⑩Slow response to East Africa famine 'cost 'lives'

 Thousands of needless deaths occurred from famine in East Africa last year.  The US government says 29,000 children under five years old died between May and July 2011. That is because the international community failed to heed early warnings.

At one stage during the East African famine the UN estimated that 10 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance. Hundreds of thousands of refugees went to camps in search of food, especially those from parts of Somalia where government forces have been fighting Islamist al-Shabab militants. The report calls on all parties to take crisis warnings more seriously. "All members of the international system must improve their ability to prevent the worst effects of hunger crises before they happen," it says.

 Oxfam and Save the Children say it took more than six months for aid agencies to act on warnings of imminent famine. The agencies say various organizations like governments, donors, the United Nations and NGOs need to learn from the mistakes.

Save the Children's Chief Executive, Justin Forsyth, said clear warnings had been ignored. He said, "We can no longer allow this grotesque situation to continue; where the world knows an emergency is coming but ignores it until confronted with TV pictures of desperately malnourished children."

I also think that an immediate action is required to a food shortage problem.
This problem is not the problem of only African countries but a problem of the entire world. Probably people of advanced nations need to have higher consciousness to the problem of the food shortage of an impoverished nation, and need to consider well "what he can do."

By Martin Plaut

BBC News

Published: 18 January 2012 Last updated at 02:12 GMT

⑨Pinochet judge Baltasar Garzon goes on trial in Spain

 Baltasar Garzon is a Spanish judge who famously indicted late Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet. He went on trial at the supreme court in Madrid charged with the illegally approval of police to bug the conversations of lawyers with clients. The judge was accused of overstepping his authority by ordering the recording of prison conversations between three defendants and their lawyers. He denied wrongdoing and said he had always sought to protect detainees' right to a fair defence.

 Further, in a second case opening on 24 January, he is charged with exceeding his powers by ordering an investigation into the disappearance of tens of thousands of people during the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War and under Franco's dictatorship.

 Gaspar Llamazares, an MP for the United Left party, told AFP news agency that Mr Garzon was being persecuted for this work to expose the crimes of the Franco era. 68-year-old Angel Fernandez who is another protester said: "I don't know the law, but I can see there is an injustice. I can see there is absolute decomposition and that they are not judging those who should be judged."

 It is a person that judges a crime and it is very difficult to judge without inserting personal feelings. A judge is important position and rank which determine people's lifetime, therefore I should face in an always fair and calm feeling.

By Tom Burridge

BBC News

Published: 17 January 2012 Last updated at 18:00 GMT

⑧Malawian doctors - are there more in Manchester

The Medical Council of Malawi has 618 doctors on its register. But a good number of these will have arrived in the country from overseas, and others may have left the country. Recent estimates from the UK's Department for International Development put the real number of doctors in Malawi at 265.  This number is low, in a country of 15 million.

The myth probably originated in the 1970s and 1980s, says Malawian doctor and social historian John Lwanda, who himself came to study medicine in the UK in the 70s. That was the decade an agreement was reached, whereby the Malawian government would send a few medical students to the University of Manchester each year. By the end of the 70s, the Malawian government was becoming anxious because many of the students were not returning from the UK after qualification. "In 1981 the ministry of health in Malawi made a last-ditch attempt to get their students and doctors to come back home. And we had a big meeting in Manchester - students, qualified doctors were invited to come and attend," says Dr Lwanda. There was a "severe shortage of doctors".

But, fortunately the College of Medicine in Malawi is doing a fantastic job and producing many more doctors than before, so it is said that hopefully the situation will improve in the future.

The doctor is needed in the impoverished nation. The device which dispatches a doctor to those countries will be called for in the future.

By Charlotte McDonald

BBC News

Published: 15 January 2012 Last updated at 00:04 GMT

⑦The emotional rollercoaster of living abroad

In the cases of many, moving to another country for work can be a bemusing experience. But, among the hundreds of thousands of professional people who are living far from their home country, to experience something very different from home is occasionally part of the attraction for them.

 For example, a French-born scientist called Veronique Briquet-Laugier moved to the French embassy in Delhi, trying to boost co-operation between French and Indian scientists. She said, "I wanted to get away from Old Europe. It is going to sleep. India is a dynamic economy and an exciting one." Start, her first impressions were well above her expectations. The airport and shopping malls in India were far better than she was expecting. But then she found it chaotic. She thought: 'What is this - I want to kill someone!"

