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Wednesday, June 13, 2012

More than 215 million children worldwide work to survive


Some 215 million children are still victims of child labor worldwide. Of these, 153 million are between 5 and 14 years , and made ​​them work 53 million classified as "dangerous". According to the report of the International Labour Organization (ILO), these figures show between 2000 and 2008, a decrease of 30% in the worst forms of child labor among children under 15 yearsHowever, the pace of decline is less intense between 2004 and 2008, according to the ILO report. "The crisis affects children," said JoaquĆ­n Nieto , head of this organization in Spain. While child labor among girls has been reduced considerably, hazardous work among young people 15 to 17 years have increased since 2008. Some "worst forms of labor" that today suffer almost ten million children are fighting military wars, child trafficking, prostitution and using children as "drug couriers". In addition, other tasks described as 'worse' are slavery, servitude (which are submerged almost 6 million boys), the forced labor, pornography or using children as pawns of work in which their health or safety at risk . Of all the children involved in these forms of work, 90 percent are dedicated to the realization of "hazardous work" . International conventions, as a first step to alleviate this evil, claiming that no child under 18 to engage in these occupations. Meanwhile, the work 'domestic' , predominantly in rural and informal economies, affects 15.5 million children, most of them girls with no possibility of literacy. 

Education out of poverty

In this sense, education becomes a key factor in eliminating child labor.As suggested by the ILO report, "to deprive the children that are educated and form, they are condemned to remain without qualification and therefore perpetuates poverty in society." According to the organization, only six out of ten states that have set the minimum working age and high school age have harmonized these two situations. In many countries, therefore, begins to work before you have completed the studies.

Areas geographical

The largest group of child labor exploitation is in Asia and the Pacific (113.6 million), followed by sub-Saharan Africa (65.1 million) and Latin America and Caribbean (14.1 million). In relative terms, child labor is most common in Africa, which employs one in four children and adolescents, compared with one in eight as they do in the Asian region. The 60% ​​of all child labor takes place in the field. Despite the large number of countries that have ratified the ILO conventions, much of the world's population can benefit from them, as some of the most populous countries have not ratified. 

