Global
economy struggles
under
weighty challenge
Latest
figures depict a weighty challenge for humanity. According to the McKinsey
Global Institute, more than 2.1 billion people globally - or nearly 30 per cent
of the world's population - are now overweight or obese. The prediction is that
almost half of the world's adult population will be overweight or obese by
2030.
Obesity
is now blamed for around 5 per cent of all deaths worldwide and has a similar
negative effect on the global economy to smoking and armed conflict. Obesity
also now costs the global economy $2 trillion ($2.32 trillion) in healthcare
and lost productivity - or 2.8 per cent of global GDP - $100 billion less than
both smoking and armed conflict.
The World
Health Organisation defines overweight and obesity as abnormal or excessive fat
accumulation that may impair health. Body mass index (BMI) is a simple index of
weight-for-height that is commonly used to classify overweight and obesity in
adults. It is defined as a person's weight in kilogrammes divided by the square
of his height in meters (kg/m2).
The cause of obesity and overweight is
an energy imbalance between calories consumed and calories expended. Globally,
there has been an
increased intake of energy-dense foods that are high in fat and an increase in
physical inactivity due to the increasingly sedentary nature of many forms of
work, changing modes of transportation, and increasing urbanisation.
Incidentally,
Britain is found to have three per cent of its GDP wiped off each year due to
obesity, the biggest drag on the country's economy after smoking. The combined
annual cost of obesity-linked healthcare and lost output in Britain has reached
$85.64 billion.
Once
considered a problem only in high-income countries, overweight and obesity are
now said to be dramatically on the rise in low- and middle-income countries,
particularly in urban settings.
It is not
that all is lost. Experts insist that targeted action could bring 20 per cent
of obese people back to normal weight within a decade. What is needed is a
coordinated response from governments, retailers and food and drink
manufacturers.
Recommendations
include limiting the size of portions in packaged fast food, parental education
and introducing healthy meals in schools and workplaces.
At
the individual level, people can limit energy intake from total fats and sugars and increase
consumption of fruit and vegetables, as well as legumes, whole grains and nuts.
After all, where there's
a will, there's a way.
Defining
moment in
Pak
anti-terror fight
With
the unveiling of a comprehensive 20-point plan of action, the fight against
terrorism has reached an important moment in Pakistan.
As
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif declared on Wednesday, the Dec.16 Peshawar school
massacre has drawn a line between coward terrorists and the Pakistani nation.
United
Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was absolutely right when he earlier
stated, “no cause could justify such brutality.” The international community is
bound to support the government of Pakistan in its fight against terror and
extremism.
It
may be recalled that there were 78 attacks against schools, teachers and
schoolchildren reported to the United Nations in Pakistan last year, most of
which were carried out by the Tehrik-i-Taliban and aligned local groups in
Khyber Pakhtunkhw province, of which Peshawar is the capital.
Sharif
has asserted that the days of terrorists are numbered and that all funding
sources of terrorists will also be eliminated.
The
action plan indicates sternness on the part of the authorities to take on the
terrorists.
The
key elements of the plan include: Setting up of military courts for two years
to try terrorists; crackdown on militias in the country and continued execution
of terrorists; Madrassas will not be allowed to operate without proper
registration and banned outfits will not be allowed to operate under new names.
The
plan also envisages strengthening and activation of National Counter Terrorism
Authority (NACTA); countering hate speech and extremist material; choking
financing for terrorists and terrorist organisations; taking effective steps
against religious persecution; registration and regulation of religious
seminaries and a ban on glorification of terrorism and terrorist organisations
through print and electronic media.
That’s
not all. The government plans tangible measures against abuse of Internet and
social media for terrorism; zero tolerance for militancy in Punjab; taking the
ongoing operation in Karachi to its logical conclusion and empowering the Balochistan
government for political reconciliation with complete ownership by all
stakeholders.
Malala
Yousafzai had stated during her recent speech on receipt of her Nobel peace
Prize in Oslo that she wished her generation would be “the last that sees empty
class rooms, lost childhoods and wasted potentials.” She had mentioned that her
home village does not yet have a secondary school for girls.
The
Peshawar school massacre is largely seen as Pakistan's “9/11". The
horrendous attack has not only shaken the nation of Pakistan, but also the
entire world. The attack on defenseless children is too dastardly an act to be
erased from memory that easily.
for tsunami victims
A decade after more than 220,000 people died in a tsunami, which was triggered by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island, doubts linger about how ready countries on the Indian Ocean really are for another giant wave.
The quake opened a fault line deep beneath the ocean on Dec.26, 2004 triggering a wave as high as 17.4 metres that crashed ashore in more than a dozen countries, wiping some communities off the map in seconds.
Ten years on, the world remembers the victims with a heavy heart and the outpouring of compassion from countries and people across the globe does come as a balm for the survivors.
Measured in lives lost, this is termed as one of the ten worst earthquakes in recorded history, as well as the single worst tsunami in history. Indonesia was the worst affected area, with most death toll estimates at around 170,000.
According to United Nations experts, some of the worst-affected countries are now better prepared for such disasters and better positioned to respond. However, there is definitely room for improvement.