She is still in Delhi, where she is no longer so likely to feel homicidally annoyed. She says she is enjoying the buzz and the "feeling of being part of something" more and more: "Indians are quite similar to French, they talk all the time. They are into politics and are interested in everything - I can see the Mediterranean in them! "And practically, it is much better here. We have a maid and a driver and we can order whatever we want to eat."

I thought that there are various difficulties by living abroad. But, people learn by carrying out strange experience. When the heart which challenges what was important, I felt actually.

By Rebecca Marston

Business reporter, BBC News

Published: 10 January 2012 Last updated at 00:04 GMT

⑥The Robin Hood Tax

 First, the Robin Hood tax is a small collection on trades in the financial markets that would take money from the banks and give it to the poor people in the world.

 An array of influential champions - the leaders of France and Germany, the billionaire philanthropists Bill Gates and George Soros, former Vice President Al Gore, the consumer activist Ralph Nader, Pope Benedict XVI and the archbishop of Canterbury - has been attracted to the idea of a tax on trades of stocks, bonds and other financial instruments.

 Last month, thousands of demonstrators, including hundreds in Robin Hood outfits with bright green caps and bows and arrows, flooded into southern France to urge the leaders of the Group of 20 nations to do more to help the poor, including passing a financial transactions tax.

 Acting such a tax still many faces many hurdles.But, I agree this idea. I think that present economy situation is unequal. But, if it is equal, none is troubled with poverty. Even if none have huge money, I think that everyone have regularity income than economic discrepancy produces.

New York Times

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and GRAHAM BOWLEY

Published: December 6, 2011

⑤As Public Sector Sheds Jobs, Blacks Are Hit Hardest

A black man, Don Buckley lost his job ― driving a Chicago bus almost two years ago and has been looking for work ever since, even as other municipal bus drivers around the country are being given up. When he was 34 years old, his two daughters and his fiancée have moved into the basement of his mother's house. He has had to delay his marriage...

He is one of tens of thousands of once solidly middle-class African-American government workers — bus drivers in Chicago, police officers and firefighters in Cleveland, nurses and doctors in Florida — who have been laid off since the recession ended in June 2009.

 Jobless rates among blacks have consistently been about double those of whites. In October, the black unemployment rate was 15.1 percent, in opposition to 8 percent for whites. Last summer, the black unemployment rate hit 16.7 percent, its highest level since 1984.

Such job losses have blunted gains made in employment and wealth during the previous decade and undermined the stability of neighborhoods where there are now fewer black professionals who own homes or who get up every morning to go to work.

 Blacks unjust employment is a serious ploblem. They fought unreasonable discrimination for many years. I think that different race doesn’t connect to discrimination and they are troubled very much. Race is human rights, and it is secured.. So, I insist that abolition for discrimination puts into practice.

New York Times

As Public Sector Sheds Jobs, Blacks Are Hit Hardest

By TIMOTHY WHLLIAMS

Published: November 28, 2011

④Julie Taymor Sues ‘Spider-Man’ Team Over Royalties

Julie Taymor is a director of the Broadway musical "Spider-Man:Turn Off the Dark". She took the producers to court because they were benefiting from Julie`s article contributions without permission.  She is requesting them ＄75 million show in federal court on Tuesday , November 9, 2011.

 According to her associates and friends, she was angry with they continued to do something dishonest ; to use much of her staging and script contributions, even after a much-ballyhooed overhaul of the musical in April and May. Her union has already been pursuing an judgement against the producers: Michael Cohl and Jeremiah J. Harris, complaining that she have more than ＄５０００００．

Therefore, the variety of process was expected to spread out over several months: for example the different sides have difficulty agreeing to a hearing schedule.

 I like to watch the movies and DVDs. So, I was interested in this news about the arts. It costs the huge money to make the movies. I think that it is difficult from the movie staff to deal with the money. But I wish that they lose no time in solve the problem in order that those who fun the movies may enjoy without worry.

*Julie Taymor Sues ‘Spider-Man’ Team Over Royalties

By PATRICK HEALY

Published: November 8, 2011

THE NEW YORK TIMES