Stories of pain and hope

zaviews report

Apple-Google: war on all fronts


After Twitter last year, Apple has decided to integrate Facebook in the new version of its operating system for iPhone and iPad, iOS 6.La firm at the apple has also launched a sort of virtual wallet, Passbook, Google Maps and abandoned, in its frontal battle against Google and Android.
Steve Jobs was "ready to go into thermonuclear war against Android "operating system for mobile Google , accusing it of being "a product stolen", a copy of the iPhone, according to his official biographer . Eight months after the death of its founder and guru, Apple goes on the offensive with iOS 6, the new version of the operating system of the iPhone and the iPad, unveiled on Monday night and will be available in fall . The firm at the apple abandons Google Maps in favor of implementation of plans house, launching a kind of virtual wallet that could compete Google Wallet, his vocal assistant Siri muscle to bypass the search engine combines with Facebook , one of the main rivals of the Internet giant. Among others. For all ads from Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, and his team Monday night at the developers conference (WWDC) appear to have been directly brought against Google.
Facebook, Google's nemesis, becomes his greatest ally
After months of standoff, relations between Facebook and Apple now seem set fair. The firm at the apple had slowed the release of the iPad application of social network and Twitter had preferred last year to get it into the iOS5. Finally, given that Google dominates the smartphone market with Android and just hunt on the land of Facebook, with little success to date of hearing, with Google's social network +, the manufacturer of the iPhone and the company of Mark Zuckerberg found an objective interest in collaborating. The Facebook integration into iOS 6 is "unprecedented on mobile device" and "you can identify yourself once and for all since then publish notification center, Siri and the apps that support that Facebook Photos, Safari and Maps" explains Apple. "You can say" I love "from the App Store and iTunes and see what your friends advise" in terms of applications, music, movies or series. Exit therefore Ping , "the social network of music discovery" launched by Apple in September 2010 that never took off, and was initially integrate Facebook . Ping is not yet officially closed but it would be logical that it be completed. For Apple, the Facebook integration will finally turning a "more social" in its ecosystem by introducing the recommendation of friends, which should boost sales of applications and music on iTunes and the App Store. For Facebook, it may finally be a way to monetize its audience on mobile phones . No details have been unveiled on a possible revenue sharing. For Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray, Google never ever do such a partnership would conclude that very fact of "the de facto iPhone Facebook phone. "
TomTom to counter Google Maps, Yelp and OpenTable against Zagat
Also closed its ecosystem as it is, Apple develops partnerships to strengthen it. Besides Facebook, and Web Services Chinese Baidu , Sina Weibo, Youku and Toudu specifically for China, the firm at the apple was also associated with the Dutch TomTom, Europe's leading GPS to replace Google Maps in favor of a house application navigation. To complete the proximity search, Apple has partnered with a social network Yelp recommendations of places and criticism, while Google has recently bought the Zagat restaurant guide, now integrated in all its services. The manufacturer of the iPhone has also muscled Siri, his assistant intelligent voice, which avoids using a search engine which can be asked for example to book a restaurant table, in partnership with the U.S. site OpenTable. Apple is also in talks with car manufacturers to integrate Siri and his hands-free operation, "Eyes Free" and interact with the voice only. "Apple not only strengthens the interaction within the ecosystem but also creates a powerful consortium of partners to offer a web experience that goes far beyond the scope of Google" notes the analyst of Piper Jaffray, which is convinced that "Apple will continue to add more content partners in order to marginalize the presence of Google on the iPhone. "The issue is not minor for the Mountain View company: according to this expert, Apple would represent 40% of the turnover of mobile search engine, or about $ 1.6 billion this year , that is to say, about 2% of total revenue for Google.
A first step toward a virtual wallet as Google Wallet
Another promising innovation introduced in IOS 6 is the Passbook, "the easiest way to centralize all tickets, vouchers, whether boarding passes or tickets to a sporting event, "says Apple, but as loyalty cards, discount coupons, etc.. No compatibility with the mobile NFC contactless technology a priori for the moment. Mark Moskowitz of JP Morgan, "Passbook is the precursor of the so-called" iPay "for mobile payment. "But Google has attempted a foray into the mobile payments with Google Wallet, launched last September in the United States, and who struggled to take off. In the eyes of Thomas Husson, Forrester Research, "this is a first step towards a digital wallet. The next iteration of the application could be an integration of the 400 million bank cards registered by Apple. "These 400 million active accounts with bank details of iTunes and the App Store, up 78% over one year is four times more than PayPal, the payment subsidiary of eBay (110 million out of 232 million accounts in total), and more than double that Amazon (173 million). Here also lies the power of the iOS ecosystem. Apple, which takes 30% commission on all purchases in its online store, said he donated $ 5 billion to developers in four years, cumulatively since 2008. This means that the App Store does he reported "only" $ 2.1 billion since its launch in July 2008, when Apple makes about $ 40 billion in revenue in one quarter!
30 billion apps downloaded from the App Store
Tim Cook, the executive director, said device users iOS we downloaded 30 billion applications to date in less than four years, three months after crossing the 25 billion mark .The App Store now has 650,000 applications, of which 225,000 are specific to the iPad, "against a hundred" to the shelves of competition. The team of Apple launched spikes even more direct and Google Android. This weekend, Andy Rubin, the father of the operating system, triumphantly announced that 900,000 Android devices were activated each day.Before his audience of developers, Scott Forstall, the head of IOS, presented a graph showing that 80% of iPhone users were equipped with the latest version iOS 5, against only 7% of the installed base Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), the vast majority are still running Version 2.3 (Gingerbread). Often updates to Android are simply not available, not compatible with some earlier generation of smartphones, which is problematic for developers, who complain about the fragmentation of the Google OS (applications can not necessarily run correctly on all models). The war of the two ecosystems is far from over now since it seems highly likely that Apple will release a new iPhone (the "5" may be) in the fall, when the updated IOS is available free for six all iPhone owners (including 3G), iPod Touch and iPad.