A recent Food and Agriculture Organisation-sponsored workshop with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations also stressed additional actions are needed to further increase resilience to disasters, largely due to the effects of rapid population increases and urbanisation, together with eroded natural resource bases and climate change.
The past decade has seen more than $400 million spent across 28 countries on an early-warning system comprising 101 sea-level gauges, 148 seismometers and nine buoys. While such preparations offer comfort, the effectiveness and maintenance of the system need serious attention.
The tsunami caused serious damage and deaths as far as the east coast of Africa, with the farthest recorded death due to the tsunami occurring at Rooi Els in South Africa, 8,000 km away from the epicentre. The livelihoods of some 1.4 million survivors were left in tatters as it destroyed entire food production systems on which the populations depended.
UN experts say with 200 million people in Asia and the Pacific affected each year by a broad range of natural disasters between 2003 and 2013, and with the cost of those disasters averaging $34 billion each year between 2001 and 2010, a change in approach is essential.
There is a dire need to continue to invest in preparedness and early warning systems. After all, prevention is anytime better than cure.
Journalists
deserve
better
protection
It is
highly disturbing to note that over 60 journalists around the world were killed
in 2014 while on the job or because of their work.
The
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says that the past three years have
proved the deadliest for journalists since it began keeping track more than two
decades ago.
What is
even more disgusting is the fact that attacks on professional journalists have
grown more barbaric and kidnappings have soared.
Shockingly,
almost half of the journalists killed this year died in the Middle East. Syria
was the deadliest country for journalists for the third year in a row, with at
least 17 killed there amid a civil war. Seventy-nine journalists have been
killed in Syria since fighting started in 2011.
Syria was
connected to two of the more horrifying killings of journalists this year, the
beheadings by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria group of American freelancers
James Foley and Steven Sotloff.
While the
CPJ’s count of journalists killed in Syria this year is down from 29 last year,
the increasing threats faced are causing local journalists to flee and
international journalists to stay away, while the country itself has become “an
information black hole.”
United
Nations reports say that in the past 10 years, more than 600 journalists and
media workers have been killed. The majority of them are not war
correspondents.
Attacks
on media professionals are often also perpetrated in non-conflict situations by
organised crime groups, militia, security personnel, and even local police,
making local journalists among the most vulnerable.
These
attacks include murder, abductions, harassment, intimidation and the illegal
arrest and detention.
What adds
to the anguish is that abuses against media professionals remain uninvestigated
and unpunished. This impunity, as UN officials point out, perpetuates the cycle
of violence against journalists, media workers and citizen journalists. The
resulting self-censorship deprives society of information and further impacts
press freedom.
Professional
journalists literally play with lives while on duty to share news and
information that so many rely on. Journalists have the right to work free from
any threat of violence. It is the duty of various governments to ensure the
right to freedom of opinion and expression for all.
The
killing of journalists directly impacts international efforts to promote peace,
security, and sustainable development. Every single journalist should be
protected while on duty, as they are involved in a noble task of disseminating
information, which is crucial to any rational society.
Devastating year for
millions of children
There can be little doubt
that 2014 has been a devastating year for millions of children caught up in
violent conflicts around the world.
As the United Nations
Children’s Fund declared recently, never in recent memory have so many children
been subjected to such unspeakable brutality.
Human cruelty against our own children revealed its ugly face
this week in Pakistan and Yemen. The cold-blooded gunning down of several
children at a school in Peshawar by Taliban terrorists and the merciless
killing of at least 15 school girls in a car bombing in Yemen added to the grim
toll of child victims of violence in the closing weeks of the year.
UN statistics reveal a
dismal scenario. As many as 15 million children are caught up in violent
conflicts in the Central African Republic, Iraq, South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine
and in the Occupied Palestinian territories – including those displaced in
their own countries or living as refugees outside their homeland. And an
estimated 230 million children live in countries and areas affected by armed
conflicts.
In the Central African
Republic, 2.3 million children are affected by the conflict, up to 10,000
children are believed to have been recruited by armed groups, and more than 430
children have been killed and maimed – three times as many as in 2013.
In Gaza, 54,000 children
were left homeless as a result of the 50-day conflict during the summer that
also saw 538 children killed, and more than 3,370 injured.
In Syria, with more than
7.3 million children affected by the conflict including 1.7 million child
refugees, the United Nations verified at least 35 attacks on schools in the
first nine months of the year, which killed 105 children and injured nearly 300
others.
In Iraq, where an
estimated 2.7 million children are affected by conflict, at least 700 children
are believed to have been maimed, killed or even executed this year.
There is no justification
for such unspeakable savagery against children. Each life plucked away young is
a future lost forever. Children have been killed while studying in the
classroom and while sleeping in their beds; they have been orphaned, kidnapped,
tortured, recruited, raped and even sold as slaves.
If at all there can be a
plea that emerges from the hearts of all good human beings, it would be: “For
God’s sake, please spare innocent children from bloodshed. They are like
flowers, completely innocent, utterly lovable and absolutely precious.”
