfer the ants or rice visuals onto humans.  I think humans are the best examples here.  Just take a moment and think of all the people you ever knew – family, friends, classmates, colleagues, cashiers at the nearest grocery shop, politicians you saw on TV, important people you’ve read about in history books, fiction characters, your Facebook friends (most of who are fiction characters), and on and on and on.  If you sum up all those people, you’d probably be well over a thousand people.  Maybe two or three  thousand. Let’s say it’s five thousand.  That is still 1,400,000 times fewer than the current world population.  Hence, I say, it is impossible to imagine.  We are just not built for that.  After all when we were built, the world population wasn’t even a single million.

World’s Most Dangerous Countries for Women

It’s been a while since I linked to the Big Picture blog. One of their recent posts thought struck a nerve.   It was covering the world’s most dangerous countries for women.  It’s difficult to imagine that these are not hundreds of years ago, but now !

Targeted violence against females, dismal healthcare and desperate poverty make Afghanistan the world’s most dangerous country in which to be born a woman, with Congo a close second due to horrific levels of rape. Pakistan, India and Somalia ranked third, fourth and fifth, respectively, in the global survey of perceptions of threats ranging from domestic abuse and economic discrimination to female foeticide (the destruction of a fetus in the uterus), genital mutilation and acid attack. A survey compiled by the Thomson Reuters Foundation to mark the launch of TrustLaw Woman*, puts Afghanistan at the top of the list of the most dangerous places in the world for women. TrustLaw asked 213 gender experts from five contents to rank countries by overall perceptions of danger as well as by six categories of risk. The risks consisted of health threats, sexual violence, non-sexual violence, cultural or religious factors, lack of access to resources and trafficking.

Doing business in Cyprus

The Doing Business project provides a rating across 183 countries on how easy it is to do business in each one of them.  Cyprus occupies a respectable position #40 in that list.  Here are the metrics used in ranking calculations, as well as some of the neighbors for Cyprus:
  • Easy of Doing Business Rank: 40 (after Columbia, Azerbaijan, Qatar and before Kyrgyz Republic, Slovac Republic, Armenia)
  • Starting a Business: 25
  • Dealing with Construction Permits: 77
  • Employing Workers: 93
  • Registering Property: 64
  • Getting Credit: 71
  • Protecting Investors: 93
  • Paying Taxes: 37
  • Trading Across Borders: 15
  • Enforcing Contracts: 107
  • Closing a Business: 21

And while there are obviously plenty of pros and cons to each country in the list, it’s nice to see a summarizing effort.

On Barack Obama win

I haven’t been following the US presidential race closely.  I remember watching a few speeches by Ron Paul, and thinking that he is a really nice guy.  But somehow I doubted that he could win.  Barack Obama’s speeches were the next best thing, even though I saw just a few of them.  Here is a quote from Slashdot discussion on the subject, that I particularly enjoyed:

The thing that absolutely amazes me is the international reaction to Obama’s win. I knew that the reputation of America and Americans had been battered over the past few years, but I never suspected that it was as bad as it was. I watched the results last night, said a little “huzzah!” when Obama was declared, listened as McCain gave a warm, dignified, and gentlemanly concession speech, and then went to bed thinking I’d seen it all. I woke up at about 4:45 this morning and I’ve been flipping between news stations ever since. I got a little emotional last night during the speeches, but I’m absolutely devastated by the number of non-Americans who are dancing in the streets over Obama’s win. I never thought I’d see video of a few hundred Chinese people jumping around and chanting “Obama! Obama!” A reporter in France walked up to a woman and simply said “Obama?” Her face lit up and she simply said “C’est formidable!” Kenyans are throwing feasts in his honor. Arab and Persian states are happy. Israel is happy. Pakistan is happy. Australians are losing their damned minds over it. Russia is… well, they’re kinda grumpy, but they’re not having a good year.

(read the rest of the comment)

Well, I guess I am in the happy and joyful crowd.  It feels like something big happened.  But we are yet to see if this feeling has any substance.