Manifest tens of thousands of people against Putin in Moscow


Moscow Russian opposition met Tuesday to tens of thousands of people at a rally in Moscow against Vladimir Putin, a challenge to the hardening of the regime, which on Monday launched an unprecedented wave of records against the movement's leaders. The movement brought together "more than 100 thousand people," he said from a podium Sergei Udaltsov, the leader of the Left Front, one of the main leaders of this unprecedented protest against the regime. The meeting ended "without incident" in Sakharov Avenue at 12:15 pm GMT, said police, who recorded 15 000 people at the end of the event, having first given the figure of 18 thousand people. Udaltsov finally came to the notice of the Research Committee, the leading federal agency in this area in the country. In their placards, the protesters returned to take up the slogan "Russia without Putin" that repeated from the December protests. The police took the stand to deliver two requirements to attend the Research Committee, the same who received the anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny nationalist movement leader and Ilia Iachin Solidarnost, among other opponents. In St. Petersburg between 5 000 and 6 000 people also marched chanting "Russia without Putin" and carrying white balloons, the color chosen as a symbol of protest. At the same time, off the country's political elite gathered in the Kremlin to celebrate the national holiday, Putin launched a new warning against the demonstrators. "Anything that weakens the country and divide society is unacceptable to us. Any decision or action that leads to social and economic disorder is unacceptable," the president said. The rally on Tuesday had been authorized by the authorities after lengthy negotiations. More than 12 thousand members of the security forces-police, anti-riot units and Interior Ministry troops, were deployed in the capital, officials said.

Wave records against opposition leaders
This great event is the first since the inauguration last May 7 in the Kremlin from Putin to his third term as president, after the years 2000-2008 and after an interval of four years he served as Prime Minister . After five months of protests, unprecedented for a decade, the regime is tightening repression against the opposition movement. Several Internet sites of the opposition, like the Echo of Moscow radio, the satellite television and newspaper Dojd Novaya Gazeta, were inaccessible during the day on Tuesday. On Monday, the Research Committee recorded the homes of a dozen leaders and members of the opposition, including Alexei and Sergei Udaltsov Navalny. The Committee justified these operations by an ongoing investigation into "mass disturbances of public order" during the demonstration on May 6 in Moscow, a day before the inauguration of Putin, in which there were several demonstrators and policemen injured. The Russian parliament last week adopted fast-track a controversial law which opens the way to a fine of several thousand euros to participants or organizers of demonstrations. Putin signed the law last Friday, ignoring a veto that he recommended his own adviser for human rights. The first large opposition demonstrations began in December, after the victory in the parliamentary elections United Russia with about 50% of the vote, the opposition achieved by massive fraud.

Israel admits having expelled from the occupied territories to a quarter of a million Palestinians

Israel denied the right of residence for more than 240,000 Palestinians in Gaza and the West Banksince its territories occupied in 1967 until the signing of the Oslo peace accords (1993), according to a hitherto secret information and that the Ministry of Defence has forced to provide an NGO by court order. "Some 140,000 and 108,000 West Bank Palestinians of Gaza have lost their residence permits, bureaucratic and administrative reasons . It is a clear violation of international law , which can be considered a form deportation, absolutely illegal, "said the agency Efe Ido Blum, head of legal department of the Israeli NGO Hamoked-Center for Defense of the Individual . To these figures must be added more than 14,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem residents who have lost their permit of residence since the beginning of Israeli occupation: a total of more than a quarter of a million people driven from their home. 



Figures secret

"These figures have been secret for a long time," said Blum, who added that his organization has obtained the following information to the courts claim based on the Freedom of Information Act . In May last year received the figures from the West Bank and this week received the fringe. In Gaza, the Israeli military authorities removed the residence permit about 45,000 Palestinians to be out of the territory for more than 7 years, another 55,000 not be present during the 1981 census and more than 7,000 for not being where it was seven years later. In the West Bank, missed the right of residence for being absent for three years , as students or workers traveling abroad were years later unable to return. "In 1994, after Oslo, was established a joint committee to address the Israeli-Palestinian returning residence permits, but did nothing, Israel would not let him work , "he Blum explained. On that date the revocation of permits ended in Gaza and the West Bank, while continuing to this day that of the Palestinians of East Jerusalem , whose residence permit is Israel, because Israel considers his half of the occupied city in 1967 and annexed to its territory in 1980.

15% of the Palestinian population

They are a quarter million people in less than three decades, is a very high rate . involves the revocation of permits of at least 15% of the Palestinian population, which now has no way to recover their permits and return to their land. Many have made ​​the idea of always having to live abroad, "added Blum. Hamoked hoped that the dissemination of the figures make Israel "rethink the situation and take steps to correct" because the authorities retain the names of all concerned. Xavier Abu Aid spokeswoman Liberation Organization (PLO), considers that the revocation of permits are "just part of Israeli policy since 1948 Palestinian population displacement and replacement with settlers. " "The displacement of people in international law is a war crime and the PLO, in due course take the necessary measures with international mechanisms, "he added. Efe has tried unsuccessfully to get a reaction from the ministries Israeli defense and foreign to this information.